As I continue to listen to episodes of the Nothing is Wasted Podcast (https://www.nothingiswasted.com/podcast), I have noticed some themes that remain consistent across a wide variety of speakers. One of those themes is the idea that grief continues to take us by surprise many years after it began, regardless of how much healing we think we may have found. It is a theme that is certainly true in my own life. Today is the anniversary of the day my sister, MaryJo, went to heaven. She has been gone for seven years. Each of the weeks leading up to this anniversary and the anniversary itself have been different from year to year. Sometimes I experience peace and even joy as I remember the good times we had together growing up. Other times I am enveloped by deep sadness at the shortness of her life and all that I and my family have missed out in sharing with her.
This year, I have a distinct feeling that if she was still alive, she would be visiting me in the Upper Peninsula right now. I would show her our property, and we would pick raspberries and blueberries, make pies and Thai curries, go for a bike ride, paddle a canoe, take on a painting project, walk the beach, and jump into Lake Superior. We would visit the local county fair and complete the Run with the Cows 5K. We would remember the other times she came to visit me in Michigan, Missouri, and Alaska. We would remember a trip that I would have taken several years ago to see her, leaving my babies behind for the first time while I flew to a foreign country. And we would plan a future trip where my daughter traveled with me to visit her wherever she was off to next. She would roll her eyes at the assignment the Army has for my husband and offer wise advice about transitioning my daughter to high school and whatever comes next for me. We would feel the comparisons and competitiveness that often mark sister relationships whether we want them to or not, but maybe this time we would fight through them and not rise to the occasion.
It is hard to know what to do with these almost memories of things that would have happened if she was still alive. Feel the feelings, I guess, cry a little, hope that typing them out helps. Make new memories. Remember old times and God's faithfulness to keep his promises. Trust that someday we will be together again.
