When Words Won't Come...

Very seldom am I speechless.  Most of the time, I can sit down at the computer and write volumes about Lynda.  After her death, I poured my heart out into her blog.  It was almost as if writing about our experiences would somehow preserve the memories.  And it did.  As the days have turned into months and the months into years, I find myself sitting down to write.  Instead of writing, I find myself savoring the moments of memories.  It has become more difficult to share them.  Like everything else about this grief process, I am still learning how to be  Lynda's Nana without her.  I never forget  that Lynda was a gift from God or that His timing is perfect.

The timing of Lynda's departure from this world coincides with the end of my summer break and the return to school.  Forever, I will remember the sequence of events that took place.  On July 30th she was admitted into the emergency room  which was the day before my birthday and then ICC.  On August 1st, I went back to our first staff meeting at school and on August 2nd we were removing her from life support when the official diagnosis of cancer came.  On August 3rd, Jesus gently carried her to her new home in heaven.  It's been three years.

I know that Lynda is with Jesus in a perfect body with a perfect mind for the first time in her life. She didn't die but rather opened her eyes in a much different location---heaven!   How amazing it must have been when she opened her eyes in heaven to find that she had the ability to communicate and understand and be eternally in the presence of God.  For me to know that this is true makes her earthly loss bearable, at least most of the time.  Every year as the summer vacation begins it's last week I find myself feeling like the world is spinning out of control and I don't like it.  I want to hold on the knowledge of where Lynda is and that she is celebrating but I am human and I miss my sweet Lynda.  I try to get my classroom organized, my files completed...anything that makes me feel that I'm in control of some part of my life.  But life in a school at the beginning of the school year doesn't always run as planned.  Things you thought were all set suddenly have been changed.  Little things feel like huge ones and I try to remember just how unimportant it all is.  Yet, my emotions don't belong to me this week.  They are fragile and they are unpredictable.  So this is what I decided to do.

I took all of my fears and anxiety...the concerns about the changes in my job and the many things I have no control over...I gave the unfinished tasks for school and the feelings of sadness I have at this time of the year when my mind relives the events that happened this week three years ago and I visualized putting each worry into a beautiful red box with a gorgeous golden bow on the top.  I closed the box and I placed it gently into the outstretched hands of Jesus.  In my prayers, He took the box and as He promised in the Bible so many times, He is carrying my burdens for me.  In my prayer, I asked Him to hold tightly to my box of worries so that I couldn't try to snatch them from his hands.  I know that satan wants me to take the box back and pour each worry and fear out over my life and dwell on each one so he can fill my heart with "what ifs" and "if onlys" and "just wait until this happens..." Satan's job is to steal, kill and destroy and top on his list is our joy.  That's why Jesus has my heart and it's why I gave my fears to Him.  When He is holding my fears and providing the peace that passes all understanding...satan is powerless to wreck more havoc in my life.

God gave me the most wonderful gift of being Lynda's Nana.  A parent is never ready to bury a child.  It's one of the most unnatural thing I can think of.  It is raw when I see a little girl about Lynda's size with white blond hair and I follow her as far as I can without the parents thinking I'm stalking their child.  We work in our church with a special needs ministry with two teenage boys who have captured my heart.  They give me hugs and blow kisses and I cherish them.  Lynda taught me how to meet their needs.  She taught me how to love their differences.  And sometimes when I'm with them and their parents, my heart just aches because Lynda is not there with us.  The chair where Lynda should be is empty and the parents of these precious boys cannot possibly know what a void their sweet Thomas and Patrick fill in my heart even though on some occasions I fight back tears that want to flow freely down my cheeks.

We sang "Happy Birthday" to Lynda during her celebration of life service.  It was her favorite song and her leaving this earth really was her new birth in heaven.  It just seemed appropriate.  When I think of Lynda now I see her in the way the Bible describes her in heaven in the presence of Jesus.  And that always puts a smile on my face in spite of how much I miss her.