April 6, 2003

I miss Levi!!! I can't get him off my mind. It all feels new again. I find myself walking past his pictures as quickly as possible, I can't look... he's so still, I can't stand to see him not move any more ...I know I could watch videos but of course that's not the same... We haven't seen any video of him. The very thought of it makes me afraid. I'm torn in two pieces, part of me has to see or I'll go crazy, the other part is mortified that it might break my heart even deeper and "what if seeing him alive on video took me right through the 'center' of grief again?" Oh, but I've got to see him, I've got to hear him talk, see us all together again... Last night Caleb said he's "ready to see some video soon." Jonah and Graci have been ready but are waiting for the rest of us to be "there..." There is a lot of video that I have never seen. Like our trip to Disney world. For some reason I never saw it. But I know it's there, it's almost as if I hold on to the "someday" of it. I like having something of him ahead of me this side of heaven. Something to look forward to. If I see it then it will be the last "new thing" of him ...everything will be behind me...does that make sense???

CALEB is missing Levi: "I remember how special he made me feel when I came home from school. I'd hear him yell from the den 'Yeah, Caleb and Jonah are home!!!!'" He would hug them and pat the couch next to him as if to say "come, be with me."

JONAH is missing Levi: We were in Graci's room, I was putting clothes away, I looked over and Jonah was tossing a baseball up in the air and then catching it as he stared at the wall. There is a tree painted on it. Carved in the tree is a heart with the words "Levi and Graci... forever... Then at the bottom of the tree, at the roots is written "Levi was here." Jonah was staring at it. I could see a question "brewing." Sure enough, he looked up at me and said, "Do you think Levi stood right here (pointing at the carpet in front of the "tree")?" I said, "I'm sure he did, he was always in this room playing with Graci." Sweet, sweet Jonah got down on his knees and kissed the ground....he looked up at me and said, "I miss him so bad, Mom…"

GRACI misses Levi: We were driving in the car and saw a friend, Graci was waving as we drove away...her hand was still waving when she said: "I wish Levi were here so he could wave too…" She misses him in everything she does... So do I.

Jeff was remembering, like Caleb, how special Levi made him feel when he got home from work. He would yell out in the sweetest, high pitched voice, "Yeah, Dad's home!!" When Jeff would come in the door he would say (with his one good arm extended) "DAD!!!" hug him, bury his head into Jeff and say, "I missed you so bad." Oh to hear him again...

I've been remembering a lot too. But the things I keep remembering are so painful, I keep remembering all the things I did wrong. I'm remembering the times I was irritated with the life of constantly being exhausted... the times when I would get frustrated with Levi. When I get stressed or need to think, I clean. So, so many times I remember him sitting on the couch or the bed and I was cleaning, just trying to get my thoughts together ...sometimes I just had to keep moving. I hate that. He was sitting there, he was alive, he was ALIVE and I was cleaning. How foolish of me!!! But I can't go back. Maybe that's why I'm afraid to watch videos ...I'm afraid I might see myself walking past him, being "busy" doing stuff that should have waited… I've been remembering ICU. I remember the tube that went down into his lungs to drain the fluid. Levi couldn't talk with his mouth but his eyes said to me, "Mom, I don't like when they do this, can't you tell them not to?" If I could have taken that tumor out of his head and put it into mine I would have. If I could have done anything I would have but I just had to watch. Oh sweet Levi, I'm sorry you had to go through that. I'm just so sorry... I have so much I want to tell him. So much I NEED to say, but I can't.

Some days I am completely overwhelmed with sadness, a certain "lostness" without Levi with us. When I see a picture of him it sends a shot of pain through me that is new again. Some days I go over all that happened, all that I've missed of him in the last year. When I see other children his age playing baseball, soccer... or just running... breathing, living, I picture what he would be like now. I wonder how tall he would be? I wonder if he would have lost some teeth by now. I wonder so many things... I could spiral downward into that "black hole" of self pity and anger that I don't get him...that I don't get "us" the way I want it...

Somehow HE takes my mind and heart to a place of deep desire for an encounter with HIM, deeper than my desire for life to be "neat" again. The pain NEVER leaves but there is a joy that is peeking through... and when I say "peeking" I mean it. It's not like I feel like doing back flips, no, it's just a little tiny hope of heaven that I can barely see in the middle of the fog of sadness that covers me some days, a tiny little feeling of purpose, even sometimes a feeling of honor that we were trusted with this amount of pain...my constant prayer is that HE would give the courage needed to be forever faithful no matter what comes our way, no matter how hopeless or unfair it may seem... Jars of Clay sings a song that describes how I feel sometimes:

"You have led me to the sadness, I have carried this pain on a back bruised, nearly broken, I'm crying out to you: I will sing of your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy... When death, like a gypsy comes to steal what I love I will still look to the heavens, I will still seek your face, I fear you aren't listening because there are no words, just the stillness and the hunger for a faith that assures... I will sing of your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy... hallelujah... while we wait for a rescue with our eyes tightly shut... face to the ground using our hands to cover the fatal cut. Though the pain is an ocean tossing us around and around You have calmed greater waters and higher mountains have come down... I will sing of your mercy that leads me through valleys of sorrow to rivers of joy…

When Jesus went to the garden to pray the night He was taken to eventually be crucified He told His disciples "Pray that you don't fall to temptation…" What temptation? The temptation to lose hope. Circumstances were about to get really ugly... hope was about to be all they had. Zechariah 14:9 says "The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one LORD, and His name the only name." When it's all said and done we will want to have been faithful, having not fallen to the temptation to lose hope... When Jesus comes to the rescue I want to say confidently: "I knew You would be back, I knew You were true... I was tempted to run away but I didn't!!!!!! I once heard a story about woman who was separated from her husband in war times... for close to 40 years. All those years she never lost the hope of reuniting with him. No one would have blamed her if she had remarried; good grief, he was gone for 40 years ...but she waited for her true love. Finally, after all that time he came to the town she was living in, not knowing she was there... Can you imagine??? He caught her waiting for him. He caught her being faithful to the end... How different that reunion would have been if she had "found another." Oh Lord, find me waiting for YOU. Find me faithful when You come back!!!!

"I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Phil 3:14

jami

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