My mom went to be with Jesus four years ago today. If I close my eyes I can play a reel of her cooking in the kitchen when I was a little girl, driving me to piano lessons in middle school, and giving me a big hug at my high school graduation. It then jumps to her final day at the hospital where she decided she wanted to go to hospice, and then me sitting next to her bed where I held and studied her hand as long as I could before I had to let her go.
Nine months ago, I also lost my brother. I loved him from the day he was born and as much as you can love someone. We cheered each other on through life and I always imagined we would grow old together.
Some days my heart is in a place where it is drawn to the grief—in an emotional space where the tears flow and the memories come at me like a fast-moving train. It’s in these days that I feel that familiar closeness I used to know and it brings me incredible comfort. In equal measure, I have days where I can’t allow myself to even think about my mom or my brother, because I’m in a fragile state where I know those thoughts will cause me to plummet emotionally to a place where I don’t want to be.
After my mom passed away, Amazon and other shipments trickled in from orders my mom had placed online. We were able to return a couple things, but were unable to trace back a small box containing a couple bottles of product that arrived several weeks after she was gone. And then a month later, the duo arrived together again and we realized they were on auto ship. (After some digging, I figured out where they came from and was able to cancel future orders.) My dad gave me the bottles and I took them home and stuck them in my linen closet, forgetting I had them until last week when I decided to re-organize my bathroom.
As I was sorting, I came across two of the bottles. When I had put them away I thought they were lotion but it turns out they were conditioner (which a girl always needs, lol). I stuck one of them in my shower and continued on with the organizing. The next day I decided try it out and started crying as I rinsed my hair because something about it made me feel so close to my mom. She was so beautiful and one of the regrets I have is that I didn’t tell her that more often, I just assumed she knew. It’s hard to put into words how special it was to be holding something that she once used.
God has been so deliberate in sending me sweet reminders and treasures along my path of grief and healing. This was one of them—a gift that my mom had unintentionally left for me, something that I would discover nearly four years after she was gone when I needed to feel her love. God’s timing is always perfect as He weaves His love for us in the little things when we need it the most.
There is something special about spending time with my mom’s friends…the people who were closest to her. My mom was a woman of incredible depth and her friends share that same characteristic. Yesterday Jake and I got to have lunch with a dear friend that my mom knew for over 50 years. In fact, this friend and her husband got married a week before my parents and have a daughter my age. This friend is also no stranger to loss, and January marks the anniversaries of her losing both a son and a granddaughter.
We have been experiencing freezing temperatures for days so Jake and I decided to bring over soup (a recipe passed down from my grandma), and the three of us sat at her kitchen table and ate together. We told old stories and laughed, reminisced about lost loved ones and cried. It was a really sweet time together. But then she said something unexpected, something that only God could orchestrate. She shared that when it started to get cold, she prayed and asked God to send someone who would bring over soup.
I am tearing up as I write this because it is not lost on me that in the same week God sent me the most beautiful, special gift that brought me the comfort and connection that I needed, He did the same thing for my mom’s friend. In a season of sadness and loss, God reminded both of us that we are seen and that He cares about our broken hearts.
Death is a part of life and no one understands that more than God, who sent His son to earth to die so that we could have relationship and eternal life with Him. This gives us an understanding that we were created by a God who is merciful and compassionate, understanding and empathetic. A God who sends conditioner and soup to remind us that we are deeply cared for and loved.
1 Cor. 15:55-57, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
If you know someone who could benefit from this post, please share. God carved out a path of intense healing for me and I would like to share it with as many people who need or want to hear.
An extraordinary exchange 