A New Trail

Darling Morris,

Time has seemingly stood still since your death, and yet somehow a half a year has managed to go by. Six months feels like such a big milestone. I have lived 180 days without you. I have spent 4,383 hours missing you. There have been 262, 974 minutes filled with thoughts of you.

Anniversaries and the days leading up to them are difficult. For a few days each month, I am stuck reliving time. I tell myself that I'm only making it worse by going over things again and again in my head, and I try to convince myself that the anniversary isn't really different from any other day. But just like clockwork, the first of the month comes, and my mind automatically replays everything that happened from the day we found out you were gone to the day we said goodbye.

Several weeks ago, I booked a trip to for work this week not realizing that it would fall on the six month anniversary of your death. Once the significance of the date registered, I became anxious. I wondered if the trip would be a bad decision or a blessing in disguise. There have been tough moments, but overall, the trip has been a blessing.

I left for my destination (Sturgeon Bay, WI) on Sunday. I had a short layover in Atlanta, and I stopped to grab a bite to eat. I was halfway through my Chipole bowl when I remembered that I had eaten the same thing the day before you died. Daddy and I had tickets to a UVA and Duke basketball game that night, and we had stopped for a quick dinner at Chipole before the game. The last time I can remember feeling you kick with any certainty is at the game. As you often did, that night you danced as the band played. When I think about those last moments of feeling you alive inside of me, I am torn between tears of desperate longing and tears of sweet remembrance.

I have felt God's presence so many times in the past 6 months, and once again I feel certain that God had a hand in bringing me to where I am this week. After work today, a group of co-workers and I went on a little adventure. We spent the evening sight-seeing, chatting, and sharing food and laughter. One of the places we visited was a state park called Cave Point.  We walked along a worn path for a little ways and came to a small beach area littered with little stone statues. It was an odd, beautiful and intriguing sight.  I took several pictures of them, and I became determined to figure out exactly what they were when I got back to the hotel.

The stone statues at Cave Point

I was disappointed when my search didn't turn up any reference to Cave Point or the little stone statues. However, I came across the term "cairn" in reference to piles of rocks. I had never heard the word before, but when I looked it up, I found pictures of rock statues exactly like the ones I saw on the beach this evening. Quite simply, a "cairn" is a heap of stones thrown together in a conical form. They have many different purposes, but the most common purposes are to mark a grave (or memory) of someone and to denote a path or trail.

On the six month anniversary of your death, I stood in the middle of a hundred or more cairns. There is obvious symbolism in the fact that cairns are used to pay respect to the memory of a loved one. But the deeper symbolism is found in the other purpose of a cairn - "to denote a path or trail."  Today, I took a new path. I didn't dwell on an anniversary date or let an anniversary date have power over me. I chose adventure over agony. I kept moving. I can think of no better way to pay tribute to your life than by living mine.

Love,

Mommy

Mommy standing on "cairns" beach

Mommy and a friend on a cliff at Cave Point