Today is Zoe’s fifth birthday. FIVE. Five years since we met and held and said goodbye to our precious Zoe Karis. I can hardly believe that it has been five years since we entered that thin place where heaven and earth drew near and she slipped behind the veil.
Five feels different than the birthdays we’ve experienced so far, like we’ve crossed a threshold of time. She would be a big girl. Maybe picking out a backpack and gearing up for Kindergarten. I think there will always be pangs of sorrow when I see other children her age and grieve that she is not here for those milestones.
The days leading up to her birthday are usually harder for me than the day itself. Today has been filled with joy and celebration of our sweet baby girl’s life. More than the flood of sorrow, today I have just been overwhelmed with gratitude that I get to be Zoe’s momma. What an unbelievable privilege and gift God gave me.
I’ve also swam in the pool of grace that is my memory of God’s care for us. As I usually do this time of year, I went back through my “Zoe boxes” and remembered all the ways that people cared for us while she was sick and after she died. I weep recalling the myriad ways in which our people were the tangible body of Christ to us. We felt so loved by God as his people fed and clothed and wept and prayed with us.
Cody took the day off of work so that we could be together as a family and celebrate our girl today. We had blueberry cobbler for breakfast, as we do for all the birthdays in our family. Then we headed to Richwoods, the holy spot where she is buried. We brought water and brushes to scrub her headstone. Rhett loves to spray in the etched letters of his big sister’s name to flush them clean. We spread out a quilt and read from the Jesus Storybook Bible. We sang songs. We chose to be defiantly hopeful in a place that is presently dominated by death.
In the earlier years after her death, the ground over her grave was slow to grant growth. It was dirt for about two years. And yet ever so slowly, grass began to grow again. Today, the ground was almost all grass. It hurts my heart in some ways, because it reminds me how long it has been since she’s been gone. But in another way—one which I prefer to dwell on—it gives me great hope. It reminds me that God brings life out of dead places. New growth from barren land. Joy in the place of brokenness. Beauty for ashes.
If you find yourself dipping under the swirl of grief, I pray that you know this is true. There is excruciating emptiness in burying one whom you love. I felt as though my very heart had been buried with Zoe. But God does not leave things broken, including the hearts of his people, and he is at work touching all that is broken with the fullness of life. Grass growing over dirt is just a tiny glimpse of the restoration of all creation which we await in the New Heavens and Earth.
And so we eat cake today. We light a candle and sing “Happy Birthday” to a little girl who isn’t seated around the table. It feels clunky sometimes. And other years it has been incredibly heart wrenching to celebrate with any semblance of joy. But we do it anyways because we believe that the real celebration is coming one day. And it’s all because of Jesus.
As we prayed around the dinner table tonight, I thanked God and said “I can’t wait to see Zoe again!”— and Rhett added “and YOU!” What a powerful reminder from the mouth of my precious three year old boy. He wants to see Jesus!! The hope and wholeness offered at the restoration of all things is not because we will see our loved ones again, but that we will be with God himself. Jesus is the true prize of the life to come. The gift of being one day reunited with Zoe Karis makes me love Christ all the more.
The main reason that I write today is for the momma or daddy who might come across this blog in their own very dark days. Cody and I searched and read blogs of bereaved parents as we grasped for companionship on a strange and terrifying road. We wanted to know that someone had walked the rocky way before and had survived. I don’t even know that I truly believed joy could be on the other side, but I wanted to read the stories of those who had managed to keep going. I tremble to think that one such parent might have found this blog. Dear friend, it is awful. Some times there are just no words for how harrowing it truly is. But I want you to know that by the grace of God alone, I stand. And by that same grace, Zoe Karis (and your child!) shall also literally stand again at the Great Resurrection. Keep reminding yourself of the truth. Preach it over and over and over to yourself every single day. May God be near to you in your suffering.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
