I don't want it to be tomorrow -

June 1, 2015

I love today and I hate tomorrow. 

Today 3 years ago, Avery was alive. Tomorrow 3 years ago, Avery was alive in Heaven but not here. 

I hate thinking about tomorrow 364 days of the year, and then on one day, it hits harder and deeper than everything. 

I told a friend today that I hate being reminded he's gone. I know he's gone every single day. 

But being reminded of that with every breath and every song and every memory? Oh, it hurts. It stings. 

I wish it was different. 

Everyone wants to fix me and tie up my grief in a tidy little box, with a happy-ending-story little bow. 

Emily says people want to fix me because I grieve more openly and deeply than most. 

No one wants to listen to traumatic memories and no one wants you to grieve for the rest of your life.

All but a few friends who get it, because they too have suffered unbearable grief. 

Tomorrow was supposed to be the day Avery woke up and was healed because:
 "God, you can do anything. I've never wanted anything more than this. You are the Healer, the Giver of Life. 

Please, God, please...please please please please."

Tomorrow was supposed to be the day we'd all talk about for years with a huge sigh of relief:
"Oh goodness, remember how hard that day was? And then he woke up and God saved him. 
He has put such a special promise over Avery. What an incredible story of grace....".
Now I can barely think of the day without going straight into SVT and crying my whole heart out. 

Tomorrow was supposed to be LIFE, it was supposed to be:
 "He's going to pull through, the doctors are amazed, the secret things belong to the Almighty." 
Not one part of me believe we would lose him. It wasn't even on the consideration list.
My Jesus heals and He loves to heal in amazing ways.

Tomorrow was supposed to be many miraculous things, but it was not supposed to involve Avery going to Heaven.
Not in a billion years was that planned....in my plan. It's so achingly surreal. 

I have never felt more crushed, betrayed, or unloved by God than in the moments after I heard Avery had gone to Heaven. Of course, I was crying out for the presence of God, because I felt like I could bear anything but the lack of Him in that moment, but I was in so much shock that this could be the story. I was devastated and heartbroken for John, Audra, Henry, and all of us who loved Avery.

June 2, 2014 - Night breezes and music. Monument, CO. My place of peace amid heartbreak.

I couldn't breathe. There was no air. There was no day. There was no night. 

There were my sobs, my screams, and the silence after the screams is a silence I can still hear in my mind. 

Shock. Hysteria. Grief. 

It was the most awful of days. 

And that is why I hate tomorrow, and why I hate reliving it (no matter how much joy I try packing into it).

Because as much as I can distract myself that it will just be one day, it will just be 24 hours,
it will be soon and then it will be done for another 364 days, the reality hits me like a sucker punch to the gut - 

that tomorrow was the day he slipped from our Shadowlands into the lights of Heaven and left us behind. 

That tomorrow was when everything changed, forever. 

That tomorrow is 3 years of missing him. 

That tomorrow is when he was gone. 

Never before has God's sovereignty meant more,

 and never before have I loved more knowing that everything God does has a meaning.

Avery's death did not mean the story of his life was ending - he is more fully alive than we've ever known.

Avery's death meant God loves us more than we can SEE or imagine, plan or dream. 

Avery's death meant God's plan for Avery's life wasn't over forever, but done here. 

Avery lived his life to the full, and all his days on this earth that were written in his story were done.
So Avery's death was sudden for us, but not for God. 

Avery's death meant that greater stories are being written than we can ever dream. 

Jesus, be near to us and hold us in Your loving embrace. Tomorrow and all the tomorrows ahead. 

With love and tears from this heart -

Jean Marie