Dear Katie

Grief. 

Celebration. 

They feel like two very opposite things. 

Yet I am learning that I can hold them both at the same time. 

I turn 30 this week and I have been fine, even excited about it until this morning. Today I woke up with an overwhelming sadness that made it hard to get out of bed. I skipped worship that we always have on Monday mornings at work. I struggled to make breakfast and coffee. I honestly thought it was just one of those days. 

I didn’t think about it too much. 

On Mondays all of the Gap Year Department gets together in a room to update each other on life. We share how things are going, what the Lord is doing and sometimes we pray for and encourage one another. As we were praying for Deborah I immediately realized the sadness I was feeling. 

Back when I was much younger one of my closest friends passed away from a rare blood disease. I think about her sometimes but it’s been so long and I was so young that it isn’t a normal occurrence to think about. I remember all of the events and fundraisers to bring awareness or to raise money for her treatments. I remember when her family would fly her to other States for those treatments. I remember all of the sadness when the news came. I remember being at the funeral home. I was young but it left a deep, deep hole in my life. And I’ve realized that when big things happen like college graduation and milestone birthdays there is that same deep, deep grief about her not being here. 

That she’s not celebrating with me. 

That I’m not celebrating her 30th birthday.

Sometimes I think about the day when I get married and how she won’t be standing next to me. 

We could never know what it would have been like with her here this whole time. Would we have still been friends? I wholeheartedly believe so. Would she be married with kids? I also like to think so. I like to think she would have been changing the world with the joy that she carried. I believe she would have lived an incredible life. I know that she’s been dancing with Jesus for a long time now. She’s been healed and whole for years and years. She’s not lacking a thing. 

And that’s the celebration that I hold onto in the midst of my grief. 

That she’s been healed and whole and out of pain for a long, long time. That somehow life has moved on and yet the impact she made all those years ago is still here. Today, grief has come out of nowhere and in the midst of it I will choose joy and gratefulness. But that’s how far I get. I’ve learned that asking God why doesn’t always help. I’ve learned that sometimes yelling and screaming brings peace for a minute but at the end of the day I have to trust that He had a plan. That some disease didn’t win but that there was actually victory in the death because it caused resurrection to happen. I’ve learned that holding onto the memories is the best thing to do and that honoring her in all of the moments where the grief comes rushing in is where victory continues to come. I have learned that God is bigger than me and that I can hold celebration for year 30 while being so incredibly sad that she’s not here to celebrate it with me. 

So, Katie, here’s to living out year 30 for you. 

 

I posted this with permission from Katie’s mom and her words are: “Even in the midst of grief, there IS joy, celebration, and most of all HOPE.”