looking over my shoulder.....

still waiting for the other shoe to drop. trying to be obedient and faithful and encouraging and supportive and wise. will things ever get better? is God through? is there something else coming? when thoughts push themselves to the front of my mind, i am able to shove them hard back to where i want them to stay. i can go to the high school theater production, disciple weekend, work, target, starbucks and all the other routine neighborhood haunts and escape for a while. but it never goes away. and i want it to. for her. for us.

we went to target the other day. i told my husband that the difference between men and women is that every pregnant woman who walked by, every woman pushing a baby in a cart was a sad reminder to me of our daughter's loss. all he saw was cereal and bottled water and packaged lunch meat.

why doesn't it go away? am i obsessed? am i obsessive?

i think church is easier as i sing the words to the songs. then i sing the words "your grace is enough, your grace is enough" and my throat closes and i can't sing any more. if i stop singing i won't cry. is it the Holy Spirit speaking to me in those words and in my tears? i've always told other people i believed that. now what do i believe?

i want to go back. i want to be sitting in the little church on the corner of northwest highway and midway road. i want to see my little boy reach his hand in granpa's pocket knowing he will pull out a handfull of skittles that will help him get through the sermon. i want to be at my mother-in-law's little frame house by love field on a sunday afternoon. i want to be sitting at the table eating sunday dinner with the whole family before the cousins good-naturedly fight for the red afghan and comfy couch. i want to be sprawled in the backyard trying to whistle through blades of grass. i want to see the littlest ones talking to the ceramic statue of the 'little boy' who stands silently in mamer francis' garden. i want to see my little girl and her cousins playing on the sidewalk and rumaging in the "barn" for treasures.

i want my family close and for nothing bad to happen. i want things to be different.

lyss, my shoes don't fit either.