Fun with friends!

School is officially out for summer here! I officially have a 2nd grader (what the what!?) and a 3 day (er) at Westminster!

What do we do when summer time comes??? Spend time with our buddies of course!

We are so blessed with some really great friends. I love my friends and their kiddos so much!!!

These kiddos have literally grown up together....just like their mommas!

I also love watching my kiddos friendships bloom all on their own. Watching them navigate relationships and be kind to their friends makes me so happy.

And of course....I love spending time with my friends too! I am beyond lucky to have so many amazing women in my life!

And I love how my different friendships from different times of my life can come together and everyone becomes friends.

Almost five years gone.

No one ever thinks their child will die. No one ever thinks it will happen to them.

But it happens.

It happened to me.

It is still so hard to believe that baby we lost would be almost 6 years old. He would have grown. Would he be taller than Jackson? Would they be best friends? Would his hair be straight? Curly? Dark brown like his dad or light brown like mine? Would he be a wild man, always running? Or would he be quiet?

Every almost 6 year old I see is now Isaiah-I look at groups of kiddos and I see him in the middle of them. I think about my friends with 6 year olds and I wonder if they would all be buddies.

As we come up on the five year anniversary of the day Isaiah went to Heaven, I have been thinking constantly about the friends and family who were there for us during that horrific time. Those people who came over without being asked. Who sat in my living room and just sat there. Letting me talk when I wanted. Tell the story of that morning over and over. NOT tell the story of that morning over and over.

Letting me go lay down in my room and be alone when I wanted. And when I ventured out of my room, hours later, those same people were still sitting in my living room. I clung to these people more than they will ever know. And I am not sure I ever properly thanked them. Thank you for saving my life. Thank you for saving my family's life. Thank you for just being there for us. Simply. Thank you.


I think about how far I have come in five years in my grief journey. I am in no way healed...I will never be fully healed. But I am changed. Forever. I think this sums grief up so well. 

"The reality is, you will grieve forever. You will not "get over" the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it.

You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same again. Nor should you be the same, nor should you want to."

-Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

How easy it is to look away from grief, as if it might be contagious, or too frightening to face. 
But you must face it. 
Do not forget that. Look loss straight in the eye. Take anyone who is suffering a loss in your arms, and do not let them go. Stick together. Lean INTO eachother and not away from eachother.

Life now is so much different than I could have ever expected or hoped for. I laugh harder, I love deeper and I try not to take anything for granted. Isaiah taught me that, he taught us all that. He taught me that God is good all the time. My prayer for anyone suffering a loss is to remember how much our God loves us and to make each day the best day of your life.