Superhero Princess

I started writing this post on Monday July 15th after experiencing many firsts and seconds on as we approach the anniversary of Audrey leaving for heaven.   This post took me over three weeks to write.  I had to think about why it took so long and the truth is, I am not on the same calendar that I used to be. I knew the fourth of July was going to be hard.  Audrey loved the fourth.  On social media, Mandy posted pictures of Audrey enjoying all of her summer favorites.  From June 26th to July 4th, Mandy posted a different picture of Audrey's summer favorites.  Starting on July 1st, she posted a daily picture of Audrey loving the fourth of July. Those pictures meant a lot and meant a lot to see Audrey's loved ones interact and share summer memories.  When Mandy took Hannah to the bathroom, I looked to my phone to look at pictures of Audrey.  I was surprised when I found this picture. This picture made me smile for many reasons 1. It encapsulate...

I can’t believe it’s almost been a year without Audrey. I’ve tried several times in the past year to write, but I can never quite put my thoughts together into anything coherent to share. Many of you that are closest to me have listened to me attempt to share about grief in the past year- I appreciate your patience and understanding as I ramble on, sometimes with emotion and sometimes without, tend to ruminate over the same thoughts again and again, and try to capture the ways that I am missing Audrey, which are so hard to convey into words. I find the sadness becoming heavier again as the anniversary approaches. I try to focus on what my faith says is true about where Audrey is now and about how God loves and holds her, but the sadness and trauma of the events replay often. The natural rhythms of events that recur annually feel like counting down this year, reliving and replaying our ‘last’ of whichever special time it was with Audrey, leading up to August 7 th -10 th , and what...