Five Years

Five years. 

It is hard to believe it’s been five years when I remember it like it was yesterday. I could tell you more details about that day than any other day in my life. I could tell you more details about Hannah’s face than I could tell you about the wrinkles on my very own hands. When I can remember it so clearly, how could it be that five years have passed?

But then I look around our home and I see the passing of the time. There is a four year old boy that filled my arms only eleven months after Hannah died; he’s writing his own name and asking me questions about life that make me have to think and think hard. There’s a two year old boy that has the sweetest soul I’ve ever known in a person and there’s a six month old that brings more joy into this house with every day that passes. And they’re all mine, all her little brothers. Our home is bursting at the seams with kiddos and love and laundry.

The time surely passes.

Every day there is less remembering and more becoming.

As the years go by every day is less about remembering who she was and more about living the way God has called me to live because of her and my love for her. There is less missing her and more being a better mom to these boys because of her. 

I am a different mom every day because of her.

I still sit sometimes in her nursery in the oversized chair like I once did. The first time I looked around the room just a few days before she was born. I was so pleased. Everything in the nursery had come together so perfectly, everything was ready. I dreamt about who she was going to be and all the room would hold. 

A few days later we returned home from the hospital empty handed to our empty nursery and I sat in the chair once again. The room was a different kind of empty. I sat in that chair for hours in the days and weeks that followed just thinking of her, asking God a lot of questions, and praying for a number of things. I asked him to fill the room.

And so now, five years later, sometimes I sit in that chair and giggle just a bit. The room is full. It’s so very full that we’re looking into bunk bed options to fit all the kids. On an almost daily basis the floor is full of tiny pots and pans and Lincoln logs and monster trucks and books, oh the books! And every night my boys, my wonderful blessings, they dream and sleep in that very same room. It’s so very full.

Five years later and we still hope for the very best for our children. As a Christian we pray that our children will join us as we work to know God and to make Him known. 

And, oh how my sweet girl has already done both.

Without breathing a breath on this earth, more people know God because of her life and death. The Lord gave her to us as a blessing and in her life and death the Lord drew us, and so many, nearer to himself. As we continue to share her story, God is glorified. For what satan meant for evil, God has used for good. It is my honor everyday to be her mother.

Happy Birthday my sweet Hannah Grace. To God be the glory.

If you’d like to read the read the story of the life and death of our daughter Hannah Grace and the grieving that followed, you can find a number of posts here. I pray that as you read them, the Lord will draw you near. Her life and death have been a picture of the Lord’s favor upon us.