December.............

Since losing Kendra, I anticipate December with both an abundance of joy and an abundance of  sadness.  I love Christmas and everything that goes along with it, the tree, decorations, Christmas songs, the excitement and church services.  We also celebrate 3 special birthdays in December.......our first born daughter, Danielle, our miracle granddaughter, Gianna and Ethan, whose birthday is the same day his Momma went to Heaven.  I have come to accept that joy, grief, happiness and sadness all coexist and it is now just a part of my life.

Ask any parent and the hardest day of the year is the day your child died and that day takes on significance every year after.  It is the dreaded anniversary date or whatever you call it.  As the day draws near, I find myself thinking about it all the time and I find myself more emotional.  It is not that I think about Kendra anymore than normal, because she is always on my mind, but I just find myself reminiscing more and remembering more.  Songs bring on the tears easier and sad books will leave me bawling, it doesn't take much to start the tears flowing.

I was naive before losing Kendra, because I had always thought that grief, longing, missing, etc. would get easier as time passed, but that is simply not true.  It is only with God's grace that I am able to find peace, to still seek joy, to able to accept that Kendra is in a place so far beyond my imagination and I love picturing her being held in Jesus's arms.

So, here I am in December, again, and this year I am going to celebrate Kendra and look for the joy because as long as I live, she lives too, in all of our hearts.