30 Days of Thanks—Day #28

I’m grateful for those things that come along right when I need them.

Earlier today, I was thinking about what I was going to write about tonight, not the daily gratitude post, but a separate post I was going to call “Those Happy Days.” The other day, I sent a Facebook message to an old friend. The last message I’d sent him was a year ago, December 4, 2009. We were catching up for the first time after many years, and I wrote, “How are you? I am about as good as I could possibly imagine,” and then proceeded to tell him all about Ed and Hudson.

I was so struck by this when I read it again. How much can change in a year. And what I’ve been thinking about since I read it is the fact that I won’t ever be able to say that again, because for the rest of my life, there will always be someone missing. There will always be a way that I could imagine my life being better, if it only had my oldest child in it again. I was feeling so sad about this today, because it is still a reality I have difficulty facing. It makes me so angry to not even be 35 years old and to be able to say with absolute certainty that my happiest times are already behind me. I know there is so much joy still to come, more joy than I can imagine right now, but I also know that that joy will always be tempered somewhat. Because it will live side-by-side with this terrible pain for the rest of my life. It is an awful truth.

As I was getting ready to write about this tonight, I got an email from Jessica’s cousin Deedee (over the course of our friendship, I have grown pretty close to many of Jessica’s cousins—Jessica’s other cousin Caroline, along with Deedee and Deedee’s mother and sister, basically planned and executed Hudson’s entire memorial service in North Carolina, a task for which no one in my family was equipped, and one for which we will always be deeply grateful). In it, she told me about a song on the new Indigo Girls holiday album. “There’s Still My Joy” was written by Melissa Manchester, but this cover is extremely powerful. Although the “tiny child” Manchester wrote about was most certainly Jesus, this song has an entirely different meaning for me.  You will see why when you listen and read the lyrics.

So I’m grateful to Deedee (maybe Jessica’s ESP extends to her entire family when it comes to things I might need) for this much-needed reminder that although the happiest times in my life may in fact be behind me, there’s still my joy: the joy of my memories with our amazing oldest daughter Hudson and the joy our future children will bring us.

There’s Still My Joy

I took my tree down to the shore
The garland, and the silver star
To find my peace, and grieve no more
To heal this place inside my heart

On every branch I laid some bread
And hungry birds filled up the sky
They rang like bells around my head
They sang my spirit back to life

One tiny child can change the world
One shining light can show the way
For all my tears, for what I've lost
There’s still my joy
There’s still my joy
For Christmas day

The snow comes down on empty sand
There’s tinsel moonlight on the waves
My soul was lost, but here I am
So this must be amazing grace
One tiny child can change the world
One shining light can show the way

Beyond my tears for what I've lost
There’s still my joy
There’s still my joy
For Christmas day
There’s still my joy for Christmas day
There’s still my joy. 


Hudson’s many faces in her Christmas dress for the one-year turtle pics


There’s still my joy.