When heaven sends snow . . .

Hey Reed!

Much like my siren song, the walks to visit you at the cemetery when we are in North Dakota, I always wake up on this day thinking of all the things that I want to share with you and how deeply I miss you.  This past week has been exceptionally hard leading up to today.  If I were completely honest, the entire last year has been exceptionally hard. 

I have truly struggled.  Sometimes I think many see me as a strong person, which is never how I would describe myself.  Ever. Often others lean in, rely on, and expect much from strong people without ever wondering if they are truly feeling that strength.  Many days I have not, but I continued to show up, to give, and to love without abandon.  But I also learned that supposed strong people need:

• rest,
• time spent doing things that bring them joy,
• extraordinary moments of ordinary life with people who love them for exactly who they are,
• time curled up with a good book,
• nature, lots and lots and lots of nature,
• hearty belly chuckle laughs,
• a good movie night,
• adventures,
• getting lost in loving others (especially those different from yourself), and
• a faith that believes that Jesus is who he says he is even if that means something very different from those who yell the loudest.

As I learned more about each of these characteristics, I also realized that you embodied many of them, and in your short twelve years with us, we were able to live a life doing each of those things with you.  We still have days where grief just sucks us in like the quicksand nightmares of our childhood shows.  But then we also have a glimmer of the light of love shining brightly. 

In the last few days, that loved showed up in a myriad of ways like:

• a bestie lovingly propagating her plants to bring a piece of her heart to mine,
• another bestie showing up just for a hug,
• yet another bringing a whole meal and a card that had words that profoundly touched my soul,
• a baby whom I have to believe you kissed on her way to Earth snuggled up with a Reed-a-Cheetah and later her parents putting her in cardinal jammies.
• another bestie showing up just to do whatever I wanted to do to remember you,
• enjoying a food adventure with your baby sister,
• a cardinal landing right outside your brother’s and sister’s door, and
• many text and social media messages.

Quite simply, love showed up. 

One of those messages completely took my breath away today.  The sender was even a bit nervous but sent the message anyways because she felt stirred in her heart to do so.  She and her son, who happens to be a Scout from your former troop, decided to go geocaching today, and they found yours.  Today was a beautiful day, so very different from your actual heaven day.  After finding the cache, they stepped back onto the trail, and while her son logged the find on his phone, “a snowflake clump drifted down and landed on his screen. It had not snowed when we walked in nor on our way out. It was totally out of the blue, and no other snowflakes at all.”

Immediately, I gasped.  I cried happy tears, and then I laughed. Most importantly, my heart melted in love.  I thanked her, even though I knew she exhibited enormous courage and even larger LOVE to send that message today.

What she didn’t know was your penchant for always sneaking ahead in your “woods” to shake the branches of the trees to drop snow on whichever one of us had the misfortune of being under it when an avalanche of snow clumps would rain down. 

Even though we are always looking for ways for love to show up in our day-to-day lives, we are vigilantly looking for when LOVE shows up from heaven.  So, thank you, sweet boy, for sending the exact message that you knew would get our attention. 

And yes, we know you shook that tree just enough to send that message of LOVE. 

We’ll keep watching.  You keep sending those messages, and in between, we will always be loving you.

Loving you every day until I can hug you again.

Love,

Mom