Remembering Cody

Today snuck up on me for the first time in 18 years.  Usually, I know it's coming for weeks to come.  I feel it in my muscle memory and it haunts my self conscience.  But this year, I remembered it only when someone said the date and I said to myself, "hmm, what is today, besides the day before Fathers Day?"  I should have remember and terrified I realized that the time had finally come that I would forget the day my only sibling was killed. 

Instead, I saw a hawk on Spanish dagger, my little boy walked by me in his cowboy hat, I heard the jiggling of my husbands spurs and in the background I heard someone playing Tejano music.  Clearly Cody came back to me in a very peaceful way and not in the sudden, grief filled explosion of the first ten years after he was gone. 

He has almost been gone as long as he was alive and that also brings a certain sadness.  Sometimes it feels like a hundred years ago and sometimes it feels like yesterday.  I know as an old woman I will still remember his smile and all of our wonderful times together and yet it feels so good not to constantly relive the pain of the loss, but to celebrate that he was here at all.

Remembering Cody

(1973-1993)

Cody at two years old

our first trip to a mall to see Santa

Cody at eight years old

His ninth birthday

Cody at eighteen years old

His side kick Cowboy

On a rodeo trip to Montana and Wyoming

Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:  Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; Great is your faithfullness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion, therefore I will wait for Him.  - Lamentations 3:17