June 9, 2016 -

I try not to remember too much of today, 4 years ago. Today, the day we buried Avery.

I try not to remember too much because once I start, the haunting sounds start. 

 I remember too much in detail. My senses were on panic alert. Every blink. Every second. 

Every smell. Every breeze. Every sound. Every step. Every shutter click. Every breath. 

They haunt my nightmares sometimes and steal the breath from my chest. 

Everyone else was standing during the hymns during the funeral, but I wasn't.

If I stood, I would faint. My legs had no strength, I could not stand in victory. 

Jesus, he's gone. 

Wrapped in my teal shawl. Rocking. Anything but sitting still because this can't be. 

Balloons lifting into the air with the babies smiling and giggling with joy. 

Staring at the house I loved so much across the street in utter bewilderment and shock. 

Pacing the shimmering asphalt. Counting the steep stone steps up and down. 

Shovel against dirt. Dirt against wood. Dirt against dirt. 

Jesus, You said You are the Healer....how did this happen?

The look in my eyes when I got back to the hotel and 

gripped the bathroom counter so I wouldn't fall.

How I laid down on my bed and tried to rest but felt like I was suffocating. I couldn't breathe.
For 1. 5hr., I lay with my mind racing, tears soaking the pillow, while Mama slept.
When Mama left the room to not wake me up,
I got up, washed off my makeup, curled into a ball, and sobbed.

I couldn't stay here. I got up and got Mama and we left.
Driving somewhere. Anywhere. Out. 

The lights turn from green to yellow to red and he's gone, everything says he's gone. 

And I can't write anymore and I can't tell anymore, and so HERE. This. From last year. 

and this, today: 

"I cannot go to him, so I go to where it is not odd to walk in the rain and weep. I miss you, Avery."

"I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien 

"Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed - 

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. 

For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 

So when this corruptible puts on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, 

then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in VICTORY." 

"O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?"

~ 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 ~ 

- JM -