Spring used to be my favorite season: new life, flowers, warmer weather. I still do appreciate these things but now spring has an additional meaning to me: anniversaries. Now when March comes I remember the day Erin came home from the hospital to be enrolled in Hospice care. That was on my birthday. I recall the night we helped her get dressed up for Prom because her friends were honoring her as Prom Queen. I recall a party at Dave and Buster’s with about 25 of Erin’s closest friends who came to celebrate her life….not her impending death. I remember the last trip to Dr. Sharp’s office to draw blood. Looking back, I don’t know why we kept up with those rituals…maybe we were trying for some kind of normalcy, schedule, and routine at the end. Erin, who was always so brave and matter of fact cried when Jennifer had trouble finding a good vein. Our hearts broke and so did Jennifer’s.
And of course April 25th will always be Erin’s Angel day, the day she left her life here and passed into eternal life. I understand that better some days than others. Maybe that is why God brought Erin home right after Easter so that I would always make that connection…so that through the Easter story I would always have faith in the Promise of our own Resurrection. There is nothing else that can comfort a parent who has lost a child any more than that. I know she will live on in paradise. Nothing else matters than the promise of new life. Nothing else matters.
So spring now means so much more than just blooming flowers, butterflies, bright sunshine. I see Erin in all of those things. She is with me in so many small and large ways reminding me that now she is part of that new life also and I smile instead of cry!
Thank you all for your continued prayers. We will never be “over” Erin’s death, but we are at peace with it. The sadness of her absence can wrap its cold arms around us at any moment of any day, with a song, a place, a face, or even a small hand. Her life and death make us who we are today….but, hopefully, we are better for it, because she made us that way! I thank God for the gift of Erin’s life. I hope I can honor her with mine.
Love,
Debbie
“I write these things to you so that you may know
that you have eternal life,
you who believe in the name of the Son of God.”
1 John 5:13
“Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed –
we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is.”
1 John 3:2
And of course April 25th will always be Erin’s Angel day, the day she left her life here and passed into eternal life. I understand that better some days than others. Maybe that is why God brought Erin home right after Easter so that I would always make that connection…so that through the Easter story I would always have faith in the Promise of our own Resurrection. There is nothing else that can comfort a parent who has lost a child any more than that. I know she will live on in paradise. Nothing else matters than the promise of new life. Nothing else matters.
So spring now means so much more than just blooming flowers, butterflies, bright sunshine. I see Erin in all of those things. She is with me in so many small and large ways reminding me that now she is part of that new life also and I smile instead of cry!
Thank you all for your continued prayers. We will never be “over” Erin’s death, but we are at peace with it. The sadness of her absence can wrap its cold arms around us at any moment of any day, with a song, a place, a face, or even a small hand. Her life and death make us who we are today….but, hopefully, we are better for it, because she made us that way! I thank God for the gift of Erin’s life. I hope I can honor her with mine.
Love,
Debbie
“I write these things to you so that you may know
that you have eternal life,
you who believe in the name of the Son of God.”
1 John 5:13
“Beloved, we are God’s children now;
what we shall be has not yet been revealed.
We do know that when it is revealed –
we shall be like Him,
for we shall see Him as He is.”
1 John 3:2
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