Tattoos & death are permanent

I stood there – dumbfounded at the pounding in my chest, and sweat pooling under my arms. The emotions I had desperately stuffed were crawling up my throat, and forming an anxious lump I couldn’t swallow back down – or ignore.

I can’t do it.

I’m not ready.

People talk of wearing their heart on their sleeve, and that’s just how this felt. Like her tiny feet on my skin would ink with permanency the ache and gaping hole in my soul for everyone to see. That it would materialize my emotions in black.

Permanent, never going back, never to be undone.

And instead of fighting the emotions, and battles inside my mind – I would be reminded of the hole she left at each passing glance – in the place I last held her. It didn’t feel beautiful, like a promise of togetherness and connection – it felt ugly – like a branding of pain and permanency. As if I was to blame, marked as the one responsible. Somehow laying claim to the unimaginable. Unchangeable. Irreversible.

Lysa Terkeurst refers to grieving as dreaming in reverse. When you’re not planning ahead, hopeful, wishing for something beautiful to come to pass – but instead, frantically trying to piece together the debris inside your heart – desperate for the picture to look different, to change the unchangeable, to erase the outlines that confine you.

I’ve been dreaming in reverse, but then something beautiful happened.

I got a piece of my daughter back. Something tangible that I can hold in my hand, and wear against my chest. A welcome change from the ashes that I used to cling to. She feels more alive in my soul today – now that I can see the imprints of her tiny feet, and connect them to the void she left in my heart.

I’m reminded of the verse – ‘Death where is your sting? Death, where is your victory?’

What feels permanent in our universe is only temporary – finality is not in our earthly death. Praise God!

In many ways, I’ve allowed the permanency of losing her to solidify my pain – instead of leaning into the permanency of perfection that is to come.

I’ve minimized God’s ability to change my perspective without changing my position.

Today, my position is the same – I left my daughter’s body at the hospital that day – but my perspective is one filled with hope that eternity will be shared with her someday. The perspective that the perfection of Eden will be once again, and my longing to see and know her will be fulfilled.

xoxo