Time for Summer

I know the blog has been a little bare lately. Sorry about that.

My schedule, however, has been far from bare.

We've been busier than ever getting ready for the summer. It's that time of year again when we make the big move to Colorado for the summer. This year I head up with Kyle, wooo hooo, and although I'll be back a little earlier than him in August, I'm not playing the airplane ride every two weeks game.

Can I get an amen?

Really.

I cannot tell you how excited I am that I get to not only see my husband for so many days in a row, but also how excited I am to get to be a part of camp this summer that doesn't involve 'sorry I'll get back to you in two weeks.'

This year though we're leaving even earlier than last and we've been running around the house trying to get ready. I made a giant list on the office board and I didn't even have time to use pretty handwriting. This was all business.

We got the nursery/guest room ready for our summer roomies to move in, and one of them, we're proud to say is already in the house! Sleepover! But that meant moving lots of items to lots of different closets and making sure that our friends didn't feel like they were living in a storage room. It also meant packing up a certain little girl's last mementos and storing them safe and sound on her momma's closet shelf. I may or may not have spent most of that time looking at her pictures and hugging that sweet husband of mine.

But here at the Hess House the garage is cleaned out, the trees are trimmed, the lawn is mowed and it's t-minus three days until the 16 hour drive up to Colorado. I guess I better start packing...

So while I do apologize for a lack of posts lately, I will explain that my mind has been a little too crazy to write something worth reading. I've been on overdrive at work trying to get everything wrapped up and ready to return in the fall, and by the time I get home, whew!

Lots happening here at the Hess House, and I cannot wait to tell you all about our drive up to Colorado and the beautiful mountains we get to stare at from our front porch every morning!

So I'll be packing this week and I hope to be able to get our first Colorado pics and posts up by next Monday, but let's be honest, we'll see how that works.

Either way, Happy Monday. It's time for summer :)

Twenty-Seven

Today I turn twenty-seven.


And twenty-five seems like a lifetime ago.

The day I turned twenty-five they called to tell me about the tuberculosis.

The day I turned twenty-six I told some of my dearest friends about our new baby on the way.

And today I turn twenty-seven.

I feel much older today. I feel that if the numbers on the cake said thirty-six I would believe them.

When I stand in front of Hannah's grave I just don't feel twenty-seven. When I consider everything we've been through since December and all the things I've had to learn and do and think, I just don't feel like some young girl in her twenties.


But, then, sometimes I do.

Today I ate donuts for breakfast and made my husband wake me up with singing and candles.

Today some wonderful friends called me and sang to me over the phone. I haven't seen them in a while so it made me cry in the very best way.

Today one of my girlfriends decorated my living room and is picking me up a real Great American Cookie Company cookie cake with my name on it. Because I love cookie cake more than most vegetables, even if I am a dietitian.

Today I'm wearing a dress to work and my hair is all crazy and curly like I love it.  It's not a blazer or dress pants, but it's my birthday and I can.

Today if I was still in my hometown, I'd still call my name in to the local radio station to see if I could win a prize. And if I still had my luck from way back then, I'd win it.

And thinking about all those things, all of a sudden I feel more like thirteen. Oh thirteen when I ran around New York City in my new vacation clothes like I owned the place.

Or like five when my brother and I had matching cakes and a joint birthday party in our back yard. Or like eight when I had my party at Skate City and I fell on my back and it knocked the wind out of me, but it didn't stop me from riding in that giant birthday skate all around the rink. Or like sixteen when I told my friends to bring icing and candy to my party so that we could build tiny tiki huts before we went swimming in my parents' pool. Or like twenty-one when my brother threw me a surprise party and made me play pin the tail on the donkey in his apartment kitchen at college.

There is something so very special about birthdays.

I am still so very blessed.

Blessed beyond my wildest dreams. I have the most wonderful family, I have the most wonderful memories from growing up the way I did. I truly have the most wonderful husband that I could have ever imagined, and I tell him all the time "I just can't believe Kyle Hess married me!?! Oh I'm the luckiest girl in the world!" I have the most wonderful community that has loved me so very well over the past few years and especially over the past few months when I needed it most.

I know a God, the God of the universe, and I know the height and depth of his love more deeply than I ever thought I imagined I would at twenty-seven. This year of my life has been so very full of blessings, even if they came in the most unexpected packages.

So today I'm twenty-seven. A fun mixture of thirty-six and thirteen, but still a wonderful twenty-seven.

