{Journal Entry}

April 26, 2015

{Journal Entry}

As a child, I kept notebooks upon notebooks of diaries, most likely because I saw my older sister writing in her diary.  Hers always had a key and I only ever dreamed of reading it and most certainly, numerously, tried breaking into it.  Since those days, my diaries have evolved into journals which contain my deepest thoughts, emotions and prayers.  Today, I give you the key to take a peek...


KIM:

Thank you for being my big sister.

Thank you for sharing a room and listening to records.

Thank you for arguing over shoes, clothes, curling irons and which of us would have to wake up earliest for a shower.

Thank you for one year on the same floor in the same school, you as a senior and me as a seventh grader.

Thank you for your friends that became my friends.

Thank you for long talks about nothing imparticular from bedroom to bedroom, while listening to the top twenty countdown on the radio.

Thank you for softball games and letting me be your batgirl on the notoriously winning Zukies team.

Thank you for sitting up at night and watching the lightning and counting down the thunder when I couldn't endure the storm alone in my bed.

Thank you for bike rides to the lake in the summer.

Thank you for cutting and perming my hair.

Thank you for letting me practically move in after you got married and
 including me in your little family.

Thank you for asking me to be your maid of honor in your wedding and a godparent to your firstborn, even though I was only thirteen years old.

Thank you for supporting me at my high school graduation and moving me to Colorado for college.

Thank you for sending me flowers on my first birthday away from home.

Thank you for singing with me at Mom and Dad's 25th wedding anniversary.

Thank you for standing up for me as my matron of honor when Gary and I got married.

Thank you for bringing your family to visit me after we settled in as newlyweds.

Thank you for celebrating Makenna's first birthday with us.

Thank you for scrubbing the kitchen floor for five hours in our fixer-upper farmhouse in preparation for our crawling babies.

Thank you for bringing your girls to visit their cousins.

Thank you for giggling with my kids after burning the popcorn on movie night.

Thank you for sending beautiful (many times, homemade) gifts for the kids for their birthdays and Christmas on your penny-pinching budget.

Thank you for sending me cards just to encourage me in my dailies when my life seemed overwhelming.

Thank you for making our trips back home to the lake memorable with special decorations for Dad's convertible and the boat to drive in the 4th of July parades.

Thank you for fishing with the kids.

Thank for being understanding when we couldn't make it home due to lack of finances.

Thank you for the road trip with you, Tracee and Brock...
and for diverting our plans in order to rush back to the hospital in Fargo to pray with Mom at midnight, as she was fighting for her life.

Thank you for asking me to come home as you were packing your bags to go to Mayo hospital, for what would be the battle of your lifetime.

Thank you for challenging my faith in your weakest hour by asking me to paint your toenails to say "HAVE FAITH" and share in your belief that God can do whatever He wills.

Thank you for worshipping with me, Wes and Joelle when you had only one percent oxygen sustaining you.

Thank you for letting me hold your hand as you went to sleep and as God slowly changed my prayers for you, from comfort and peace to complete healing.

Thank you for your sweet emotion- emotion that could not be released in what you knew would be our final goodbye- simply because your lungs would not allow it.

Thank you for facing death and the taunts of the devil while you were battling for your life in the ICU.

Thank you for having the courage to talk to me the morning of your lungs and heart transplant- hopeful, but very scared.

Thank you for allowing me to come bust you out of the hospital after eighty-four extremely long days of recovery!

Thank you for wanting to make me so proud by making me wait by the door when I arrived, so you could get out of your bed and walk over to me.

Thank you for trusting me to care for you at the Transplant House after you were released; though I felt completely inadequate and humbled.

Thank you for listening to me play the piano in the lobby of  the Mayo clinic- simply appreciating me.

Thank you for the good times shared with you and Wes...
... long talks.

...for facing all your fears and risking everything to get on a plane and travel to Oregon for Makenna and Joshua's wedding.

Thank you for insisting on participating in their reception by making your ever-famous, homemade caramels.

Thank you for being honest with me...
...sharing you burdens and fears with me.

Thank you for relying on me to give up a kidney for you as the need was arising.

Thank you for sharing your last, life-on-this-earth wishes for our family with me and caring so deeply.

...for holding on for Dawson and I to come home for what would be our final visit with you.

...for loaning me your car while I was there.

...for shopping with me while you were "on the job" [our frequent reference to your daily fight for life].

...for laughing with me.

...talking with me.

...for sharing your weaknesses and regrets and trusting me with your heart of hearts.

Thank you for thinking of me...sending me the most heartfelt card and jewelry just days before you left this earth.

Thank you for being beautiful while trapped in a body that was failing you...

and for making my life beautiful, my sweet sister, Kim.
 


  

TO FIND, MUST WE LOSE?


A few days after the recent passing of my sister, Kim, from this earthly life into her eternal life with Jesus, my eighteen year old son, Brock, asked me if it was hard to wrap my brain around the fact that she was no longer with us.  I tried to explain how it felt:  "like something had been removed from underneath me,"  "like there was a piece of  me that was missing,"  "like the very familiar had suddenly become unfamiliar."  Instantly, I felt angry that while she was here on this earth,  I didn't even realize these simple yet amazing factors... that in losing her I would feel a void that could never be replaced; that there were minute pieces of our hearts that were knit together so well, (of which I could not begin to explain); that there were a spectrum of simple things to special traditions  we shared that were so familiar that they went unnoticed.  I boisterously ask myself...is my mind simply incapable of realizing these things until they are removed!?  Is this one of those "blessings in disguise"?  "We don't know what we've got 'til it's gone?"  Can I even give the advice to others to greatly appreciate their loved ones in any way possible, to make willing sacrifices for one another, to not just tolerate one another or even so much as get along great, but, instead, look each other in the eyes and tell the ones you love how amazing they are?  Why?  For what good?  Will that advice, even when heeded to its best, make the hurt less when your loved one is called to eternity, and you are left here to carry on?  Do our earthly eyes have the capacity to see these blessings of which my heart now stretches to grasp?  I must tell you honestly, my sister and I began to touch on these things in our relationship, thanks be to God and an organ donor who blessed both her and I, but mostly me, with  an extra two and a half years together.   And I articulate my answer to you... it doesn't lessen the hurt, it doesn't make the emotions less fragile or the desperate recalling of memories any more vivid when you have loved and lost!    But this I know is true...it does give a life lived, extravagant value;  relationships shared, greater meaning and the ripple effect of a family's lifetime of memories much weightier when carrying on the precious heritage of someone so dear.  Yes, some things must be lost in order to truly know what they mean to us, for our heart to find and our eyes to see!