541 Days

Here we are.18 months. Another dreaded milestone that I wish I could run from.

541 of grieving my baby girl.

I can’t even put into words the gaping hole I have in my heart when I think about how it’s been 541 days since I’ve held you. Since I’ve gotten to sing to you before bed, or smother you with kisses in the morning. 541 days since I got to tell you that I love you, and hear you say “I love you mommy,” back to me.

I’ve looked back at photos from that day a lot this week. Photos of us cuddling on the couch the morning of. Photos of us girls walking around the neighborhood with our scooters. I have a video an hour before your accident where all of us were having popsicles after our walk, and you share your popsicle with Savannah (a blue one of course). And I captured your sweet little voice on that video. Not knowing what was to shortly follow such a beautiful morning.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to look back at photos from that day. I see photos of us from that morning, photos of you with your sisters that afternoon, all of us together an hour before. Now knowing they all are leading up to the most horrific moment of my life.

I question time and time again how it’s even possible to have one photo of you on your scooter and 3 hours later a photo of me holding your hand in the hospital after you were gone. There was no warning, there was no time to prepare, you were here laughing and running around and then you were just… gone.

There are days I still ask myself why. Why would this happen? How could this happen? How can a human being even possibly feel this much pain? Why were we designed to even feel pain at all? If God is said to be our father, and we are his children, why wouldn’t He want to protect us from this kind of suffering?

18 months has moments where it feels like 18 years. There are days where it feels like having you here with us was another life. Where the flashbacks of your laughter, your blonde curly hair, your sweet little voice, play out like a movie in my head. There are days where it all feels so long ago that our family felt whole.

While the memories of life with you here feel like they were lived out so long ago, the pain of losing you feels the same as it did that day. Life would be a lot easier if those two could switch places. If the pain was fleeting, not the memories.

Contrary to the cheesy quote, time does not heal all wounds. After 18 months, I don’t feel any less pain that I did on that day. Time simply gives you the space to navigate how to carry your pain. Our goal is always to carry it well. Even though the pain isn’t any less, we have found that the suffering is.

When you go through loss, the pain becomes a permanent part of you. But the suffering is temporary. It is so easy for pain to feel like a burden. Most days it will. Most days I don’t think it’s fair that this chapter was written for my life. But I also know that this isn’t the final chapter. I know that God is always able to redeem what was meant for evil. The burdensome, all consuming, pain and suffering is not the final chapter of this story.

I’ve learned a lot about grief, about pain, and about suffering over these last 18 months. In that learning, the most pivotal things I continue to carry with me are these..

God’s desire is for us to focus our eyes above what is temporary. Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us, “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart.” We all have a deep longing inside of us for something. A longing that cannot be filled with earthy things. A longing that proves this is not our permanent home, it was never meant to be.

That we don’t have to just survive through our trials, we can learn how to move through them well. It’s okay to grieve the loss. It’s okay to weep over the life you had envisioned. But then it’s time to stand back up and continuing pursuing what God has for you. Because there is still something there for you. It is possible to embrace pain and not be held hostage by it.

That the presence of suffering in our lives does not equal the absence of God. The word lament means to feel sadness, to feel sorry about something. There is an entire book of the Bible dedicated to pain and suffering. It does not negate the other 65 books of the Bible. But Lamentations it is not a book without hope. It helps give our pain a voice while also inviting us to meet and pursue God right in the middle of our suffering.

God is always intentional. He may have taken her, but He left us here. And our only goal is to birth a purpose out of this pain.

541 days without you, Ellie girl, is only 541 days closer to being with you again.