The Long Way Home

I mentioned in my previous post that my Grandma died a year ago. Ironically, her funeral was on Valentine's Day and so I am looking forward to getting past February 14th and the whole "one year ago" thing. I feel like the past couple years in my life have been defined by grief and saying goodbye. Hard goodbyes.

We said goodbye to a long, wonderful life in Colorado. A life full of so many firsts: first married, first home, first child and a life full of so much more: a church we loved, amazing, once-in-a-lifetime friendships, a city/state we adored, my dear sister and her husband. As strong as our attachment was to Colorado, something in us felt it time to move back "home" and we decided to say goodbye to that life. It was one of the hardest things we have ever done.

We also decided to take a little detour on our way back to Idaho. So we spent a glorious year by some of our closest friends in South Carolina (the trees and flowers were nothing short of spectacular, as was my time being "neighbors" with Miska) and we made so many "first" memories there. We watched our children play together and we dreamed of a life living close. And then, before we knew it, we had dug our roots deep and it was time to go. Goodbye...goodbye.

We arrived back "home" in Idaho, sad and tired. But we were finally to the last destination and we started to settle into our new lives there. A week after we moved back (and the day before we were leaving to visit her) my Grandma died suddenly. So we began our life there with a funeral and a heavy, heavy heart. I did not get to say this goodbye and that is all I can really say about that. (Goodbye, dear Grandma Florence.) It then turned into the longest nine months of our lives as we learned a hard lesson about returning home and what "home" had now turned into. The grief is still fresh as I think about one of the hardest goodbyes I have had to say: "Goodbye, Mom. This is not what we had planned, but this is no longer home. Home is anywhere away from here. Goodbye." As we loaded up the U-Haul for the ten-billionth time (we were now proficient movers) we said goodbye to not only precious family but precious dreams, hopes, plans...and hopes for our children and a life that was no longer to be. As we crossed into Wyoming (halfway home, yeah!) we got a phone call. My Grandma Retha had died and we needed to go back to Idaho. I said this goodbye weeks before hoping it would not be the last, knowing it would. Still, my last Grandma? Goodbye? I have no idea why God bookended our time moving home to Idaho with my Grandmother's deaths. Maybe there was no real purpose in it. Maybe it was to say there is even less for you left here. Less life. More death. Maybe it was to get me the heck out of town or maybe it was to realize how short life is and if it is so short then live it where you belong, where you are free. So we did a u-turn so I could say again "goodbye" to the hardest things. Goodbye to this place, these dreams. Goodbye to my dearest Grandmother. Goodbye to my Mom. Again. Goodbye.

I breathed a whisper of a sigh "hello" to the "Welcome to Colorful Colorado" sign. And here I sit. The long way home. But not without, what feels like, paying a price. And the grief feels great and fresh. I'm still not sure what to do with it all. So I am trying to learn to live this new life and I do feel free here, I am home here, finally, and happier, and maybe even a little wiser, than before. But I also feel older, heavier, more scared, and more sad than before. I am beginning to wonder (and I could be wrong) if that is just a part of life. A big part. As we age and lose ones we dearly love and cannot live without, as we see our children grow and leave, as we experience the heartache in relationship, isn't it then we see our huge, gaping need for a Savior? For more to this life? It is for me. I need to know that life is not about the grief I am carrying. I need to know there is more to life than saying goodbye.