thirty-five.

I am 35 grateful years old today.

In January, I decided I was going to hike Table Rock Trail by myself on my birthday this year. I have hiked this trail many, many times in my lifetime, and it remains my favorite. It is beautiful, mighty, humbling, requires so much strength, leaves you breathless, and more.

Sadly, I didn’t get to do that today.

Instead, I am in bed recovering from an emergency appendectomy that resulted in complications, a 3-night hospital stay, holes all over my abdomen, new kinds of pain I haven’t felt before, and a 2-4 week recovery before life can resume as “normal.”

I wanted to climb a mountain for my birthday. But what I really wanted to do was choose the mountain I climbed for once. To choose how I suffered for just this one day.

I know many people think I’ve gone off the deep end in recent years with the things I have written and shared, and my response is two-fold and quite simple. First, “How could I not after all the heartache I have known?” And second, “Why is that such a bad thing?”

My 35th birthday aligning with Maundy Thursday this year feels quite appropriate. I used to try so hard to be “good;” perfection has never tempted me so much, but being a (the?) “good girl” has for as long as I can remember. When I think of Christ Himself kneeling down to wash the feet of those who overestimated their love for Him and underestimated His love for them, I can easily see myself among the faces of those who tried so hard to be “good” on their own, so eager to impress their master and friend, so desperate to live up to the call placed on their lives.

My 35th birthday aligning with Maundy Thursday feels quite holy, too, because Christ understands my sorrows and my pains in a way that no one else does (or even could, really), and He has never once silenced my tears, mocked my fears, or made light of the heaviness that I carry. Never once. Even when I am least deserving of love, He still washes my feet and offers me the most sacred communion: Himself.

When I was in the hospital, several of the nurses of asked a few different variations of this question: “Do you always smile when you are in pain?”

I’ve tried not to in recent years, to tell you the truth. I really, really have. My smile has changed through all of the trials I’ve walked, but it seems that smiling simply suits me, maybe that I was genuinely made to smile. A big thing that is different about my smile these days, though, is that I no longer use it as a tool of deception or distraction. I never wanted to lose my smile; I just hated how I used and abused it for so long, how I was known and loved for so long because how well I hid the darkest, saddest parts of me.

Pain has both hurt me and healed me. It has turned my smile true, real, honest along the way, too.
I used to smile to keep people away, to keep people from knowing the truth.

Now I smile bearing the spirit of true hospitality, especially to those who may feel like who I used to; sometimes a simple smile can be the thing that breaks through the cracks and lets the light in.

I am 35 grateful years old today.

I have climbed a lot of mountains in my rather short lifetime, and I know that there will be more to climb. I’ll climb as many as I can for as long as I can though, and I’ll carry wisdom, not resentment, from all the ones that have come before.

Mountains aren’t always fun to hike or live through in the moment, but they can work wonders on (and in) the heart in the long run.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
Matthew‬ ‭5‬:‭3‬-‭9‬ 

our Pops.

It’s hard to describe how it feels to wake up in a world without Troy. It feels unsteady. It feels crushing and devastating. It feels wrong and unfair.

It feels gray.

I was fourteen years old when I met him for the first time. I really (really) liked his son, and I really (really) feared his parents. I’m not sure why I was intimidated, other than the obvious (I wanted them to like me), but it probably had something to do with how close his family seemed. There was something different about TJ (in a good way), and I suspected that his mom and dad and sisters were the reason.

I was right.

And since then, they have been my family. Gradually, a little more so with the passing of time, but mine all the same. Angie has loved me as a daughter since that first year…

And Troy did, too.

How do you reconcile your past memories with your current heartache?

How do you move forward when your mind is playing reruns of days gone by on a loop?

How do you make peace with never hearing the voice or feeling the presence of someone who commanded every room ever again?

How do you grieve well for yourself when you feel the searing pain radiate off of your husband and kids even from the other side of the house?

Those are only a sample of the questions I’m wrestling with in the early days, early hours of this loss.

The answers will reveal themselves in time, I know. And I don’t need to be told all the things that people compulsively tell you when you’re sad. But the weight of life starting over without someone you’ve loved for so long is heavy.

And I am not afraid to give myself over to it.

Troy wasn’t my dad.

He was a dad to me, though.

He made space for me, sacrificed for me, trusted me in a unique way, laughed with me, moved through hard seasons with me, argued with me, loved me.

If you have known this kind of love, I don’t have to tell you that a memory could never be enough. There is no replacement for a life you treasured, and there is no bandaid big enough for a blow like this. My heart already aches for every birthday, every baseball and football game, every dance recital, every milestone, everything that we won’t look up to see him at.

He was just always there. He was always showing up even when he ran on fumes and had a million other things that he could’ve been doing. And it feels impossible to accept that he won’t be anymore.

But I feel bone-deep grateful for every moment I lingered in,

every laugh line I memorized,

every opportunity I took to hug him and feel his warmth,

every trip I was invited along for,

every silent conversation we shared,

every day I got to be under his wide, strong covering.

It’s hard to describe how it feels to wake up in a world without Troy. It feels unsteady. It feels crushing and devastating. It feels wrong and unfair.

It feels gray.

Even the sky agreed on that first day without him.

"I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,

spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts

for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.

I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck

of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone."

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,

hull and spar as she was when she left my side.

And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.

And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"

there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices

ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying..."

Gone From My Sight

by Henry Van Dyke