Memorial Service

This Thursday was the annual Memorial Service at the local cemetery. Wasn't sure if I would make it, it was Thursday after all and Sam and Allan both has games, and the other 2 needed to get to bed earlier then they have been.....Well Sam's game got rained out, and was home early. Merle was at Allan's game, and Mom and Dad were camping (They were ok with that cause it is sometimes just too hard to remember). So off I went on my own. Seemed to be the same crowd as the previous years. Helen Schapansky was there this year. Coming to remember her husband Jim who recently went to be with the Lord. So sad for her. I wondered...who was it going to be next year? Who would be joining us remembering and missing loved ones? My new friend (who shares the same grief in loosing a brother) meets me and takes me by the hand and tells me the speaker canceled last minute, if I could say a little something, she also would and we should be good. Well it started with Cheryl Wachtendorf , shared about loosing her dad, and her brother Chadd. Well I could relate. Jeff Stott shared a little. Well I could relate. Danielle let us see a glimps of her grief. I could relate. She said something interesting...she talked about how jealous she was of so many people (she rattled at least 10 names with out a breath) people that has to go help a brother move. Someone that had to plan a wedding party for their sister. Someone that had to help out a brother cause they were struggling ...the list went on. Mostly it was people that with out knowing were complaining about having to do something for a sibling. While she wished she could complain about having to do something for her brother but can't. Then she said that when she saw me, she had hope.....hope because I have been able to start piecing my life back together, and seem to be finding joy in life (not those exact words but to that effect) I wasn't sure what, or how to think of that. I was glad she saw that yet I could only think I guess my heart is hidden really well, cause the truth is that when I let myself remember, my heart feels just as raw and broken as it did almost 18 years ago. I guess that is why dad was okay with missing this evening this year, remembering can be so painful. Samantha was doing a paper on a special person, and decided to do it on her uncle Jeff. She has never met him, but knows him. (There is still so much to talk about) We found some pictures of him for her paper, and some that couldn't resist the fridge. There are days that I can look at them and laugh, cause he was so silly or the memory was just so fun, but there are others that I can only look for a second. It is still hard to really look at them.....They capture so much of him, and then I remember how much I lost. How can he be gone? It isn't fare Danielle, I agree. I want to me an Aunty. I want to love his kids. I want them to be my kids favorite cousins. I want to take them for the weekend, and I want to go on holidays with them, and celebrate their birthdays with them. I want to share life with them. I want him to know my kids. I want them to experience him; his goofy fun ways, his love for them, the interest he would take in them, and in the things they love. I want him to come to their soccer games, to be their fan. To take them flying, to show them his scuba spot, to play guitar with them, to share with them his passion for Jesus. There is just too many things that they have missed; that I have missed; that we all have missed. Its doing life together that I am still grieving. I do know I will see him again (thank you Lord! Really I am thankful Lord), but some days that doesn't seem good enough. I know it is totally selfish, I feel bad even saying it (or writing it), but there are those moments, even after 18 years. Never the less, I am glad that I can give someone hope....And I do agree that time heals, and we do probably look that we are putting the pieces of our life together, and that we are good....We are good! We really are......we are actually better than good. God has been so gracious and good to us. We truly have so much to be thankful for. He has given life to us! He also has taken it away, but that I'm afraid is life. At the end of the day, be it a good one or a less then good one, He is enough. I think that is the hope that she sees...it surely isn't me....I did go up...said a few things...helped my friend...went home, and felt like an old wound had been torn open again.....but the great physician was there again to stitch it up nicely.