Dear God,
Six years ago we pulled out all the stops to celebrate
Shannon’s 40th birthday, with karaoke, catered food, and nearly every friend and family member joining in. While a 40th doesn’t usually require a party of that
magnitude, this one did. At that point Shannon
had endured two surgeries and over six years of chemo to keep her ovarian
cancer at bay. Many people get anxious
around birthday time, especially major ones like a 40th. Shannon
had the opposite perspective, excitedly proclaiming “Another birthday and I’m still
alive!”
God, this morning I woke to April 18th. Shannon’s birthday. Another birthday. God, she’s not alive. Exactly six months ago Shannon took a breath
for the last time. Six months ago I fully
entrusted her to you, to live in Your presence.
Six months. Sometimes it seems
like yesterday. Sometimes it seems like
a lifetime ago.
God, today’s events served as a symbol of my journey of
grief.
Today I went to Chester Woods, the place where Shannon
and I went on countless walks over the past years. Chester Woods, the place where I went for a
walk mere hours after her death. I parked
in our usual parking lot and took familiar paths through the woods. A year ago Shannon and I walked those trails
and watched life come back to nature around us.
Shannon would pull out her camera to capture the newly emerging leaves
and flowers, recording the beauty all around us to share on her Facebook page. Today I went to Chester Woods to remember. It felt like the right thing to do.
But God, today at Chester Woods was very different. I walked the trail with Danielle, not
Shannon. When we came to a fork we turned
right instead of left. Before long we
found ourselves deep in the woods on trails I didn’t know existed. We found new places, walked a much faster
pace, shared very different conversations.
Yet the paths looped back and finished on familiar territory.
I have a little 9 foot dinghy that I brought home from
the cabin somewhere around 2011 with a plan of taking it to Chester Lake. Now, nearly five years later, I went boating
at Chester Woods. God, I went to Chester
Woods today and new experiences blended with the old ones.
That’s my life these days. I live surrounded by memories of
Shannon. I’m in the house that she loved
and decorated. Her photos hang on the
wall, our wedding rings lie on my dresser, her ashes rest in the living
room. I will never forget the woman I
loved so much for so many years. Today I
wore an old Relay For Life T-shirt with ‘Caregiver’ on the back. It felt like the right thing to do.
God, despite all those reminders, I live in a new
world. In the past six months I’ve done
many new things, I’ve reconnected with old relationships, I’ve built new
relationships. I no longer serve as a caregiver to someone
with cancer. My days look vastly
different than they have over the past decade.
God, I’m trying to find a healthy balance between the
past and the present. At Chester Woods
today I took the opportunity to tell Danielle about meeting Shannon, our early
years of dating, our engagement, our marriage.
I recalled our camping trips to the mountains of Idaho, the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan, and the southern end of Illinois.
I told about the countless letters she would send to encourage her
friends. In the midst of those
conversations Danielle and I talked about many other things that pertain to
life in the here and now. God, today I
remembered the past while being with someone new in the present.
Tonight Ben and I went out for dinner at Shannon’s
favorite Greek restaurant. We shared
memories of ‘mom.’ We looked ahead to a
future without Shannon in it. We need
both. It felt good.
Shannon’s birthday today.
Six months of life without her. God,
I find myself in a healthy place. On the
one hand I’m not ignoring Shannon or the huge impact she had on my life. On the other hand I’m not trapped in the past
and unable to move into the future that You have for me. It’s an interesting journey. Thank You for showing me life in the midst of
death.
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