Bedtime and Pillow Talk with Jaelyn

Jaelyn is really struggling now with lots of questions and just the pain of missing her daddy.  It tears my heart out to hear her talk about missing daddy.  I feel so helpless.  She is clinging to me more and more as each day goes by.  I have trouble wrapping my head around the fact that Scott is gone and we are alone, I can't imagine how much harder it is to wrap your head around when you are a seven year old.  All I can do right now when Jae talks about missing Daddy is sit there, hold her, agree with her, and cry.  Jae is still holding the tears inside and won't allow herself to cry.  She told me one night that she is afraid that if she starts crying, she won't be able to stop.  I can't take her pain away or do anything to make it better.  I know this is the hardest thing I have faced or will ever face as a parent.

Jae just crawled into bed with me (after an hour of trying to get her to sleep in her own bed), she is having trouble falling alseep at night if I'm not with her, holding her hand or cuddling until she falls asleep.  This is when the grief over Scott's death seems to hit the hardest, just as it does for me.   Evenings and early mornings are the hardest -- when the house is the quietest.  I can't pretend at those times that he is simply at work and will be home later.  Sleeping alone in a queen size bed is a very lonely experience and makes the reality hit home even harder. 

The memories of him are everywhere I look in the house -- his razor on the bathroom sink, his socks in front of the washing machine, his clothing in a heap next to the bed, his many notebooks of dreams, plans, and journaling lying all around, and his swim bag for the YMCA.  Yet as painful as it is to see these reminders, I cannot put them away.  It would feel as it I was erasing his existence from my life and so while those items bring sadness, they also bring a sense of comfort and his presence.

Church was particularly difficult -- every praise and worship song choked me up, the reading of the Lord's prayer and the message on parenting all made me think about Scott and miss him.  One of his favorite praise and worship songs was sung -- Better Is One Day.  How much more meaning that song has for me now to picture Scott in heaven face to face with Christ.  In one of his journaling notebooks, Scott described what his perfect day would be and one item was dreaming about heaven and what it would be like to be with God.  Scott is living a truly perfect day right now, experiencing heaven first hand.