Nine Years Without Her

Friday, December 14th marked 9 years since my sister's accident and death. It's still unbelievable to me that I haven't seen her in that length of time. That day will now also be a day to remember the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. My grief seemed so small in light of the heavy burdens I knew so many families were experiencing that day. Reminiscing on the loss of my sister and then the shootings in Connecticut made one thing clear to me, nothing in this world is permanent except my relationship with Christ and the pain that we all experienced this past Friday, as we witnessed such depraved evil, makes me long for reconciliation, for Christ's return so that things can be as they should. That's the only sense I can make of any of it, God wants me and every person in this world to love Him and long for Him above all else.

I do want to note though that I'm so thankful to God that he has brought my family through these last 9 years. My mom and I were talking about how there was a time that we really didn't think we could live without Meredith and the sorrow seemed to overshadow our every moment. We're so thankful that God has given us the strength to keep living and loving and blessed us with so much joy through the twins.

It's sad to hear my little Meredith ask about he Aunt Meredith. Just today she asked me why Aunt Meredith died (yes, we talk about things like that). It's hard to speak so matter of factly to her about it, but I don't want my kids to be scared to talk about the reality of death and I want them to know that it's okay to be sad. It just blows my mind that my little Meredith thinks about things like that because she asked totally out of the blue at a time when we hadn't even mentioned Aunt Meredith. I'm so thankful she knows who Aunt Meredith is though, that she is part of her vocabulary and she knows that she was named after her because Aunt Meredith was so special to me and because SHE is so special to me. Wow, didn't mean to make this post so long, but that's what happens when I start talking about my sister.