Like a Brick

I think most people with a missing loved one adjust over time to the new reality.  Some adjust better than others, finding a new purpose and way to express their grief and help others.  Some adjust in a destructive way, not allowing themselves to fully participate in the life they still have and love that still remains.  But we all adjust and find a new normal over time.

One of the many reasons that someone with a missing loved one can't move on, get over it, or go through all the stages of grief, is that the cycle repeats itself over and over. There are new searches to do, leads to track, people to call, issues to handle.... or sometimes no new leads, no new searches stretching out so that the lack of such is an event in itself.

Sometimes in the midst of that new normal, when you think you're doing okay, something happens to remind you that there is nothing normal about this.  A new injury occurs every time, a new need to heal.

With Austin, we've had several of those.  The first that I clearly remember was about four months after he disappeared.  We missed him, we hurt for his loss, but we really believed we would find him alive, and soon.  Then it happened.  Our detective called my mom and wanted to meet with her alone to share some news.  The had learned that he went to a pawn shop and purchased a shotgun, then went to a store to purchase ammo, and left on foot with the gun in a duffle bag.  For most of my family, that ended the belief that we would find him alive.  It shifted our efforts and resources.  It shifted our world.

A year or so later, we hadn't found him and were reminded at times about the money he had on him that would have gotten him a start out of town if he wanted, that we should still believe that happened.  But then another shot.  We received a letter from the payroll company his employer used, and learned that the final paycheck, the one that we thought he'd cashed, never was.  He had a check for almost $1000 that he never cashed.  Clearly another blow to the belief that he chose to go away.

There have been so many others, so many other days where it felt like a brick hitting us in the head with the reality of what we face.  The weeks I spent arguing with a bill collector that he really wasn't living with us anymore, that I really wasn't lying to them took a toll.  The birthdays missed, the holidays without him.  But after each one, we adjust.  It takes time, but we again find our way back to a new normal.

Today was a small brick.  Nothing monumental.  My mom receives emails from one of Austin's old accounts, and today received an email from a recruiter, wanting to talk with him about a position that he seemed to match.  It would have been a great position for him.  It matched his skills, his qualifications, and sounds like one he would have enjoyed.  But he's not here.  He's missing out on so many things.  So often we think about what we're missing out on, but today I'm reminded that he had so much to look forward to.

Side Note:  I love music to help lift a mood.  As I finished writing this, one of my very favorite songs was playing.  The words ring true to me.

Flood- by Jars of Clay

Rain, rain on my face
It hasn't stopped raining for days
My world is a flood
Slowly I become one with the mud

But if I can't swim after forty days
And my mind is crushed by the thrashing waves
Lift me up so high that I cannot fall
Lift me up
Lift me up - when I'm falling
Lift me up - I'm weak and I'm dying
Lift me up - I need you to hold me
Lift me up - Keep me from drowning again

Downpour on my soul
Splashing in the ocean, I'm losing control
Dark sky all around
I can't feel my feet touching the ground

Calm the storms that drench my eyes
Dry the streams still flowing
Cast down all the waves of sin
And guilt that overthrow me

Lift me up - when I'm falling
Lift me up - I'm weak and I'm dying
Lift me up - I need you to hold me
Lift me up - Keep me from drowning again

Life Isn't Fair....

Recently Drew has thought a lot of things to be 'not fair' to him.  Simple things like not being allowed to have Coke, to having to play with a toy in his room that he doesn't want his brother to get his hands on, to not winning a game against his Dad.  I'm not very sympathetic and probably make it worse.  But blaming things you do, or don't do, on life not being fair is just childish.

Oh wait...

A friend's name came across my computer earlier and I sulked for a minute about not having talked to them in a while and missing them.  We don't talk as often due to changes in their life that were positive, but still left me pouting a bit.  As a result, I've been slow to respond and haven't reached out.  Because you see, they made the changes, not me, so why do I have to make extra effort... that's just not fair.

It reminded that I'm no less guilty of this than Drew.  I don't feel it's fair that my husband is sick as many days as not with no end in sight.  I don't think it's fair that I have lost my brother.  I don't think it's fair that my husband has siblings that we can't come to a peaceful place with.  I don't think it's fair that my sons don't have those aunts and uncles and cousins to know.  I think a lot of things aren't fair.

But life isn't fair.  If we all had what we thought was fair, well that would be impossible.  If I got every job opportunity I wanted it would seem fair to me but not to others who didn't get it.  If someone funded a large study to cure my husband's illness that would be fair to us, but seem unfair to those suffering from another illness that isn't well funded.

