It has been 21 months since I looked on the sweet living face of my dear daughter. Almost 2 years.
I have been thinking a lot about time lately.
On New Years Eve day I started getting our old bedroom ready for our company who are due to arrive on the 12th. It had become the dumping ground for all of Amy's stuff and anything I didn't know what to do with! I spent most of the day piling up stuff that didn't belong in that room and also putting Amy's things in the dresser drawers and in a box in the closet. I thought I was ready to sort through her things but I just can't yet. Maybe if I hadn't waited until less than two weeks before I needed the room ready, I could have done it. I don't know. I do know that I cried buckets of tears that day, just being around the things that Amy held dear or that I held dear because they were hers. I found her baby book in a box of mementos, cards and small items. I searched through the pages like a crazy woman looking for an envelope and thought my heart would break with thanksgiving and joy when I found it. It was Amy's hair from her first hair cut. I so regret not keeping some of her hair when she died. I know that probably sounds weird, but they did it all the time in the Civil War days. I was just so thankful to have it. I tucked it carefully back into the envelope and put it back in the baby book and closed the cover. I could not spend anymore time looking through so many memories.
The last few days I have continued to get the rooms upstairs ready for Bill's niece, her husband, and their four children.
We have the baby crib set up in our old bedroom. I have saved it for 35 years with the thought that my grandchildren would use it. It has a drop down side and I guess those cribs are not safe anymore. So it has become a place to put all the stuffed animals that were Amys. More tears came as I realized the bag holding some of the stuffed animals was a hospital bag that said "Patient's Belongings" on it. Actually I could have screamed but I didn't want to alarm my husband. Patients belongings, yes they were. Why I chose to save that bag and put some of her stuffed animals in it, I will never know.
We also have a cradle that I brought downstairs to use before Will was born. It was never used. We now have a "pack and play" set up in our bedroom for Will and the new baby to come. The 35 year old cradle is outdated and too big to be used by my daughter and husband in their small bedroom. I guess it will go back up to the attic.
Time. Thirty-five years have flown by. I thought I would pass on stuff to my kids that I have held dear, but in reality, they don't really want it. It doesn't have the meaning to them that it does to me. I have come to realize that time is not at all like I have looked at it for my 56 years. Our bodies were made for this time, but our souls, our thoughts, our feelings, are made for all eternity time. That is why I feel like it was just yesterday that I was bringing my firstborn home from the hospital and laying her in that cradle, but my back kills me if I stand up and hold Will for more than 5 minutes! It seems to me like it has been forever since I have had Amy with me to take care of her and love on her, but in eternity time those 21 months are just a moment.
I have to keep my thoughts on eternity time and not on these past few years. God is in control of my life. My children and my grandchildren, too. I need to think of how I am going to live the next years of my life. If I live for 30 more years, I will be 86.
Here is something I saw on Facebook today that is really interesting.
http://sfglobe.com/?id=12887&src=share_fb_new_12887
Time. Think about time. Time as we know it and time as God sees it.
In God's time I will see Amy very, very soon, even if I live to be 86!
