The past month or so has marked some very happy anniversaries that I like to enjoy and celebrate. My two oldest children celebrate their birthdays but between those times there are other anniversaries I'd rather not remember yet I can never forget. I've lost a great deal in the past 11 years of so. October 2, 1998, my brother, Terry was killed and that night my life changed forever. Our family is very closeknit, so this was devastating to us. My parents divorced when I was seven, so my two brothers and my mom became a very close group. We are still. It has been 11 years and sometimes my grieving periods last for weeks on end but some years it sneaks up on me. It has been a busy month for us with birthdays, family visits, our co-op, school and play dates. I can easily get lost in my schedule and push things out of my mind, until I am flooded with emotion. Some years the day itself has been an extremely hard time but since it is my daughter's birthday as well I manage very successfully now to focus only on her and not my own grief. Another anniversary is marked the day after my son's birthday, 10 years ago my father died only 11 months after my brother. That year was very hard. My father would have been 60 this year. He was a man that I loved dearly but struggled to get through his alcoholism and mental illness, yet he was my father and I truly miss him.
This morning I had to do early morning grocery shopping so I headed out, I get just a little bit down the road and turned on the Christian radio station. I heard a song new to me by the group MercyMe called Finally Home.(#17 on my playlist) The lyrics talked about talking to his father in heaven..."when I finally make it home". That was all my heart needed to break down, I was sobbing in the car hard just thinking about heaven. It started to rain harder as I sobbed, I felt as if heaven was crying with me as the rain poured down. I was reminded that this earth is not our home, we are created for a place so much better than this one. Heaven is our home, our hearts long for it but are easily distracted by the cares and worries of this world. Oh the wonderful promise that heaven will be a place with no more tears or grief.