Pieces of Purpose

Today we took my dad out to celebrate his 66th birthday. It was a good day. We laughed, spent time together, and celebrated another year of his life. But Felicia was missed. It is amazing how you can be surrounded by people you love, experiencing a genuinely happy moment, and still feel the absence of someone who should be there. Grief is strange that way. Sometimes I find myself remembering the good times, and I smile. Then, almost without warning, the tears come. I can be smiling and crying at the same time because the memory that brings me joy also reminds me of what I have lost. And then come the what ifs. What if things had happened differently? What if that day had gone another way? What if she were still here? Those questions hurt because there is no answer that can change what happened. My mind can replay the possibilities, but my heart eventually has to return to the reality that I cannot rewrite that day. Then I look at her mom and children. Her 12-year-old daughter has been struggling with losing her mother. Sometimes I look into her face and can see the sadness. I see it in all of them in different ways. And maybe it affects me so deeply because their pain reflects something I recognize in myself. The heartache. The missing. The longing for things to be the way they were. In those moments, I remind myself of Psalm 34:18: “The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart.” I used to think comfort meant the hurt would go away. But I am learning that God’s closeness does not always mean the absence of pain. Sometimes God is close while it still hurts. He is close when I laugh at the memory. He is close when the memory makes me cry. He is close when I see the sadness in her children’s faces. He is close when the what ifs begin. And He is close when I am simply trying to make it through an ordinary day without the person who once made ordinary days feel normal. I try to be normal. But normal isn’t easy when I am missing my sister-cousin. Maybe I don’t have to force myself to return to the person I was before Felicia died. Maybe grief is teaching me how to carry love differently now. I can celebrate my dad’s birthday and still miss Felicia. I can laugh and still cry. I can thank God for the people sitting around the table while grieving the person whose absence I feel. Both can be true. And on the days when my heart feels especially broken, I will keep reminding myself: God is close. The pain does not mean He has left me. The tears do not mean my faith is weak. Missing her does not mean I am failing to move forward. It simply means that someone I loved deeply mattered deeply.