Two babies a year ago

Here is where my heart was a year ago.

And my brother's condition has really done a tailspin over the last 48 hours.

I just want to be with my siblings. 

To mourn together 

remember together 

prepare together.

But I'm so far away.  I told Chris I felt like an outsider.  Like someone who hasn't walked with everyone.  Someone who hasn't been in the trenches and seen and felt the nearness of death.

I pray.  And I trust that God is working through this hideous parade of suffering.  It's perplexing.  It's maddening.  It's dark.  But living in Seattle has taught me to trust that sunlight exists even though I may go days and weeks without it.  Cling to hope.  Ride the dark ride and cling to the belief that at the end of this tunnel of exile, sunlight will warm my face and expel the chill in my bones and evaporate the tears on my face.