Today I came across a book I love. I bought it when some friends of ours lost their little boy. It was a horrible time. I could read the book and imagine, but now as I read the book again I really understand and feel it deep in my soul.
The book is called Tear Soup - A Recipe For Healing After Loss. It is written and illustrated to look like a childrens book, but it is for anyone really and many kids might not really get it, unless they were working through their own grief of course.
I can't believe it has been a year since Mom had her stroke. In three weeks it will be a year since she died. I feel like it was just yesterday. Sometimes it feels like she must just be on vacation and is coming home soon.
On the first day of school I was wondering if Donna Loomis thought about Mom. I missed Mom's usual call to see how the first day went.
After we spent the weekend emptying Mom's house, it took me a week to get out of the funk I was in. Lots of tears all over again and the ache in my heart as fresh as if it were the day she died. Grief takes so long. I don't think it really ever ends. At least not until we see her again. Some people have so much grief. Sometimes I wonder how they get through each day with so much grief. Only God is able to equip us with what we need. 2 Corinthians 1:3 says "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." Our grief is not our own. God uses it to help others. That knowledge is a comfort. Our loss and sadness and pain are not for nothing. God uses good and bad, joy and suffering, to bring glory to himself and to bless someone else. God has used so many other peoples grief to help me. It is amazing. I pray he has and will use my grief to help someone else. I know he used Mom in that way many times in her life. So many people were blessed by her hardship and grief.
