All I need

There is no happily ever after for a bereaved parent. There is no goal for security, economic status, contentment. There are no plans for an accomplished future. Everything seems more finite. Sanity hangs on a thread. Reality is raw, crude. Fate, irreversible.

You're never too old to go back to school. You can always begin your diet next Monday.
Can I get a deferment? exception? omission? waiver? forbearance? extension? second chance? miracle?
The answer had always been yes until the death of my daughter.

I feel anxious. I feel incomplete. I sit on my hands. I walk in circles. I stop. I look around and realize that I've started 10 different tasks. That I don't remember what day it is. I'm tired of much activity that takes me nowhere, seems to accomplish nothing-- nothing I can find any satisfaction in.
I remember when I used to beam with fulfillment after completing a scrapbook page, organizing my junk drawer, cooking a good meal, polishing my nails.
I lived by to-do lists. All I need is to do these five things and then I can be done, content. All I need is eggs, butter, paper napkins... oh and that book that I really want to read to the kids.

I felt the Lord's compassion and presence in my life more palpably in the weeks preceding and following A's passing than I ever have in my life. Her illness and subsequent loss taught me much about compassion, suffering, love, and Christ's sacrifice... which I've simply soaked up but have no energy to share --- as I feel that I must.
I see A's life as God's gift to me that brought with it much responsibility. Responsibility to become a compassionate person, to dedicate my life to giving, to comfort someone whose hurting or wash someone else's dishes. If I could just get off the ground.

I need my daughter.
But in this lifetime, and for now, 'all I need' is to feel joy in hope. In God's promise of eternity-- while struggling to be functional now.
My boys need to know God's promises are real.
All I need is God.

picture: Ava's blankets