Things can't be fair to everyone, and we often use that as an excuse to not be faithful.  We aren't faithful to what God calls us to do because He gave more to someone else, so they should do it.  We aren't faithful to friends (and sometimes family) because they made choices so they should deal with it themselves.  We aren't even faithful to ourselves and our potential, because after all life isn't fair and it doesn't matter what I do.

God is always faithful to us, even when it doesn't seem that He's fair.  Much like a child sees their parent as unfair when there is good reason that the child can't understand, so is the same with us.  Life isn't going to feel fair most days, but when we're faithful it can be even better than we knew..

How Many Days to Raise a Boy?

Yesterday I was relaxing and holding my sweet precocious little guy while he slept and thinking about how fast the days are flying by us.  It seems like just yesterday we were planning for his arrival.  Now we're chasing him while he laughs, pulling him off of high places he shouldn't be, and sometimes taking a golf club to the shin in all the fun.  And if it seems that the past 19 months have flown by, I look at Drew and can hardly believe that 8 years have gone by.  But yet I can't remember life before him. 

Then I realize, we're almost half way through the years of Drew at home.  We've already had the biggest impact we will on his personality, esteem, values and learning.  From here on we're reinforcing what we've taught, intentionally or not.  We're closer to the start of this journey with Ben, and I was just thinking that I'm glad for more days to mother and love on him, glad that we're not so near the finish.

My boys and I recently

But I started debating how many years it would be before they were 'raised'.  Is it 18 when they're legally adults, or 21 or so when they finish school (I hope) or when they're married and on their own, or...?  Maybe it's none of those.  Maybe a parent's job is never quite done, because when do you stop needing loving guidance of someone who loves you more than themselves?

Often when a missing person is an adult, the heartbreak and urgency is lost on those not close to them.  But to those that love them, they don't need us any less.  They may need us less in the physical sense, but that's far from everything.

No matter how old our kids get, we still are teaching them, guiding them, loving on them.  We're still pulling them away from danger when we can, and hurting when they hurt.  We're still getting hit in the shin so to speak at times.  And we're thinking we wouldn't trade it for anything, hurts and all.  The older my boys get, the more I understand the mothers who will never give up.  The more I understand that their age has nothing to do with it.  I think that is part of God's plan too.  He didn't tell us to honor our parents when we're young, but our whole lives.  A parents love is the closest thing we have here on earth to His love.  It never ends.

So how long to raise a boy?  I don't think I'll ever be done to find out.

Justice For All

We just celebrated Independence Day, a time to be thankful for the land we live in, where freedom and justice define us.  A land of opportunity, a land of bounty.

While celebrating, the country shifted it's attention to the biggest new story in months, the trial of Casey Anthony.  As anyone with TV or internet knows, she was found not guilty and it seemed as though the thread of who we are as a country unraveled in some people's minds.  Justice hadn't prevailed.  Freedom wasn't deserved.

I first heard about the verdict from someone in my office, who walked in and said "a travesty has occurred in Orlando" and I read reaction from many people on Facebook later.  All were outraged.  Some at the jury, some at the prosecution, some at our system.  Within a short time, groups and pages had formed, with invitations to 'sign the Caylee petition' and 'leave your porch lights on for Caylee' among others.  Now I became outraged.

I have to say it.  I'm outraged by the numbers of people doing meaningless things in the name of Caylee, even though I know the intentions are good.  But I don't believe that leaving a porch light on will help anyone, but will allow people to feel good for a few minutes that they've done something in a situation they feel powerless in.  I'm outraged by the media coverage of every minute of this trial, when there are parents of missing children who beg for help and can't get their faces shown.  I'm outraged not that someone didn't report their child missing, but that thousands do and nothing is done.

On the other hand, I'm not encouraged by millions of people turning on a porch light, but am by the hundreds who will be out volunteering on a search for someone's missing loved one tomorrow.  I'm not encouraged by the person who started a petition to make not reporting a missing child a felony, but by the parents who have lobbied congress for years to pass bills that change how a missing persons case is handled once reported. 

Don't get me wrong, Caylee's death was a tragedy and so very sad.  But if each person who was so impacted by this case spent just as much time looking at the faces of the missing, we might have a surge of children found.  A million porch lights on is nice.  One missing child brought home because of the caring hearts of those moved by this case?  Now that would be a way to honor Caylee.  



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