Seasons

Summer is when I lost her, but it’s winter that gets to me.  Something about the seemingly unrelenting darkness.  The cold wind that nips at your bones—it amplifies the ache in your soul.  Winter is when the piercing pain of losing her set in.  When the reality of day to day life without her slapped us in the face.  I made a conscious effort to keep moving last winter. To get up and run.  To get out of bed. It would have been very easy to stay inside, tucked under the covers and hiding from the world.  But I knew I had to face it.  I’m doing the same this year.

Symbols

My mom went to Rome a few years after my dad died.  She came home and told me about anchors appearing in the catacombs.  The story resonated with her and then again with me.  I don’t remember choosing anchors as our symbol for Zoey—it just seemed to make sense.  “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” Hebrews 6:19. Hope.  That’s what had for our little one.  It’s what we continue to have.  And as I’ve said before, what we hoped for has changed many times, but we’re still anchored in hope.  And the truth is, sometimes hope is all we have left.  We have to believe we’ll see her again, or this world just seems too long and too hard without her.