Feeling The Loss Again, Like I Did When She Was Diagnosed

We were at church a few weeks ago when a friend came up to us and whispered to Chuck, "What is your daughter's name again?"

He said hi to Beth and then reminded us that they were in the youth group together. Of course! He's in his mid thirties, he's a guy she grew up with and they had some of the same friends. 

He's her peer.

But he's also been married for years, has three children and is a financial officer. His life is very different from Beth's.

The stark differences just... I don't know. It just left me speechless. 

I know Beth is different from other people in their 30's but I hadn't really thought about it in a while.

I haven't thought about how far behind Beth is from other people her age in a long time. We're just sort of passed that and we're living our lives day to day just like everyone else. 

But after hearing him say they were in youth group together just brought it all back.

And he wasn't being mean at all. He's an a-m-a-z-i-n-g young man, an incredible father and husband. He just stopped to say hi to an old friend.

And I'm finding it hard to describe the lump I have in my throat because of it. Because my oldest daughter isn't like her peers. Not even close. 

You know how you watch your kids grow and change and it's not too big of deal, but when you haven't seen your friends kids in a year, it's like, "Oh my gosh they're so tall!" I think if Beth was around typical 30-somethings all the time, it wouldn't be that big of an issue. But she's not and the difference between those two was just huge.  

After re-reading this I think maybe I'm grieving again. It hit me - again - that my daughter isn't normal, that she has a diagnosis that changes her life and ours. She won't move out and get married and drive her kids back and forth to school and take vacations with her own family... but even if she does one or two of those things, it won't be the same as when Sharaya and Diana did them. 

It'll be much harder and she'll need constant support.

I guess I'm feeling the loss of a 'regular' life for my daughter. Especially after seeing his life and realizing the huge differences between the two.

Stress And Loss, What A Week

At 1:30 Tuesday morning I got a call from a friend telling me her mom had died. I met Vera more than 25 years ago when we did ministry together at our church. She had dementia so the last few years I've been hanging out with her while her husband went out for lunch or bowling. It was hard to watch that disease slowly steal her away from us. I went over and spent the morning with Vern and we talked and cried and looked through pictures. We know she's in a better place now, our loss is bittersweet.

  
Late that same night Sharaya called me from the airport - in London! - to say the airline had cancelled her flight home!! It's kind of a long story but we stayed in contact through texts and at 2AM she was finally able to get new tickets and then head to the new gate for their flight home. Of course that made them arrive a few hours later than they hoped but I picked them up at the airport and they were so glad to be home!  

Our church held a women's conference this weekend with Havilah Cunnington called Awaken 2018. I usually don't go to these things but for some reason I just felt led to volunteer this year. Had a 3 hour training last Saturday, then was at the church from 4-10:30 on Friday night, then 7am-5 yesterday. By the time I got home I was SO tired! My fitbit says I took 18,000 steps yesterday alone! It was a wonderful conference though, a lot of women were ministered to, prayed for and just able to sit and talk with other women about 'girl stuff'!

Plus this week we've learned that one of our beloved pastors and our facility manager are both moving out of state! Pastor K has been at our church for 17 years and the FM (I'm his admin) for almost 15. They are both going to leave such huge holes! On Thursday I was sitting at my desk at work and just began to cry. I think the realization of all of this loss just, bam! hit me. I know the Lord will see us through this but these next few months are gonna be hard.