Thursday, November 10, 2011

Time Heals All Wounds

They say time heals all wounds. And I really hope this is true. It's been four months exactly since my mom has been gone and I can't say it's any easier. If anything it seems as it gets harder and harder. It gets longer and longer since the last time I saw her, gave her a hug, told her I love her, saw the joy in her eyes and the happiness in my babies eyes when they were with her. I think that's what I mourn the most. I will mourn my children never knowing what an amazing grandma she was and how much she loved them. She always wanted to be a grandma. In fact, almost every second since we got married all she wanted was to have grandchildren. And for the 4 1/2 years before Jericho was born, believe me, she didn't hesitate to let me know how much I needed to have kids:)

Tonight we came back from our third trip to Hawaii together. The first time was right before we knew that we were going to be moving to San Diego for James to go to grad school. We went to Hawaii so we could check out Hawaii Pacific University. That was the first school to accept him. It was also his birthday so it was an even better excuse to go to Hawaii. The second time was a little bit over a year after he graduated from his MBA and Masters in Nursing programs and Jericho was 10 months old. No one else knew, but we were on our babymoon. I was a month pregnant with Karis and we were planning on telling our parents when we returned from Hawaii.

The really funny thing is that I would always joke with my parents and James' parents about getting pregnant right away after Jericho was born. I guess the joke was on me when I got pregnant when Jericho was nine months old. We decided to tell our parents the night we flew in from Hawaii. We stopped by James' parents house first. They were shocked. They always warned us to wait between kids because of how hard it is to have babies so close together. Of course they were happy but we could tell they were thinking..."what are you guys thinking??" They are always so supportive of us and they told us they were happy, but we could see the fear in their eyes too:)

Next, we went to my parents house. It was just past midnight and their only grandchild was coming to see them so of course they were awake. We had Jericho tell them he was going to be a big brother while wearing his Halloween costume....a kangaroo with it's baby in it's pouch. We told them that he was carrying his baby just like mommy was. My mom's reaction was so classic, my mom. "Are you serious??" was all she could say. Then the obvious question, "are you pregnant?? Are you kidding??" We would laugh about it afterwards, but even our planning, or lack of planning, wasn't going to stop God's plans.

Karis was the girl I always wanted. I was thrilled when I found out she was a girl. Since I had such a close bond to my mom, I always envisioned having s daughter in hopes that we would share a closeness like I did with my mom.

God knew that I needed Karis. His timing was perfect for when I got pregnant. Mom was able to meet her. My mom called Karis her replacement, and my mom got to spend the first year of Karis' life with her. Mom was there a few hours after Karis was born. In between her chemos she would come and visit us in San Diego or we would come up and visit her. We got to move back to Pasadena for seven months before mom had to go and we spent EVERY possible second we could together. We went on trips to Santa Barbara, San Diego, and Las Vegas during those seven months. And mom was there celebrating with us the day that Karis was dedicated to the Lord. All the while, that entire year of Karis' first year of life, my mom had cancer. She went through chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, and then chemotherapy for almost ten more months after all of what she already endured. And then went to be home with the Lord almost a month exactly after Karis' fist birthday.

I've heard the quote, "Everybody dies. Not everybody lives." And I am reminded of my mom when I think about this quote. Though my mom had cancer, you would have NEVER known. She was so positive. She was so hopeful. She watched my kids the night before she went to the hospital so James and I could have a date night. She didn't allow cancer to take away her life.

No wonder I was missing my mom so much more tonight. The last time we came back from Hawaii, we went to share with my mom the amazing news. It's really ironic how our memories have such ways of reminding us about things that sometimes we want to forget. On the flight home, during one of the movies I watched someone said, "All I remember are the good memories, and those are the worse kinds."

I still can't believe she's gone. I miss her every second of the day. They say time heals all wounds. It’s going to take a lot of time to heal this wound, but God is so incredibly faithful. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” - Psalm 147:3

Thank you, Jesus for your promises. I will trust you no matter what.