Celebrating Eleven Years of Healing


Yesterday was eleven years since my brother, Jason, died.  Eleven years since he traded a painful, broken and limited human body for the healthy, painless and whole heavenly body.  Twelve years he persevered, kept the faith, and touched lives in that painful and broken human body.  Our family has grieved his accident, his death, and the 12 years of changed life in between.  Jason’s determination, faith, and outreach to shut-ins has touched so many lives, despite his inability to talk verbally for those 12 years.  Jason always had a tender heart, but this was much more evident when his heart was the only completely whole and correctly functioning part of his body. 

From time to time I think about what life might have been like if the accident had not occurred.  Would Jaelyn have other cousins running around?  How large would our family get-togethers be?  I often think about how much Jason would have enjoyed Jaelyn, yet he never got to meet her this side of heaven.  I have to believe that Jason met her before she was conceived and born.  There has always been an interest in her Uncle Jason and who he was.  Little did Scott and I know when we named Jaelyn after Jason (Jason Lynn – nickname Jay), that I would one day use Jason’s death and being in heaven to explain to Jaelyn about her own Daddy’s death.  Jaelyn’s understanding of death and heaven was so much greater because of her Uncle Jason in heaven.


We grieve our loss and celebrate eleven years of healing at the same time.  At times it feels so selfish to grieve our loss when he has gained so much.




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