New Things

It's hard to know when it's okay to talk about new things.

Last night I rode the riding lawnmower for the first time. I remember riding my dad's lawnmower with him when I was probably only five years old, but this time it was just me, looking like a maniac woman driver scooting around our yard on our latest craigslist find.

Last night Kyle cleaned out the gutters and repaired the fence. Kyle asked for me to take a picture of him on the roof cleaning out the gutters, and of course, I did because he's so very handsome, even on a roof.

But it's weird to write about the day to day things. It's strange to think that gutters are as important as grief.

But somehow I think they are. Somehow I think that repairing the fence after a long hard winter is a picture of how we're also repairing our hearts.

That fence works better now than it has since we moved into the house. It took the creaking and almost crashing of the gate for us to think to work on it. But it works better now.

The gate is now easier to open for us, but it is also easier to open for any uninvited guests trying to get into our back yard. There's less hassle. So much so that we'll have to make sure the lock is in place now.

And it reminds me of my heart.

My heart is so easily opened to love now. Hannah taught me how to love so deeply. The Lord taught me how He loves me despite the circumstances, in this crazy way, with peace and joy and compassion and understanding and the truest of loves. Many things are very precious to me now and my heart opens quickly.

But sometimes, like the gate, I feel like I need a lock now. I wish I was stronger at times when my heart breaks so easily, I wish I could hold back tears as well as I once could.

But maybe, just maybe my heart doesn't need a lock. Maybe it's okay to love without regard for heart break. Maybe that's what Jesus did, knowing the people he came to save would crucify him. But then maybe he knew the power of the resurrection and he did it anyway.

Maybe to love with risk of heartache is a great kind of love.

Wise men say,
Only fools rush in.
But I can't help,
Falling in love with you.

And then I realize that they will all be new things. But that doesn't mean the old things are any less important.

So we're cleaning the gutters and we're fixing the fences, and we're loving well.

And, you know what, I don't mind it.

It is a very Good Friday.


But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5:8

The Strength of the World

April 4, 2014

So I'm pretty much a wreck today. I'm over halfway through a box of tissues and I'm confident I'll make it through the entire thing before the end of the workday.

Last night we went to the cemetery. The funeral director called us to tell us Hannah's headstone had been set. I was excited to hear it was finally in, excited to see how it turned out. But as I drove up I saw the headstone and as beautiful as it was, it was so very final. The last shoe to drop on our Hannah's life. There I was, a new mom to no one, standing in the cemetery crying because in my short life I've already lost a daughter.

Today we hosted the county-wide Child Abuse Proclamation Day at work. I stayed busy this morning and I helped get the flowers and the food ready. I got out my camera as the resident but amateur photographer here at work and snapped a few pictures of the preparations.

Then I stepped in to help sort the shoes. Today we had little tiny pairs of shoes lining the side walks of our campus, each pair represented a child that was affected by child abuse this year in our county. And then I had to stop. Although our Hannah was not a result of child abuse, she's still a child of mine, a child with empty shoes. I had the cutest shoes lined up in her closet but no little feet to fill them with.

I went to my office and I cried. Not the kind of crying people typically may do at work. This wasn't a tear or two down the cheek. It was a sobbing, snotty, heart aching cry because I missed my girl. She's not coming back to me. She really isn't. And that hurt so very much.

And so I stayed in my office and stayed productive and I typed through my tears.

When it was time for the program I went out with my camera. It's a beautiful day outside and I wanted to capture the sunshine, not to mention our kiddos faces as they sang on stage.

Then two ladies came up to sing. And they sang of family and loss and suffering. I held my camera in front of my face, but the tears came too fast for me to walk away slowly. So there I was in a crowd of people walking as fast as I could away from all the 'happiness.'

My coworkers are nothing short of lovely and while one of them checked on me earlier another checked on me during the program.

But now I'm that girl.

I'm the one who can't make it through a song in a program. I'm the one who is still very much grieving the loss of her daughter. I'm the one people pity sometimes, and that's okay. I'm not quite as strong as I used to be, but I do have a much tighter grip on the God who saved me. And for that I wouldn't trade the strength of the world.

Turns out grief doesn't just go away when it's been 100 days or 3 months, it's there. Even after many 'normal' days in a row, many days without any tears. After running around Disney World and smiling around our small town. It's still there. Because my heart still loves her, and she's still not with me. And guess what, that's okay.