It feels like I only post after funerals...

Weird, but seemingly true. Not sure what that says about me, but oh well!

One year has passed. Two days are affected. The actual Civic Holiday Monday, and the 4th, whatever day that may fall on. This year, a Tuesday.

Monday we were still at Splash Canyon, a diversion, having fun. And driving home, through our wonderful scenic Ontario countryside.

Tuesday I spent at an old friend's house, lending her my shoulder, my dish-washing hands, my ears, and my expertise as a mother who has buried a son. Her son, one of twins, her baby, passed away on Friday night in a tragic farm accident. He was three. He was beautiful.

Strangely, or perhaps not, it helped me to spend the day there. It helped me, to help her. It helped me to be able to look her in the eye and assure her her numbness was normal, and would leave. To assure her her memory loss was normal, and would leave. To assure her her frustration with others was normal, and would leave. To share with her, and learn from her, of the Father's goodness, even in this time of sorrow and pain.

It helped both of us to see her other boys laughing. To make our hands busy doing for them.

And last night, when I could not sleep, I realized my boy had greeted another friend at Heaven's gates. I don't think I ever realized he might have to greet someone younger than he.

This morning I went back, and helped to coordinate and dress 5 males of various ages in a variety of outfits. I teased the twin, who has lost his other half, into clothing, gigles, and a wild leap off the kitchen table into my arms. Nothing has ever sounded better than those innocent giggles. Nothing has ever felt better than that clean, warm, squiggly body in my arms.

And my Father reminded me that life is always so....joy and comfort mixed with the pain and sorrow.

And that's what gets us through.

Tomorrow night, two families who have been down the same sorrowful road of burying a young boy far too soon will be wearing off steam with a whipped cream fight in the back yard.

And that, my friends, is why we're on this earth. To share and to love. And to get a little messy in the backyard with food.