Today our first girl, Lucy, would be seven.

We have all been hit with grief this year. So many losses occurred worldwide in 2020. Some were smaller things like missed traditions, travels, smiles from strangers, and the buzz of sitting in a busy coffee shop. Other things were much larger like the loss of a job, business, home, or loved one.

Everything that has been happening this past year, has definitely had an affect on my grief journey from losing Lucy. The whole world has been shaken by a pandemic. Our country has been incredibly divided through tragedies, injustices, and an extremely heated presidential election. Our city was hit with a tornado just days before everything shut down because of Covid. Our extended family has walked through a lot as my sister battles health issues associated with a brain tumor. Our own little family still grieves for our girl who we desperately wish was here with us— eating pizza, watching movies, jumping on the trampoline, and bunking with her little sister. Instead we visit the cemetery, refresh the flowers, and walk in the rain— the weather mirroring the feeling in our hearts.

To call this past year emotionally exhausting, would be an understatement. The mental and emotional energy it has taken to handle everything that has happened and is still happening, has honestly left less space for me to reflect, think about, and process through another year without Lucy. Everything else has felt more…..urgent.

I am a high feeler and empathetic by nature, so I tend to end up trying to carry and manage all of my own feelings, as well as the feelings of others around me. This often leaves me feeling anxious and emotionally fatigued— my tired heart like tired arms from the weight of it all.

Honoring and sitting in feelings comes easily for me, releasing them and letting them go is the hard part.

I have felt so disconnected, and I am sure all of you can relate. We watch church virtually. Our kids have been in virtual school for almost the entire school year, and because of that, I can count on one hand the amount of times I have been alone. The constant noise, daily demands and life buzzing away with three children, are blessings not lost on me. Lucy is on my mind and heart every day, but the louder, and more intense life feels, the less mental and emotional bandwidth I have to process my continued grief and intentionally sit in deeper remembrance of Lucy. It honestly feels complicated for my heart.

Proof that life goes on after her. Proof that live goes on without her.

As I get older, I see and experience an increasing amount of hard things happening in the world. With that, I am learning to process it all and in doing so, discover how it relates to me and Jesus. Jesus shows up in my brokenness and heartbreak. He rushes to my side, comforts me, wipes my tears and then weaves his goodness into the cracks of my brokenness.

I have discovered that if I have eyes to see it and if I leave my heart open, I don’t miss His kindness. It clicked for me one day— what if every day I assumed that God is speaking to me instead of assuming that He isn’t. What if all the things I experience are way more likely to be Him than not be Him. I listen to His whispers and I know that He is always pursuing me with His beautifully intense and incredibly tender love. If I stay open to the possibility that He’s always speaking, then the corresponding messages I receive from friends who don’t know each other, things I read, and things that feel like a coincidence instead become a knowing and growing awareness of His nearness and that He is always working in my life.

I believe that God calls us to trust Him and lean into Him fully because that is where He knows we are the most safe. When we are safely tucked in His arms, we can stop striving and grasping for control, and no matter the outcome of any circumstance in our lives, we are surrounded with His comfort and love. In our heartbreak He will rush to us with comfort and peace in qualities beyond our understanding. Our suffering is temporary. Our grief is temporary. He promises to redeem every heartbreak, trauma, and lost memory. Nothing is wasted with God because we are the most precious thing to Him, and He is love and redemption. He reaches out to us to grab his hand and step into a life that is really worth living. 

This year, Oliver is nine and Ezra is five. Both boys talk about Lucy every so often and both express wishing that she was here. Once this year, a discussion about Lucy (led by Hazel) went on for awhile and Oliver eventually said, “Can we talk about something else now? This is sad.”.

Hazel is three-years-old and she talks about Lucy often. She asks a lot of questions as she tries to understand Lucy and as she tries to understand death and heaven. One morning she was sitting on the bottom step of our stairwell and I was nearby in the kitchen. She asked me a few questions about Lucy, heaven, and Jesus. As I answered her questions, she burst into tears and as she sobbed she said, “I think Jesus and Lucy went too far without me.” This tiny sister consistently blows me away with how curious and emotionally in-tune she is. Out of the five of us, Hazel talks about Lucy the most.

One night recently, I said good night to Hazel and kissed her on the forehead. As I walked out of her bedroom she said, “Mama, I think my sister can hear me.” Sometimes she’s sad about Lucy, because she wants to see her and be with her. Sometimes she is matter-of-fact like saying that Lucy can hear her. Other times, she smiles and gets excited at the thought of her sister. Just the other day she got so giddy and said, “When I get to heaven, I am going to hug and kiss Lucy!” I couldn’t help but smile too and say, me too sis.

This morning Ezra said, “Mom, last night I was thinking about Lucy and imagining she was next to me.” We have always intentionally been open and honest with our kids about Lucy. We don’t ignore the pain, we tell them when we are sad, they see our tears, we normalize talking about her and talking about our feelings. As the years go by, they all amaze me with the things that they say. They imagine her, celebrate her, and think about her because we do too. They say they wish she was here, and name it when they’re feeling sad. The heart of a child is such a wonderful thing. Their hearts and minds are tougher, smarter, more tender and more open than I would have ever imagined when we started down this path of living without Lucy.

Today for Lucy’s birthday, we decided to pick up our favorite local pizza, have cake, and watch a princess movie. This is a big deal because with two boys and one girl in our home, princess movies are almost always vetoed.

We asked the kids what they thought Lucy might be doing today. Oliver said she might be swimming. Ezra said she might be watching a movie, playing with friends, and eating cake. Hazel said that she is probably playing Princess Candy Land, tag, and having a birthday party.

We celebrate Lucy today on her birthday. We think about her. We wonder so many things about her. She is this mysterious, little blessing that we all long to know. We sit in our feelings and wonderings, and lean into the hope we have for the day that we will get to hug her and be with her. We feel God’s kindness and we feel His comfort.