Milestones and Memorials

It's Memorial Day weekend and grills are fired up all around our neighborhood.   Just walk outside and you can smell ribs, steaks...burgers!  Tonight, my neighborhood will be fill with squeals and bangs as the first of the fireworks are taken out and exploded.    All around me, I hear the sounds of Summer...families laughing and playing with each other.  But at our house you could hear a pin drop. Everything is quiet here.   Abbi has gone out of town with a friend.  Doran is at a church lock-in with some friends.   That just leaves me, Zac and Jynx.    They are both asleep so I sit here, just listening.   And remembering.

Yesterday I ordered the headstone for Jeff's grave.   It was a milestone in the grief process for me.   It is not the first, and I know it will not be the last.   Milestones are designed to let you know how far you've traveled, or how far you have left to go on your journey.   I remember, as a child, when we would go on trips...counting the mile markers would become a game for me.    Something to pass the time while this "endless" road trip continued.    Most of the time, our journey was only an hour or two at best, but to me it seemed like forever.    I most likely drove my mom crazy with questions of, "Are we there yet?" or "How much longer?".    Somehow, counting the mile markers  made it a little easier for me.  

I know that these milestones in grief work the same way in many respects.   They will show me how far I've traveled in this process.    We all move at different speeds.   Some are able to dash through this journey, while others prefer a more leisurely pace.   I think I go back and forth...fast then slow then fast then slow.   I passed the first month, then the second.  The first birthday, the first Mother's day, events in the kids lives.   All reminders of how far we've come without him here with us.   It is not the same.   The journey is not nearly as enjoyable without him.    But I know him...and he would not want us to stop, in fact he would get downright mad if we did.   So the traveling continues.

Yesterday, that looked like returning to the funeral home to pick out a headstone for my husband.   I sat there, thumbing through a book and thought, "They all look the same, they all say to me that he is gone."    I finally found one that I thought would work.   Something that will mark his grave, his final resting place.   It was a milestone...something that tells me that life is still going on.   Jeff would be happy with it...as long as I treat it as a milestone.

See a milestone is something you pass...you may pass it many times but you do continue on past it.   It is not your destination.   A memorial however, can become your destination if you aren't careful.    In my efforts to remember Jeff and all that we shared together, I have to fight daily to continue living.        If I don't, I will find myself taking up residence at a memorial...stuck in my grief, not continuing on the journey.   Though the memorial is where I may find myself from time to time, staying there is not a good thing.   It's not designed to be a place where I live.   No, instead I think Jeff would want me to treat this as a milestone...something that tells me how far I've traveled.    And that the journey must continue.   

At the beginning of each new year, Jeff would always pick a theme for our church.   I think it is no coincidence that this year the theme was "The Journey" with Luke 9:23 being our theme verse.   "Then he said to them all:“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me."    I didn't realize what my cross would look like when I started this journey.   I didn't know the places the journey would take me.   If I had, I might would have chosen  a different route.    

Some may look at my journey and think I've come a long way...others know I've only just begun.   My destination is Christ.   Each milestone along the way moves me closer to Him.   There will be places along the way where I will stop and remember all that has been lost, but I cannot stay there.   That is not my destination.   I must take up my cross and follow Christ.   He is my destination.  

 I think Jeff knew that his journey was going to be much shorter than ours.    Maybe that's why he picked this theme for 2014.   He could see his destination in near distance.  The milestones were telling him how close he was to his destination.    He has made it there...and I know that someday I will see him again.   Someday, when my journey is complete, heaven awaits me.   Until then, I'll keep watching those milestones...making sure I'm moving forward.