Celebrate

I can’t believe that it’s the middle of April. Where does time go? The 1st has come and gone. Spring break has come and gone, and now Easter’s over….pretty soon summer too will be here and gone.

I’ve been thinking a lot about time. When I was a kid, it went by so slowly. It seemed like it was taking forever to grow up. Now I’m sitting here at 26, wishing it would slow down just a little.

I spent so many months dreading the 1st; it seems so strange that it’s over. I still don’t know what I was expecting from it. Nothing has changed, there was no magic turning point. The 1st came and went and Emily is still gone.

But yet, one thing that did change was my perspective. I think I wrote that I had been all set for one dandy of a pity-party on the 1st. I felt like I was entitled to it. I wanted people to feel sorry for me, and I wanted to let myself hurt. I think I cried all morning. If I hadn’t been so afraid of my boss, I would have asked to go home. Then that changed when I got an e-mail from my friend Kelly.
Kelly was on the Poland trip with me last year. You know how sometimes you meet someone and you just “click”? That was Kelly, Debi, and I. Those two really made the trip so much fun, and in just 10 short days, I made friendships that are lasting.
Here’s what she wrote:

Hi Lissa!

I am thinking of you and praying for you today especially. I know that you know that God is with you, but so am I, in my thoughts. I have no profound thoughts to make you feel better. I could remind you that Emily is in heaven, next to Jesus, feeling great. But, you know that already. I could tell you that it will get better with time, but I haven't been there, so I really don't know.

What I do know is that I am thinking of you. I know that you are always in my thoughts and prayers. I know that God stands with you every day and carries you through every day. I know that God cares that you are hurting and so do I. I know that you are loved!

Remember Emily today, be sad if you feel it. But, celebrate Emily also. Celebrate what she meant to you and your family. Celebrate what she accomplished in her short time with you. Celebrate the way that she changed the world. Celebrate her new life in Jesus!!!

Love you and miss you, and think of you often.

Kelly

I don’t know why what she wrote struck me the way that it did, but it put the kibosh on my pity-party. I think what I appreciated so much was that she didn’t pretend to understand where I was coming from. So instead of telling me that it will get better, etc… she just simply told me that she knew I was hurting and that she cared. But what resonated most with me was when she wrote, “Celebrate Emily. Celebrate what she meant to you and your family. Celebrate what she accomplished in her short time with you. Celebrate the way that she changed the world. Celebrate her new life in Jesus!!!”

Celebrate. It’s such a strange and unfitting choice of word. Or is it? It’s actually kind of perfect. I haven’t been celebrating much of anything this year. I’ve been too busy feeling sorry for myself, blaming everyone for not understanding the way I want them to, and just generally retreating into myself and trying to shut out the world.

It still hurts. Sometimes so much that I can’t breathe. I still miss her. I miss her presence. I miss the future that we’ll never know. I miss her dramatics. I miss the way that she turned my life upside down and inside out. I’m angry that it took her death to make me realize how many of her good qualities I refused to see. I seethe at the unfairness that there was so much left unsaid between the two of us. I just plain miss her. And I can’t imagine that will ever change.

But I need to hang onto the celebrate thing. I need to remember that letting myself become so immersed in the bitterness and grief is not a tribute to her life. Emily is gone. I can’t change that. No matter how many “what-ifs” I ask, or how many “I should have dones” or “if onlys”….no matter how many times I beat myself up for things I said and didn’t say… she’s still gone.

But what I can change is where I choose to go from here. And I can start by remembering that even though she’s not here, I can celebrate that she was.
I know I will have hard days still. Days when the sorrow hits like a ton of bricks. But she’ll never really be gone. She lives on in so many hearts and minds.
So Kelly, thank you. You’ll never know how much your words touched my heart. Its friends like you that remind me how blessed I really am.

Celebrate Life.
Celebrate Love.
Celebrate.