Amazing Love

Today is March 28th and we have dreaded this week for sometime now.  I can hardly put into words what is going through my head so I can't imagine what is going through the kids heads.  I have openly talked about the 1 year anniversary of Shane's passing with the kids.  I was first planning a beach getaway but then we couldn't pass up a week with the grandparents over spring break.  I talked about how we were going to escape for the day.  As I don't want to focus on the 3rd as a day of dread it has been recommended by many to escape.  Although we can leave on that day, we can't escape the reminders of day to day.  When we came home from the beach a week ago I couldn't believe how the green grass and our pear tree outside our bedroom window made me go right back to last year.  Baseball games are just beginning for the boys as they were last year at this time.  The temperature, the rain, the smells all take me back to this time last year.  How do you escape that???  I can't even imagine being here on the day before and the day of the 2nd and 3rd.  I told a friend just the other day that I can't know what I will be feeling as the days draw nearer but I do know I have this overwhelming feeling of dread, much like I had this time last year.  The only thing different this year is I know what the outcome is.  I also have that overwhelming feeling of joy and peace that I also experienced last year.  Strange how devastating grief and extreme peace go hand and hand right now. When those memories come streaming back of the oxygen running, medications, Shane slowly becoming too weak to talk with me, the constant people coming and going in my house I try and cancel them out with the memories of the love that surrounded us, the peace from my Father and the presence we experienced the days leading up to and  that early morning.  I have to be honest, there have been times this year that I didn't want life to go on.  I have yearned to go to that same place that Shane is now, I have yearned for Jesus to come and get me and the kids, then something will remind me of how Shane expected us to live on.  I continue to get to see how much Shane really loved me and how he continues to love me.  Just when one of those days comes along that I could care less about living I may receive a letter from one of his dear friends about a conversation that they had with Shane over lunch.  I can see that Shane knew the inevitable may happen and that he was planning out who to tell what- knowing that they would share it with me.  One friend wrote that when they were saying good-bye, on what was to be their last lunch together, how Shane paused and said, "If this doesn't turn out good for me, tell DeAnn how much she meant to me."  I just received that letter in February.  God knew I didn't need that letter back in April when Shane's love for me was still fresh, He knew I would need it almost a year later.  He also knows how that one single bird in the morning singing his morning song, always makes me smile and makes Molly say, "Good Morning Daddy." God also knows that the red cardinal (which I think is the one that sings his morning song) that sits on a branch right outside my bathroom window reminds me of Shane and gives me so much comfort.  Just like the night of the 3rd last year when I dreaded getting in our bed without him how a bird sang a little song at 10ish, which made me smile and gave me the strength to lay my head down and rest, I could put money on it that its the same bird.

While I thought this past year would be unbearable I have to say we have come a long way. God has everything to do with that.  When I look back now to this time last year it amazes me that I was not crouched in a corner with my hands over my eyes and ears shouting "I can't do this."  It amazes me that I was a functioning human being taking care of the human being that I loved the most.  It amazes me that we planned plots, caskets, a funeral.  It amazes me that Shane and I continued to enjoy each other immensely, that he continued to make me laugh and cry in an instant.  It amazes me that even though he knew he was dying he took the time to make sure I knew how much he loved me.  I have to say it was a love story that could not have been played out better in a great novel or movie.  It was not just a love story of a man and a woman but of a man, a woman and their Heavenly Father and His love for them.   "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love!" John 15:9    To be continued....