On July 27, 1994, my world fell silent.
And on July 27, 2014 I fell silent.
I did not blog about what it was like to be the mother of a child dead for two decades.
I won't be blogging about it much today.
What I wanted to share is that twenty years is a long time to miss someone. Twenty years is a long time to feel and think and wonder about someone you cannot touch, or hear, or see.
Yet the love I have for her, my dead daughter, has not waned.
And on special occasions, death anniversaries, and sometimes on just an ordinary day when the sun is shining and the birds are singing and the clouds are floating - sometimes on a day like any other - a pang will strike at my heart, and I feel the collapse of a moment around me.
No, not often as in the early days. No, not lasting as in the early days. Now I realize that every day on earth is a day closer to seeing you again. And that keeps me going.
Still, grief comes. It is how I remourn her.
Remourning. Yes, a made-up word, as I often like.
Here's what people don't often know about traumatic grief: That long past the early days, grief's shadow still remains. It lurks and lingers. It seduces and drags. It is the feared enemy, the beloved companion, that never leaves.
It calls for us to have a moment with Him. To remember. To relieve. To reclaim. To remourn.
And for all those things, even when they sting twenty years later, I am thankful.