Tag: shadow

Things I Wish I’d Known

I’ve written before that I am oh, so thankful I had NO IDEA Dominic would leave us that early April morning in 2014.

It would have cast an awful shadow over all those years we were blessed with his presence.

But there are some things I wish I’d known.

I wish I had known how hard it is to conjure up his voice now that it’s been nearly six years since I heard it.

I would have taken more short videos, just to have his laugh, his sarcasm, his deep mellow “Hey!” handy on my phone for the moments when I long to hear it. I wouldn’t have erased the backlog of recorded messages on the landline just one day earlier.

I wish I had known there were so few photographs of us together.

I would have gotten over myself much sooner and stuck my fat bottom in every shot my family begged me to take. I would have made certain there was at least one of him and me on each birthday, at special occasions and when he graduated high school and college. I was always the one taking them, organizing something or just to self-conscious to be in the picture.

I wish I had saved more cards, notes and random bits of flotsam from over the years with his words, his handwriting, his childish drawings.

Just a month before he left us, I cleaned out two decades of home schooling records and carelessly tossed so many bits of him into the bed of my truck, hauling it to the dump. Back then it felt like I was unburdening myself of too much paper and too many frivolous memories. Now it feels like an incalculable loss.

I would have listened more often to the wonderful sound of his drums banging away upstairs.

I took a walk most afternoons and Dominic timed his practice for when I was out of the house because it was so very loud. It was considerate and kind. And I DID get to hear him through the windows as I made my rounds but I really, really wish I’d just stopped and fully appreciated his talent.

I could list so many more ways I’d have arranged life differently-if I had KNOWN.

But I didn’t.

So I make my way through another spring, remembering, remembering, remembering.

Always hungry for more.

I Need To Get It Right


There are lots and lots of things in life where the distance between “good enough” and “perfect” really doesn’t matter.

I don’t aim for hospital corners while making my bed.

I cook without recipes-adding this or that until the taste suits me.

If I walk 8,567 steps or 10,291 steps I am not going to stress about it.

BUT-there is one thing I absolutely MUST get right.

My understanding of God-Who He is, Who Jesus is-matters for ever and ever.

I want to get it right.

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/03/05/i-want-to-get-it-right/

Repost: Shadows and Sunlight

The sun streams just so

and turns my head

I’ve learned not to look too long at that wall

But today

Well today I am face to face with HIS face

I didn’t mean to linger

but I did

No remedy but to let the grief wash over me

allow the tears to fall and the hurt to run its course

Read the rest here: https://thelifeididntchoose.com/2017/01/15/shadows-and-sunlight/

Shadows and Celebrations

One of my children told me recently that every celebration and holiday over the past few years had a shadow over it. 

I know.

But I can’t help it.

I wish I could find a light bright enough to drive out the shadows.

But there isn’t.

I’m trying.  Really, truly trying.  I want to be able to join in without reserve, without that still small voice whispering, “This won’t last”, in my head.

Because that’s really the shadow, isn’t it?

Not *just* the one who is missing, the incomplete family photo, the empty chair at the dinner table-but the fact that I know, know, know what I didn’t used to know.

I know life is fleeting and death can come for anyone at any time.

I wish I could forget that lesson.

Because that is what casts the longest shadow.

you think you have forever but you don't

 

Shadows and Sunlight

The sun streams just so

and turns my head

I’ve learned not to look too long at that wall

But today

Well today I am face to face with HIS face

I didn’t mean to linger

but I did

IMG_2637

No remedy but to let the grief wash over me

allow the tears to fall and the hurt to run its course

How can I push this down so well most days

How is it possible to NOT feel this all the time

Am I a monster that my heart can pretend it hasn’t been torn in two????

 

Not a monster just a mom–

A mom with children left to love

Ones left to hold, to encourage, to champion as they keep on keeping on

photo-36

shadow and sunlight

hope and despair

not either/or

both/and

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