::some things I never said.

Meg, it’s been 3 years today.

3 years since you left this earth, since the world lost a daughter, sister, auntie, cousin, niece, granddaughter, friend.

3 years since heaven gained another daughter.

3 years since my mom walked toward me as I came out of work on a Wednesday afternoon and I knew in her face that something was so very, very wrong. And then I looked in the car behind her and Cait was sobbing in the passenger seat, Hannah behind her doing the same and my eyes sought my mother’s.

“Who, and how bad?” I asked her in a quiet panic, because I knew this song and dance.

We all know it on this side of heaven.

The song and dance of life and death.

The harsh, terrifying reality that one moment a human can be breathing, alive - and the next, their heart can cease beating and their soul can be somewhere else entirely.

Then my mom told me who. And what.

And for the briefest of split-seconds I felt...nothing.

Because that’s not true. It couldn’t be.

A second elapsed, then two.

My mother touched my arm, and something snapped in me that I don't think ever really heals once it snaps. Or it heals crooked, never the same.

That can’t be. Meg is only 2 years older than me...and God, I’m not ready to go. She wasn’t ready to go, she had years and decades to live, she deserves that time, she-

Looking back, what a stupid thought that was - as if age means anything to death.

So many thoughts ran a rampage through my head.

It’s not fair. I failed her. I never called. I should have called. Shit - why didn't I visit her? We grew up, we grew apart as adults usually do - and life happened and we made friends and we fell in and out of love and hearts broke - and we found that sometimes they don’t ever really mend again, do they?

And I missed her terribly and I never told her that. Did she even know I loved her madly? Because I didn’t tell her all the things I wanted to tell her.

Did she know that when I saw her parent’s van revving up Grammie’s steep stone driveway when we were children that my stomach flipped and my little-girl-heart beat wildly with excitement -  all because of her and how much fun we had?

Did she know that I was so beyond proud to call her MY cousin when she came with me to my church’s youth group camps & conferences when we were teenagers?

Did I tell her I got jealous when my friends befriended her as well - because Meg, you were mine first and I wanted them to be sure who you belonged to?

Did I tell her that when she laughed her eyes crinkled shut and the sound that came from her lips was contagious and beautiful?

Did I tell her I always thought she had the best style of anyone I knew?

Did I tell her that her sass, strong opinions & self-discovery when we were children always made me love her more, because she was her own person from the get-go and man, that’s such a beautiful, rare thing…? I was a child and I even knew it then. It was special, she was magic.

Did I tell YOU, Meg, that I was sure - I was so damn sure - that we would be each other’s bridesmaids at each other’s weddings and hold each other’s babies and lament over how fast our children grew up?

And God, it guts me now that my children won’t ever know your face on this side of heaven.

If I could grasp the doorknob between this life and the next, Meg, I would wrench it open and wedge myself in, and I would tell you all the things I never said. Or maybe I would just hug you hard, because that’s what we always did.

I felt terrible because I didn’t visit your grave in 2018. I did in 2016, of course, and again in 2017, and I told myself I would do it every year.

And I missed 2018.

And I felt like I didn’t see you, didn’t visit, but that’s not the only place that I feel you, Meg.

I feel you when songs play on the radio that we used to sing along to.

I feel you when my niece dishes out some sass to her auntie.

I feel you on Thanksgiving so strongly, as if it’s muscle memory from the years we spent together, playing & laughing & eating & sledding down Grammie’s snowy hill.

I feel you when the sun is shining and when the waves roll into the shore of my hometown, when Lauren Daigle’s “Loyal” blasts from my car speakers and I can see you dancing. I can see you in complete freedom, living fully, and I believe that maybe, just maybe in those moments that God is allowing me just a glimpse beyond the veil.

Because sometimes, here on earth we need a glimpse beyond the veil of this life, this cloak of darkness and busyness and fear and regret. Because yes, life is beautiful and YES, life is a gift - of course it is.

But life is also painful, and we all know that well, by now. You knew it, and I know it, and everyone I’ve ever met in my 3 decades on this ever-spinning planet knows it.

And it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense why there’s always a body count on the news, why hate runs so deep and wide in humanity, why mothers bury their babies, why lovers don’t always grow old together, why there’s sickness and war and plague and

why

the

hell

you’re

not

here.

None of it makes sense, Meg.

So we keep living and remembering those we've lost.
We live.

Live for those moments we can’t explain - the glimpses. The things we can’t bottle up because they’re everything.
We live, because despite the pain there is a God - our God - who can heal every heartache - if we give Him the space to do it.
The dark - it doesn’t, it won’t last forever. He showed us it wouldn’t when He laid his life down. And where you are, with Him now, Meg - there is nothing but light and hope that you've been breathing and inhaling for 3 earthly years - time is of no consequence where you are. I still have a hard time understanding that.

I love you, Meg. <3

Thank you for the glimpses.

Love,

Ecka