Remembering – 18 Years Later

There is something completely unbelievable in knowledge that 18 years have passed.

Truthfully, this May 15th has kind of crept up on me. I wanted to write something that meaningful, fresh but I have been so wrapped up in the long a dreadful process of my Mom’s move to hospice  that I am just not sure I have the emotional wherewithal to conjure up those emotions.

Instead, I am going to try to focus on the joy.

I have been leading the One Thousand Gifts study by Anna Voskamp with my women’s group. She talks about the need to see the ugly-beautiful. To see the grace through the grim. To find the beauty in the darkness.

So on this 18th anniversary of my sweet Jenny’s death, I bring you ten beautiful reasons that her sun still shines.

1. Her sparkling smile.
2. Her inability to dislike anyone.
3. Her willingness to love the most difficult people, like myself.
4. The way she covered her mouth when she laughed, with one finger slightly higher than the others.
5. How a strand of her hair always fell in her face.
6. That I have a 100 pictures where she made a goofy face by putting on “finger glasses”
7. The way she loved simple things like chocolate chip cookies and bike ride.
8. Her generous to a fault heart.
9. Her forgiving spirit, even when someone acted like pond scum.
10. The love that surpasses death. Where truly her spirit continues to live on.

There are very few people that continue to touch lives, to heal hearts and to foster friendship 18 years after their time this side of earth has ended.

I was blessed to have known her.

Blessed to have loved her.

Blessed to have had her call me friend.

I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.

~John Green (The Fault in Our Stars)