Advent Challenge Day 13 - Reclaim

Write about something you wish to reclaim

I didn’t pick this.  This was the original theme for this day by the person who made this challenge. This is the theme set for the anniversary of the worst of day of life.  I was going to change it.  I mean really, why wouldn’t I want to write about memories, moments, or even love or peace today?  Why not write with a focus on the positives, something that’s deep and profound that I’ve learned from this day? The answer is simple….because God wants me to explore something (some things??) I need to reclaim on this day.  

If I could reclaim anything in the world, most especially from this day 9 years ago, the easy answer would be my son’s life.  Oh wish how I could reclaim that, how I wish we could go back and take this day out of 2008, pretend it didn’t happen.  Most days I don’t say this because even my heart of hearts I know that life is what it is because he died.  I am who I am because I loved and lost and not because I loved and kept.  And as hard as it is to say it, I know that I am a better person because I lost my child.  I lost him being part of my physical life but I know I didn’t lose a piece of my heart and soul...he lives there.  

BUT….

But today (and in the days leading up to today and the next few days too I’m sure) I do say it.  I do want my son here at my side and not just in my heart.  I want to hold his hand crossing the street, I want him sleeping in the extra bed in Cam’s room, I want to wake him with hugs and kisses every morning.  I don’t want to struggle to imagine what life would be like to have him here, to be raising twins...I want it to be my life.  I don’t want these tears streaming down my cheeks, I want laughter at his antics and craziness twin-ness to escape my lips.  I don’t want to feel sadness as I put my Christmas tree decorated with so many memorial ornaments up each year and as I shop for a gift with my family to donate to another boy his age, I want to be decorating our tree with 4 boys, to have fights over who’s putting which ornament on where with both my twins.  Ultimately I want to reclaim the joy that having twins should be. I didn’t get to experience that and I want it...I want it so bad.  

  

And so today this post is now entirely about my sadness, my wishes for the things I want to reclaim, about what I wish was different and the brokenness that exists in my heart when I imagine what life would look like if he was here.  Tomorrow can about hope, peace, love or joy (hah...it’s actually joy, I just looked) but today will be about wishing for what I can’t have and what I’d like to take back...  And that’s ok…