365 Days

Right now I am fighting sleep. Dreading waking up one year from the day my brother didn't. No longer was he here this day last year. No, one year down.. A lifetime to go. 

I keep thinking of the cliche bookmark/inspirational poster/fridge

Magnet about Someone walking down the beach and noting that they see two sets of footprints. But then when life got hard they old see one set. "God why did you abandon me in my time of need? When I needed you most I was walking alone." And God answers "you only see one set of footprints because when you couldn’t go on, it was then that I carried you." 

I have had a really rough past couple of years. I lost my son and sunk so far down into the worst season of my life that I look back and cannot recognize the woman in the hospital. Unshowered, makeupless. Red eyed and face swollen from tears. Sitting in a wheelchair holding onto her husband at her lowest point. Sobbing over the body of her son at the only baptism he would get.

Those next months, and throughout that year, God carried me until I could stand again. Then a year later- finally having regained my balance- I find out my brother never woke up. My 20 year old brother died. I was there when he was born, crawling, first steps. 3am Romeo and Juliet over Christmas break. Silly ping pong. Watching him beat Zelda because I was afraid. Letting me sleep in his room when I was scared after the Sixth Sense. Tagging along. Annoying the crap out of me. Tattling.

There are some days I still need to be carried. Some where it hurts all the time. Nights where I cry until my nose is stuffed over my son and my brother. 

But tragedy has tempered me. I have come through it stronger in my faith and stronger in myself. I will carry the weight of my pain for the rest of my life. But I know when I can't handle it anymore that I am not alone. I can lean on God until I can support myself. I don't know what I would have done without God. I couldn't have handled it alone.