Over the years: Birthdays

Job 14:5 (AMPC) Since a man's days are already determined, and the number of his months is wholly in Your control, and he cannot pass the bounds of his allotted time.

Over the years, the birthdays come and go as you walk down this grief road. I have now experienced 6 years of Birthdays without my children. As a grieving mom and a writer, the only way to get out what is going on within my heart is to write it out.

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I am writing to you the day after what would have been my daughter Kaley's 30th birthday. I was disembarking a cruise ship yesterday and spent all day on the road driving home with no way to blog. I enjoy blogging in real-time with my grief because I believe it helps you as a reader to connect with content that is real and raw.

I want to use some of the moments from my week on the cruise to compare to the moments of grief within my heart.

This cruise was a little different than a cruise I took back in 2018 right before tragedy struck our lives and we endured the losses of our children. This cruise began with very windy conditions causing the ship to rock back and forth for two days at sea. The windy conditions created swells in the water, these swells compared to the swells going on within my heart as Kaley's birthday was approaching. Rocking back and forth compared to grief in so many ways as you go through the emotions of missing your child and crying to smiling because you have a sweet memory come up within your heart.

Day 3 finally came & it was time to get off the ship, the waters were calm and beautiful. When I say beautiful the colors of the water are just that, beautiful. We went on an excursion that I thought about Kaley on the entire time. It was a monkey & sloth excursion. This excursion ended with a semi-sub boat ride. The sloth & monkey park was so cool because I held a sloth & sloths were one of Kaley's favorite animals. I immediately knew why when that sloth was placed in my arms. Sloths are very sweet & gentle. Monkeys are the opposite of that, they are wild and silly.

The final day of the excursion and different ports was interesting as the waves crashed into the rocks along the shoreline, my heart was doing the same within my chest. My emotions and thoughts of missing my daughter were crashing hard within me. Several times they crashed so hard within that they showed down my face as tears that I could no longer hold within would stream from my eyes. The struggle was hard and real this year. The struggle seemed harder than some I have faced so far. I fought at moments to even smile. I fought to want to be a part of the things we were experiencing. I fought to not want to just literally fall apart. I fought and fought and fought many times within the week. Some moments I voiced, but most I didn't, the struggle to be on an amazing vacation and grief hitting so hard within was very real.

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I have taken you down the grief road of my week leading into Kaley's birthday and the struggle it was and has been for me. I now want to share with you some of those hard thoughts I have had to work through. The hardest has been, Kaley would be 30 years old now and what would she be like now. As we all reach our 30s things change for us, our maturity levels change. What kind of a mom would she have become in her 30s? Her son Judah would have been 5 by now as they would have shared a birth date instead of a death date. What would my little Judah be like now? What would our relationship be like in Kaleys 30's? These thoughts and questions were going on within me the entire week as I was on a cruise even.

What is my takeaway from the week before my daughter would have turned 30 and my grandson would have turned 5? It doesn't matter where you go on this earth as a grieving parent grief goes along with you. You can't ever just leave it behind and take a nice vacation. Sure you can and will enjoy yourself but the cold hard fact is grief goes along with you too. Does grief get easier as the years go by? My answer would be a hard no, it changes but it doesn't get easier. You will and do learn how to live with it and not let it overtake every moment of your journey. But grieving the loss of your child or children is always just one thought and one moment away. It will forever remain tucked deep within your heart and mind as long as you are on the earth and your child or children are not.

How do we as grieving parents endure this? How do we endure the birthdays that were once a day of celebration and now a day that holds so much pain?

The only way I have found to navigate the road of grief is with my heart tucked away in Jesus' hands. One day is all I can face since the day my children left this earth. I now focus on just this :one day, the day I am in. At the end of that day, I know the only way I made it was by walking with Jesus. The old hymn just came to my heart, one day at a time sweet Jesus is all I am asking from you, give me the strength to do every day what I have to do, Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus, And tomorrow may never be mine Lord help me today, show me the way, one day at a time.

One day I will be able to tell Kaley and Judah, Happy Birthday again.

until then I will walk the grief road with Jesus holding my heart and hand.

follow me, as I follow Jesus down the grief road.

Tracey Lynn