Great Sorrow, Great Joy, and Everything in Between

I must have started this post in my head a dozen times. I'd get ready to sit down and write, but each day I'd change my mind, my heart would shift, one way or the other. It seems can't decide how I feel about the anniversary of Drew's death coming up on Friday, or maybe it's that I don't just feel one way about it.

One day, I'm feeling actually okay, even somewhat pleased with where we are now and what we've accomplished in the last year. I feel like if my self from a year ago where to see what we have done, what we are doing in a year's time, I'd be encouraged, hopeful.

We've continued to live, not just be alive. Something I vowed to myself a year ago--I won't let this destroy us too. Cancer may have taken Drew's life, and that's done, but I won't let it take ours too.


And we haven't. We've traveled...

We've celebrated...

 

we've laughed, we've grown...

We've tried new things, started some new endeavors...

And we've loved each other and others beyond us. Which really, is probably pretty good.

And as I think back on the all that Drew went through--all he would have had to go through to remain with us, I'm grateful he's done with that. I'm at peace knowing he's not sick anymore, he doesn't have to be a "tropper", and he's free to be Drew...a perfect Drew. Experiencing things we only get glimpses of here on Earth. Surrounded by the love and perfect peace of God.

And another day, as I read through my CaringBridge posts from this week last year (my wonderful friend has archived them for me within this blog--under the "Drew's Story" tab, http://drawingfromdrewstory.blogspot.com/2017/09/1-15-17.html ; http://drawingfromdrewstory.blogspot.com/2017/09/1-17-17.html ), more specific emotions resurface. I had so many feelings as I watching his life end a year ago...

Witnessing the seemingly slow process, came across to me much like labor before a birth. He was sweaty. He was thirsty. He just wanted to hold our hands, and would fuss if we tried to do any more than that.

Yet, it was beautiful once I recognized it, once God allowed me to see what was happening through His eyes. He was laboring, he was preparing to be reborn into Eternity. Just like giving birth to a baby, it's a hard, painful process to separate from what you've only known. But it makes sense when it's over. You are where you are suppose to be, it couldn't have continued any longer the other way. And so it was, a year ago this week.

Bringing myself back to those last days, as I watched him work, I remember being so proud of him. Here he was, a sweet little boy only two years old, who had already endured so much, just laying there, patiently enduring the last of it. Not moaning, crying or even really whimpering... seeing him though, I also felt panicked too. I just wished I could do it for him, wished I could make it stop. My heart seemed to scream, "Just leave him alone already! He's had enough." It broke my heart. I told him several times that week how proud I was of him, how much I loved him, and that he could be "all done".

And finally...he was.

There was relief when it was finished. When the rattled breathing stopped, and his little body finally was still. I knew he was free. And that he was, at that very moment, with Jesus, completely healed. I felt peace, it was like a weight was lifted off of me even if a new one was being placed, because he was done. I got my wish, and would now bear the struggle, so he didn't have to anymore.

Reading through these posts also reminds me of the calm, the peace I somehow felt, obviously from the Above. I remember writing those words, but still cannot claim them as my own. God was as much talking to me as to everyone else, and the words speak to me just as much as I've re-read them this week. How beautifully tragic. How amazingly sweet, and totally awful at the same time. But He never left us, never abandoned us after we followed Him up that tall mountain.

And isn't that all we are promised? As I also struggle this week to keep myself from getting too deep into the "whys", the anger, and the disappointment, He reminds me the only promise He actually made and has faithfully kept--that He would never leave us. Not that we'd never suffer, or that we wouldn't struggle, but we'd never be alone. Jesus in Matthew 28:20b, " I will be with you always," and God to Joshua in Joshua 1:5 "I will never leave you or forsake you", and of course in Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death....you are with me". Certainly He has kept that promise. Clearly, He never left us, even in our darkest hour, and every hour since. And that gives me hope. He will continue to be with us, and with Him, we can get through anything. What do I have to fear? (Psalm 27:1)

Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2015/10/15/top-6-bible-verses-about-god-being-with-you/#p2FL6toBU88wOwMu.99

Psalm 23:4 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2015/10/15/top-6-bible-verses-about-god-being-with-you/#p2FL6toBU88wOwMu

And then today, I just miss him. OH, I miss him. What would he be like now? Almost four, I can't even picture it. He is so different than Molly in many ways, yet definitely one of us Beckers. I miss his laugh, his antics, his faces, his smell. I miss the noise, the fighting, the struggle of getting two little kids in and out the door. I miss holding him in the middle of the night. Hearing him talking, singing, playfully calling out for me in his room after I told him not to before bed.

I miss holding both my baby's hands on the way into Walmart. Looking in my rearview mirror and seeing two faces. I miss boy clothes in the wash, and shoes by the door. I miss having them both around my kitchen table and in my tub...

I miss then both in my lap side-by-side on the couch, or in the chair, one on each knee...

I miss a part of me.  Even though he looked so much like his dad, I could recognize a part of me in his attitude, his excitement for life.  And I miss seeing it in him.

It's the pictures of the two of them together before everything changed that really get me. I just ache for those days again....for what used to be.

  

For the times before I knew how terrible this world can be, when I was fairly oblivious to the suffering going on so close to home. I miss the innocence that used to be in our house. I miss the days Molly didn't know what cancer was, and we didn't talk about death and Heaven so casually. I miss being normal, being average, being like seemingly everyone else...

I've learned a lot in the last year, much that I will have to write about next. But the biggest is that you can feel all sorts of emotions at the same time. That its possible to feel great sorrow, and great joy, in the same instance. And both are very real, and very strong, yet they don't cancel each other out. I can decide that I won't let the sad wipe out the joy, but I also have to accept that all the joy in the world won't erase the heartache. I can expect and accept that probably for the rest of my life I will experience both the good and the bad together, and it's okay.

I think about how different my life is now than a year ago. How normal my days appear now, compared to what they were. It hits me some days how many new friends I've made this year--at the Y, families through Warrior Wagons, Molly's new Kindergarten friends' moms--that never knew Drew. Sure, they know about him, but never knew him... They never knew me with two kids, with a son, and never knew us during the time cancer was such a part of our lives. And even some old friends too--one moved away the week Drew was born, and moved back the week he died, really. All she's seen me with is Molly, never Drew. It's weird.

But I guess as time goes on, this is the way it'll be. We'll have logged more time being influenced by Drew, then actual time with Drew. Years from now it'll be an even fewer percentage that actually knew him versus know about him. But some day, you all can meet him. He'll be every bit as awesome as I've made him sound. I can't wait to introduce him to you.

So as I face the day he died on Friday, January 19th, I go into it with all these emotions--reluctant contentment, peace, relief for him, and hope. But also with remorse, longing, and disappointment. I'm a different person than I was a year ago, and even more different than I was two years ago. I like who I've become in a way, however, I can be so sad for what it has cost to get here. For the expense Drew paid in his life that he shouldn't have been required to pay. But, as I've seen this whole year, I'll get through it. And now I'm one year closer to being with him again, one year closer to being as free from this world and all these struggles as Drew is today, and has been for a whole year.


Happy Heavenly Birthday Babycakes. I'm still so proud of you, and I love you so very much. I miss you terribly, but I'm glad that you're all done. "See you" someday again, for all days ❤