I don't why I feel compelled to write to you tonight, but I do. R. just came out for a weekend visit and returned home tonight. The kids and I had a great visit with him, and it means a lot to the kids that he made a special trip out here just to spend time with them.
It's so weird. I understand and oftentimes accept the thought of moving on for myself. It has been a different story for the kids. Most days are pretty routine for them, but some days or moments strike their hearts and they long for you. (In that respect, all three of us are a lot alike.) Then they, too, meet R. and fall in love. They still (and always will) call you and know you as, "Daddy," but the love and admiration in their hearts for him just makes my heart ache. Sam thrives on his approval and masculinity. Grace curls up in his arms and unabashedly lays her heart in his strong hands, just the way she used to do with you. It breaks my heart that you're not here to experience this, but it uplifts me to see how God has provided fatherly love for our kids.
How is it possible to love and to mourn simultaneously? To move forward and yet bring part of the past along with you? To yearn for the love torn so quickly out of our grasp, yet not desire for anything to be different, lest the precious new love be lost forever?
This is where I live -- in a garden of vibrant colors under a veil of thick, grey fog. There are more and more moments where the fog breaks long enough to reveal colors so intense and beautiful that it almost hurts my eyes to behold. It is the light of God's goodness and love shining down on His unimaginable blessings that I know I'm experiencing, that I thought I'd never experience again after that fleeting moment in which you were gone. That fog turned the colors of my landscape to shades of grey. It is only now, two and a half years later, that those colors have returned...
...I am so blessed and so lucky to have found you both. I just can't wait to tell you all about it someday. But, then again, I bet you already know...
6 comments:
Beautiful, as always.
I was at a memorial the other day, and thought of your husband briefly through the fog of being reminded of my own father's funeral.
I'm sure you're right when you say he already knows. I bet the love R. shows toward the kids even makes him smile. Too bad we can't comprehend the lack of jealousy to know how he would really be rejoicing in you finding someone wonderful to love his kids as he would have if he was here.
Oh, yeah, sorry. I miss ya.
God bless, GGG.
<3
loving and mourning at the same time....
I love the way you share your heart with us who can't even pretend we know what it's like. You are the personification of hope,my friend, and you teach us to have hope with both your words and your actions...by merely living and telling the goodness of God. Well done!
*sigh* pretty sure it's october now!
What a beautiful, heart wrenching, joyful post. Thank you for sharing your heart with us.
GGG, I read this and the post previous to it. Your transparency is so amazing in these posts, and in all I'm privileged to read from your blog. I can only imagine your struggles and triumphs, but each time you share a bit of them--your story--you help me increase my repetoire of love and empathy for those around me. You dont' need to put yourself into any category--though I can see your point about the lives you straddle--you are daughter of the King and the bride of Christ. On that we'll always understand one another perfectly, regardless of circumstance. We are the same, there.
Just wipe me off the floor.
Hey, Triple G, email me, and I'll be glad to give you the inside scoop (so far as I know it ;)) to the Seattle Tacoma area.
xxxooogretchen
gretchenDOThannaATcomcastDOTnet
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