Hopeful

A little over a year.

That is all it has been.

In some ways it feels like a century, in others, days, moments, seconds ago that the craziness began. The craziness that has been our past year.

417

417 days since she died.
396 since I found out God gave us another child.
198 days since the Captain's tumor was discovered.
195 days since the surgery.
146 days Rigg has been here with us.

When I think about all we have been through in such a short span of time, my head spins a little. My thoughts get all jammed together and nothing really produces itself. It is almost like reading a story. A story of someone else’s life.

Did those things really happen?
Did they happen to me?

I am hopeful that we have come out on "the other side". I am hopeful we will press on and just smile and chuckle at "the year of the crazy". I am hopeful.

And yet, a weird, strange part to of me is sad when I think of the future...a future where we will meet people for the first time and they will not know of "the year". They will not know of the struggle, the trials, the heartache, the tears...they will not have heard of the tumor, the chemo, the precious baby girl gone so fast...so soon. They will be oblivious to the year that has shaped us, has molded us, has changed us so profoundly we are not the same. We are different. 417 days different. They will never know...

I am stumped when I think about how do you carry this change, this new, this other with you so others are aware...

The answer...I do not think you do. I think from here on out we will not be seen as the changed ones, the Captain and I, we will be seen for who we have been changed into.

However, I am hopeful that it will not be us that people see.

If I have learned anything at all this past 417 days, I hope they do not see me.

I hope they see Jesus.