Incomplete does not equal empty

December 29, 2016 ...

Yes, still grieving.  It doesn't go away.  It shouldn't go away.  My grief will be a life-long experience because my love for my child, gone way too soon, is also a life-long experience.  In fact, it is an eternal one.  So, it is now an integral part of me.

I am not incapacitated by grief ... I am invigorated by it.  It has become a trusted friend.  I don't wallow in it, rather I embrace it and want to do something meaningful with it.

Another year's journey ... 365 days orbit around the sun.  And we are back to the emotional milestone.  Another tick mark in how many years since Lauren slipped through our fingers, returning to the God who gave her life.

And so, reflection begins again in earnest, wondering what we have done with the time, and remembering both the beautiful and the horrific about cancer and its integral (and inescapable) part of our family's story.  It isn't that I don't think about her every single day still.  I do.  Smiles and tears specifically as a result of those thoughts are still a regular and very common occurrence.  I don't wait until this anniversary to ponder.  But, the anniversary and the season it comes in (which she adored) always brings around a different kind of searching of the soul and its proximity to the God I still find peace in worshipping, praising, and loving ... with all of my broken heart.  And, there is still a nagging in my soul to write, to paint, to return to something I knew before in order that I can do my best to preserve and portray all the abundant evidences of His Grace and Tender Mercies that I know because of this experience. 

Since my life was shattered burying a precious child, I've struggled to sift through all the pieces of who I used to be, to retrieve what was good about me, and shed what was not.  Some of the pieces remain in a neutral category, and some which I know should be permanently affixed or discarded still elude me.  I find that the bad pieces are sneaky and rather sticky, while the good pieces and the beautiful ones I am still aspiring to are very, very slippery.  In other words, if I find the good ones, they are hard to pick up again; but as I try, I note that some bad ones have found their way back to me, unaware.  I wonder if the process will ever be complete, or if this "recovery process", like grief itself, will be perpetual throughout my life.  I don't mind the reevaluation of those pieces, or the remaining "holes" that cannot be replaced ... they are the distinct reality that by this experience, I am, and will remain so throughout my life, unbearably incomplete.  These holes are cherished, in reality, because they represent that she is missing from me.  They also represent that there is still that which surrounds the "holes" ... meaning that incomplete does not equal empty.  I am grateful for the "holes", and still searching/sifting for the pieces worth keeping to surround them.

And, as I sift through those broken pieces, I see true elements of great joy in my life.  As I sift through those broken pieces, the nagging for my soul to record or somehow express the great joy, the Grace and Tender Mercies I know through my experience, continues ...

I haven't painted in years now, nor have I written anything substantial.  Blank screens, papers, and canvases have become haunting, and I have grown very weary of the phrase "I used to ..." but, I am still sifting and trying to rediscover the personal purpose and meaning after.  The last painting I did was a failed effort to paint her as I believe she looks now, holding our firstborn grandson with the a bow and a tag that said "MOST!"  (Lauren loved to play the "I love you, I love you more" game ... and she was good at it.  Never would admit defeat.)  It was the perfect idea -- except I couldn't pull it off.  It didn't express the real Lauren -- I left it unfinished, and as it has been tucked away in the basement, it has been smudged in several places.

My wise art teacher told me it was time to paint something 'less emotional' to me.  She asked me to paint a landscape, a flower, a tree ... something I had enjoyed enough to photograph -- anything that wasn't so excruciating.  I expressed to her that I wasn't interested in painting something less meaningful to me and wasn't capable of painting that which was so profoundly meaningful to me.  She kindly begged and gently encouraged.  I diligently looked for a photo that I had taken that "meant" something to me without a person (especially Lauren) in it.  I didn't find anything that spoke to me.  I didn't return to class.

Lauren's unfinished painting (nearly complete, but not quite) was finished by

a great friend and artist Judy Cooley (seriously, google her --)

and donated to some of her best friends at Primary Children's Hospital.

Her greatest painting (which she finished during excruciating treatment)

is still displayed at PCH every Sunday outside of services

and portrays who Lauren really is.  There isn't a match or a replacement for it.

The last writing I really attempted was a failed effort to finish the book she had started.  The first lines of her book expressed perfectly who she is and how she lived.  And, it was another claim of victory to all of us who opposed her in her "love you most" game.

"I was born in Fort Collins, Colorado on May 3, 1994 to the coolest family ever.  We've been arguing over who loves who most ever since I could talk and one day they'll realize that I have always been the winner and I will always be the winner.  It's just the way it is.  I love them more than all the drops of water falling from the sky and drops of water in all bodies of water.  My love is more than infinity, more than every blade of grass or grain of sand, more than Mickey loves Minnie and Pooh loves honey.  They are the best family any one could ever ask for.  They love me and care for me.  They watch over me and worry about me.  They support me and make me feel better.  I always have one of them with me and I can always count on them to say something to make me feel better, laugh together at stupid jokes, or simply hang out together in good times and in bad ones too.  They do love me and I am lucky.  I just love them more."

She was (is) witty and clever, and I was out-geniused by her every minute of every day.  Why in the world I thought that adoring her was enough to represent her is beyond me.  The elements of it that I wrote for her are painful - and practically unreadable, while the elements she wrote for herself are optimistic and upbeat.  With failure now part of those 'pieces' and haunting me every time I think of it, I determined that there might come a day when I could do a "better" job and pulled the book from the website where it could be purchased and tucked it away on another painful shelf where those pieces of me are still scattered.

So, in the meantime, full of love for her, and God, and the rest of my family, I've tried to take up a few alternative hobbies that are inspired by this girl who graced my life for a short 15 years and has altered my soul for eternity.   There is still the hope that one magical day, my pieces will align into the right combination of "used to be" and "the new me" and I'll be able to stave off the bad for that which Grace has altered in me, and grief for this angel has created in me.  And, hopefully, by His Grace, I'll be able to find expression of that Grace that so fully He proffers me (and all of us) . . .

His love is everywhere ... especially when we look for it, and sometimes even more so when we don't.  But it is always there.  So, I'll keep trusting, loving, and praising the Source --- and anticipating the reunion he has promised me --

And, in her honor, I'll keep playing the "love you more" game -- pretending I can somehow play at her level . . . . 

Yet, something tells me she is still determined to be the winner

("always have been, always will be"):

  

As usual, I am in over my head ... 

And, that is where I can "Be Still and Know that He is God",

and be free to fully love and grieve in peace that surpasseth understanding.