Fifteen Years - Could Have Been

I remember when I didn’t know how I was going to get through the day, let alone an entire year.

And at a year, I couldn’t see how one day - it would be ten years.

And now it’s been fifteen.

Fifteen years.

When I tried to filter through all the emotion and thoughts that today brings up, I couldn’t focus. It’s too much. It’s too raw - even after all these years. There is still too much to process. Too much loss.

But this one thought is what struck me as pure truth, shining through the messy emotions that we can’t always trust.

There won’t ever come a day that I won’t need her... miss her... ache for what could have been.

Maybe not what should have been. Maybe not what would have been.

But this image of what could have been.

It’s haunting. Not His plans. Maybe not even her plans. I don’t even know that they were my plans... until we could make no more plans.

The image of perfection. What life would have been if we hadn’t lost her. If we could live this life without the aching pain left in her absence. If we could live the life we have today - but with her.

And I think that’s where the messy steps in. The moment I began to believe that my imagined world would be better then the reality that God chose for us. Because I don’t know what life would look like if my mom was here. I don’t know what path our lives would have taken. What life choices we would have made differently. I do know that life wouldn’t be what it is today.

I know I wouldn’t be who I am today. Which breaks my heart, that I couldn’t be this version of me with her here. But losing her formed so much of who I am now.

We get so stuck on the image of what could be, should be, would be. Rather than what is. We are so worried about what we want, that we lose focus on what it is that God has already put in place for us.

So, again, I’m going to focus on the blessing. The blessing that for 18 years, I had the most amazing mother and best friend. That she raised me to be independent, to be strong, to love - and love well.

That ultimately, she raised me to be able to do this, well.

To live without her - to live out the legacy she left behind.

My heart is broken over all that our lives are missing without her, but I am so grateful that I know that she is somewhere so much better. That my family is where we are meant to be. And that one day we will all be together again.