Hi Sweetie,
As always, I woke up with you on my mind. But, that's nothing new, is it? You are always on my mind. Since our first date, you seemed to just move into my mind and make a home for yourself there.
When we first started dating, you changed me. You didn't ask me to change. It was something that happened spontaneously and naturally. You always worried about me driving too fast. Next thing I know, I'm driving the speed limit! I started losing weight and wearing make up. I smiled more, I always wanted you to be proud of me. I always felt like you created in me the best me that I ever was! And still, 14 months after you went to Heaven, you continue to change me.
Of course, the grief itself changes people. I've gained weight, I've been less than active (what an understatement), I've cried millions of tears, I don't laugh as much. But, that's not the kind of change I'm talking about.
Before you died, I hadn't really had to think too much about what happens when people die. Of course, I've always believed in Heaven. I've always believed that to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord. I've always believed that Christ was my Savior and therefore, I knew where my Soul would be after death. But, that was about as far as it went.
Losing you has caused me to want to know more. To want to know "can you see me", "do you still love me", "will there be marriage in Heaven", "can you hear me when I cry out to you", "do you come to me in my dreams", "do you send me signs to tell me you're still here with me"? Jesus didn't really talk about any of this in the Bible. He talked more about how to get into Heaven, not what it would be like once we got there.
I took a grief class at our church not long after you died. The Pastor who led it was a hospice chaplain. He said the Bible didn't tell us what we could see or do or feel once we died. He said sometimes we receive signs that can't be explained away and that we should just accept them as a blessing of peace and comfort. That just really blew me away because it was the first time I had heard a protestant minister say that!
I do believe that when you die, you are with Christ. I believe that Christ is with me always. So, in my limited reasoning capacity, I believe that if you are with Him and He is with me, then you must be with me also? I also believe that you are part of "the great cloud of witnesses" that pray over me and rejoice when I get something right. I don't believe that you grieve for me because from where you are, you know the answers, you know that this life is short and Heaven is for eternity. You know that we will be reunited when my journey is done. But, I still have to try to make sense of it here in this life.
I know that since you've been gone, I feel you around me always. I know that from the time you first left, my phone continues to randomly and spontaneously play "Smokey Robinson" songs. Not just one phone either...I'm on my third phone and it still continues. I know that one night I dreamed of you. So plain and so real. You were sitting on the side of the bed talking to me, just like you did every single morning before you went to work, and when I woke up, right where you were sitting in my dreams, there now sat a Bible. It took my breath away!!!! I know that I have felt you. Felt you next to me, felt you hold my hand, felt you with me always. These things, I know to be true. These things are ways in which you continue to change me, to stretch me, to make me question things that I never questioned before.
I don't know what the answers are, Sweetie. You know, but I don't. Some would say that it's you in spirit form watching over me and letting me know that you're still here. Some would say that it's God's way of sending me comfort. Some would say I've lost my mind and it's all in my imagination. But this, I do know. It comforts me. It tells me that Heaven is real, that life continues after we die. It tells me that I am never alone.
So, Baby Boy, whether you're praying for me from "the great cloud of witnesses" or praying for me from your chair here in the living room, I know that even now, as in life, you've got my back. I love you, Baby and please, don't forget to give kisses to Baby Cash for me. I love both my boys so much.
