Happy Birthday, Mom.

Me and My Mom

(I'm the same age here that Evi is now....)

It's here again... it seems these dates come quicker each year.  Today is my mom's birthday.  My girls seem to be reminding me of her every step of the way these days....  

Evi loves to pull on my necklace as she nurses.  I smile when she does it.  Wondering if there is any way that I can convey the comfort I feel when I touch it... Loving that she finds some sort of comfort in it as well.

And then there is Finley.  Two weeks ago, we were driving home from school when I heard her sweet barely-four-year-old voice mention Grandma Pam.  I still find myself a little caught off guard when she brings her up.  I'm thankful that she does, but it hurts too and I imagine it always will.

Before I know it... before I can even completely catch my breath, she softly asks "Mommy, who will take care of me if something happens to you and Daddy?"

Dagger.to.the.heart.

Sigh.

My mom's death has affected me in too many ways to count.  And while I don't think I can ever really be thankful or grateful for it, I know that it has been an important component in who I have become... who God has shaped me to be.

I guess I am learning though that it isn't affecting just me.  It is affecting her as well.

She is thinking.  She is way too smart for her own good at times.  This is one of them.  Caught somewhere between being a baby and being a big girl, she is trying to understand death.  Trying to understand why her mommy doesn't have a mommy.... And now, she is contemplating the possibility of living without me.

I see so much of me in her.  There's a part of me that can't see myself living into my forties... because she didn't.  There's a part of me that doesn't expect to meet my grandkids... because she didn't.  There's a part of me that examines even the most minor heath afflictions as "cancer"... because my fate must be the same as hers...

And now I see Finley in a very minor way doing the same.  On some level, we all expect our lives to play out like those we've seen before us.  

Thankfully, after I answered Finley's question about who would care for her, she returned to my four-year-old again and simply dismissed the discussion as if it wasn't any big deal.  I find her though telling me often that she wants to live with me forever and that she never wants to be with anyone else and while I think some of this is completely normal for this age, I know that some of it is deeper.  

So as difficult as it is and as much as I wish that this opportunity wasn't arising, I am trying to embrace it as a chance to tell her (and myself) that God is the Author and Perfector of Life and that our story (which is really HIS story) has already been written.

And it has a happy ending.