It’s year four.  Each year different, each day different.  Each grief cycle, joy cycle, content cycle, stress cycle different, for each of us individually and collectively.  As we move through July with so many dates…Daniel’s birthday on the 2nd, his death date of the 10th, anniversaries and 4th of July’s and family birthday’s in between, it is a heavy time. 

Child loss is forever.  It doesn’t fade.  Always the same is true:  our wholeness has a hole.  Just like that.  Incomplete.   What has happened in four years, alongside the hole and the lack of wholeness is that there’s been some filling-up too.  The shock and trauma and the gut-wrenching breathlessness has been displaced by acceptance and the dull, quieter, everyday ache of Daniel no longer walking, working, playing and loving alongside us.  The broken and spilled-out-heart has adorable dear grandchildren that have filled it back up, alongside the hole that is an-always and an-everyday in our lives.    

We recently were gifted a whole new batch of pictures from Margeret’s mother in law/our friend Lisa, pictures from Margaret and Andres’ wedding.  She’d been holding onto these pictures for the past four years.  Their wedding, that July 6th date, was our last time we were together as a family.  The last time of our family’s wholeness.  Daniel passed away 4 days later.  It was so strange and surreal and special to look at new pictures from that day, study the faces, the smiles, the laughter you could hear through the pages.   The questions of How and Why bubbled up…all over again as happens.  But we are on the other side of those intense days now…four years later…and we know we will never get those answers on earth.  Those answers will only come in heaven.  Someday.  And at that point, the answers probably won’t matter. 

The beauty is that we know that’s where Daniel is…we feel his heavenly vibe, his glow, his everywhere and always…feelings that are not earthly, but truly heavenly. 

A few years before he passed away, we had one of those talks, one of those times and talks that as a mom I will never forget, and now, covet.  I want to share with whoever still may read this as a testimony of Daniel and his sense of faith, and the knowledge of heaven. 

I was in Boise, there for one of his surgeries (hernia I think) and it was the night before he was going into the hospital.  Up late with he and Kati, he suddenly decided to turn to me and say, “You know I believe in God and heaven, right mom?  I mean like I really believe.  I know you ‘ve been praying for my faith…I haven’t always been sure…I’ve wondered a lot…I really didn’t know.  But I know you’ve prayed for me…and I just want you to know that I do believe, I do.  I believe.” 

Through the tears and hugs and chills his words brought, he proceeded to tell me an incident, a moment, a signature time he had with the Heavenly Host of Angels.  Laying in his bed, in his room, a home shared with other football players, albums covering the walls, dirty laundry strewn about, he was awoken by a warmth and a glow all around him.  He said he could “feel heaven….it was so real, but not scary…feel Jesus….my ceiling and room felt warm and full of heaven…angels…and I swear I wasn’t drunk or anything!” (as his mom, I appreciated that comment😊).  We talked about that moment, the realness, the timing, the gift of that room in Boise and the ceiling that opened up to just him, just Daniel, from God.  Wow.  Wow.  Wow. 

I truly feel this was a moment that was a turning point of Daniel’s faith, spirituality, deepening acceptance of God, Jesus and the Heaven that awaits us all.   As a child who was awarded the “Most Inquisitive” award in Kindergarten, it wasn’t always easy for Daniel to have faith in God’s work, His words, His promise…because it requires an acceptance of not knowing or understanding everything.  Such is the way we live our lives everyday, not knowing or understanding “Why?” Daniel died when and how he did….but we accept and know he’s in Heaven.  And we will be too someday. 

After that visit from Heaven, as we referred to it, Daniel drew out a tattoo he wanted to have at some point, one he never did get.  It was quite the piece of art, words of gratitude, and it had three trees on it and when he showed me, he said the three trees were to represent Daniel, Joey and Margaret…and the trees had roots that ran deep and stood tall, towards heaven. 

And so it is, our family of three trees, one in heaven, two still on earth, alongside Scott and I, Kati, Kate and Andres our beautiful daughters and son in law, grandchildren that fill up our spilled-out-hearts and bring laughter and joy and hope.  Collectively we are still setting down roots…with more work to be done to honor Daniel. 

www.Danielscottpaulscholarship.org

Thank you for walking along with us as we keep Daniel, his stories, his traits, his loves alive.  Eat some pizza or apple pie on July 2nd (or bothm :) ), light a bonfire, listen to some of his music, share life...and let those you love, know that you love them.