Ecclesiastes 3:3

I've gotten email from so many of you who have lost children and wonder that you still grieve so deeply--who somehow feel frail and awkward and guilty about your grief, like maybe you need to hide your pain somehow. This post is for you. It's from a journal entry I wrote a full 18 months after Gavin died, and two months after losing my amazing friend and brother.

The late spring snows have crushed my daffodils again . . . arrrgh! Just when I was so hungry for the sun! But we need the water and my sweet little daffodils are still under there, spunky and resilient. They'll come back--good as new.

This weekend [general conference], I drank in precious, healing waters I know Heavenly Father wanted me to hear. He's been feeling after me and is concerned I know, but I'm still bowed down under the weight of grief come again too soon. If I were a little bird, the coyotes would have gotten me by now. Vulnerable. Wanting to hide.

God understands this need to hide, I'm sure. He waits and watches lovingly, leans toward me, hands patiently folded. Quiet. Tender. Patient. He knows me. Knows I'll find my balance and open up again, come out into the light. I will. Everything in it's time.

We cleaned out Gavin's car on Saturday. Well, Greg did. I love that man. Later, I stood in the laundry room and hugged a shirt that Gav had left in his trunk . . . how long ago? Long enough that his smell was missing. I searched for it, buried my face in that shirt, tried to imagine it. It wasn't there. But I could feel him in the thin, smooth cotton against my cheek, and I held him tight to my chest and cried. Hot, yearning tears. I don't resist them when they come. In many ways, they're part of what I have left of my boy, and it's good to feel them on my face, taste their salt on my lips.

Today, I loved these words from President Uchdorf:

We need the refining lessons of the journey

to craft our character

and purify our hearts.