Marie’s First Birthday in Heaven

        It seems hard to believe that six months have past since Marie’s death.  It still feels to me like she could walk back into the house at anytime, and yet for the kids the time feels like forever. On the 13th of this month we prayed at the cemetery where we now have a beautiful head stone for Marie that is right next to both Monica and their dear great grandma, Nana.

Many different emotions have came and gone since we last wrote.  It has been very hard, yet through it all we have continued to feel carried along by all your prayers.  Thank You!

        As I look back I realize our heads were in a total fog for the first month…. every thing was surreal.  I think it is God’s way of cushioning us with this cotton batting to protect us; otherwise the pain would be too unbearable.  Slowly He lifts the fog and reality hits.  But even then it just seems unbelievable. I spent the second month saying, “It can’t be true,” shaking my head in disbelieve, with a sick feeling in my stomach.  Even Colette said, “It just must be a bad dream.  Each night I go to bed and hope the nightmare will be over when I wake up.”   We felt the mourning process was quiet different this time than with Monica. Perhaps with a sickness there was more of a gradual letting go. Whereas with Marie I felt she was snatched from us. Although at Easter I got a note from a friend who quoted a passage in the Gospel that said: “No one shall be snatched out of My Hands” (John 10).   Maybe it was having gone through such terrible trauma of the choking itself; relived hundreds of times in our minds.  With this came some anger and questioning about what went wrong. There were a lot of “should ofs” with the Paramedics and Emergency room. But in the end it was mostly hindsight.  We have just had to find peace in knowing everyone was doing their best and God was watching it all, and allowed the strange chains of events.  I buried myself in putting together a photo album and movie clips, it feels like this is all I have to hold on to, and so I probably got a little obsessed with it.  Peter expressed his feelings of the last months by saying, “I feel like I am not really alive, I go through all the motions, but my head is not there.” Or as David said, “I go around like everything is normal, but inside I am so sad. I just miss everything about her”

        The third and forth month I cried more than the first two.  I just carry with me a profound sadness, like a heavy weight always pressing down upon my heart. There are always tears welling up in the back of my eyes, seldom coming forth around others, but flowing torrentially when alone. I just miss her so much! She was truly a beautiful, pure, innocent soul, made for Heaven.                                                         

        Now here we are at six months, a Christmas and an Easter have come and gone. Life seems to go on, and the reality of this brings a whole new sadness of kind of “getting use to” not having her with us. For Massimo, Joseph, and me, after having lived through Monica’s death, this fact, and the fact of knowing how much you forget, is heartbreaking.

        So how do we get through it?  Most of all by faith.  Massimo and I also often thank God for cute little Christopher. How can you be sad with pure joy around us?  And then there is 3 year old Luisa who talks about Marie constantly in the most beautiful, matter of fact way, helping to keep us grounded. I also have to thank God for helping me to be such a half full kind of person. Though I have held two of my daughter in my arms as their hearts beat their last, at least I was able to hold them.  And with each death we have been so blessed by the prayers and goodness of so many. Things could be so much worse. There are so many who suffer so greatly in this world, with little or no consolation. We know where our daughters are, they are assured Heaven, and this brings us joy. One night weeping in the shower, I cried out, “I just want her back.” I could almost hear Our Lord asking me a question I did not want to acknowledge. At last I could not stop it from pushing to the forefront of my mind.  I heard the Lord ask, “Would you still want her back if her salvation wasn’t guaranteed?”  Reluctantly I yelled back, “OK, alright already.” My prayers are simple these days, “Lord, help us to live lives that will lead us to Heaven!”

        Marie’s birthday is the 26th of April, we are going to visit the cemetery, then sit with family and friends and watch a final cut of a movie my sister Liz, (who has also been a bit obsessed) put together. She has taken all the bits of home movie and pictures of Marie and put them together on a wonderful DVD. Although I haven’t taken that many home movies, you can’t imagine how much touching footage we have of Marie,   It seems that in every picture Marie would look right at the camera, piercing through your soul with her beautiful innocent eyes. As Colette said, “It was almost like you knew Marie was going to die. We have so many wonderful pictures of her.”   A dear friend also put together a wonderful book of photos from the funeral, burial and reception, and another printed all the CaringBridge messages into a precious book to keep forever.  We are truly surrounded with Love and have much to be thankful for.   Thank you, thank you, thank you, for everything you have all done for us.  We have also found great consolation in hearing of the many answered prayers through Marie; some real physical and spiritual healings. Praise God!  I often think of a story I once read.  ‘When a Shepherd wants his sheep to go to nice green pastures over a rocky, steep, difficult mountain, that the sheep did not want to climb, he will take one of the little lambs from their mother, put it on His shoulder and start over the mountain. The mother sheep will then naturally follow after her baby with the rest of the sheep in tow.’  So here we are continuing on our rocky path, with many stumbles along the way, longing to one day be united with our two little lambs and our dear Good Shepard.  With heavy hearts, mixed with joy, we come to what would be Marie’s 6th Birthday where we will have to honor her wish of being “forever five.”   

May God Bless you, Mary (Massimo and the kids too)

REFRESH YOURSELF in the Peace of My Presence.
This Peace can be your portion at all times and in all circumstances.
Learn to hide in the secret of My Presence, even
as you carry out your duties in the world. I am both with
you and within you. I go before you to open up the way, and
I also walk alongside you. There could never be another
companion as devoted as I am.
Because I am your constant Companion, there should be a
lightness to your step that is observable to others. Do not be
weighed down with problems and unresolved issues, for I
am your burden-bearer. In the world you have trials and
distress, but don’t let them get you down. I have conquered
the world and deprived it of power to harm you. In Me you
may have confident Peace.

PSALM 31: 19 – 20 (NASB);  JOHN 16: 33 (AMP)