Letters of a Broken Heart

Pops~

It’s been awhile… so I’m just going to give you a bit of an update since I wrote last time.

Christmas was in your house this year. I thought Mamaw did really well, hell everyone did really well, I thought, for it being our first Christmas without you. We ate some snacks and chatted for a while. We opened stockings (Lauren did great on the stocking stuffers). I wonder who normally did the stocking shopping, you or Mamaw? Or did you do it together? Somehow I can’t really see her letting you shop for stocking stuffers but hey what do I know? ha! I prayed over our meal again, mom cried, again. She really misses you, you know. Everyone does. But she, she is a rock, a stable force to be reckoned with- and yet, some of her walls have been shattered. She’ll build them up again, of that I have no doubt but it is strange to see her not all the way put together 100% of the time.

At church: Communion is the hardest part of the service for me, normally, sometimes it’s the songs (actually a lot of the time it’s the songs). Mom did the Offertory message a couple weeks ago for Week of Compassion and seeing her up there made me cry because I could just see you in her, so easily. I will never have to wonder where she gets her servant heart from. I am so glad I have a heart like her and like you. It makes me very proud to be your granddaughter. As Easter comes around again, I’m trying really hard to keep my head and my heart in a good place. Being a Disciple and being your granddaughter comes with a passion for serving. I will be serving communion at Maundy Thursday service tomorrow, actually. It will be a solemn event to be sure but I know you will be there with me, just as surely as I know the Lord will rise on Easter morning.

We are coming up on the one year anniversary of the last time I saw you. Wow, that was a hard day. Not for you, really; you had some pudding and we got you up out of your wheelchair and helped you walk a couple times. But for me, for me, that was one of the most difficult days of my life. I didn’t know what to expect. My pillar of a grandfather was in a wheelchair… Mom and Mamaw and I all came to see you that day- it was Mamaw’s birthday. We took her to breakfast and then we came to see you. We had some snacks for you- pudding, peanuts, crackers, the types of things you always had laying around the house that Mamaw would always get on to you for having too many (ha!) Anyway, Mom looked at me in the car and said “Elyse, I want you to be prepared. He’s not doing well.” And I just thought, “well yeah I know that.” But I didn’t really have any idea because I hadn’t seen you since late January when your whole family came to see you (I’m sorry about that. I tried several times, but every time I would get in the car to come see you I would break down and start crying and have to turn around and come home.) Cole and Adam played guitar and sang for you-we think you liked that, you kept tapping you foot to the music!

I’m sure you know this already, but, we dedicated a leaf for you on the SHCC Tree of Life last November (we are now dedicating a stone for you because we didn’t think a leaf was enough!). It was a moving experience. Lauren and I put your leaf on the tree- it was a special moment for us. Oh, by the way, she turned 27 today! She and Bryce are getting married (!) in November of this year. I know she wishes you would be able to be there, but you will be, won’t you? Some things I have no doubt about, and you being around each and every one of us each day, is one of those things.

John 14:27 has given me so much peace in the last year. It says: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” I miss you so much. I know everyone else does too.

I love you,

e