Today we’re featuring a story by Kristi Bothur. Kristi is a contributing author to Sunshine After the Storm and writes the blog This Side of Heaven.
Kristi shares her thoughts on grief and the passing of time in this story that she wrote over a year ago. On the anniversary of the loss of our children, we all wonder what life would be like had they lived, and how different things would be. Kristi puts all of these feelings into beautiful words so perfectly.
Thank you Kristi, for sharing this with us.
She Would Be Three
Her sister just turned five and little brother will soon be one.
There is a gap of four years between my two living children. A gap that I feel acutely this time of year. It starts in January, and builds in February as we move towards March 9, the day my world turned inside out and upside down.
Naomi would be three right now if she had lived, and March 9 would have no more meaning for me than February 10 or May 2 or any calendar day other than the ones we celebrate. I would have stair-step children and would get comments like, “My, you have your hands full,” and I would casually talk about my daughters (plural) without a second thought to the miracle that they were.
Instead, March 9 holds deep meaning for me. It is the day I touched eternity. The day the secret place of my womb was cruelly exposed to the harsh outside world. The day I saw and held my beautiful daughter…for the first time and for the last. The day I faced the harsh reality that there are some – many – things in this world that I can’t fix.
Today, three and a half weeks away from the fourth anniversary of her death, my home is filled with the sounds of life, the lives of the children on earth that God has entrusted to me. Most of the time, my heart sings with thanksgiving for the treasures that I have.
But in the in-between moments, I sense the silence of the gap that would have been filled with the sounds of her voice, and it drowns out all else except the whisper in my soul.
“She would be three.”
~Kristi Bothur
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