Dear Becky,

I’ve wanted to write you again and life is hectic and busy and the time has been hard to come by.  So much has happened since the letter I wrote you just 15 weeks after you left us. We are just short of eight months since that day. This is hard for me to fathom.

The biggest change is that on Friday, July 22 Amity, Dara and I left Rosalia on what is  likely our last trip between Washington and Oregon. Jake followed us the next day with a moving truck and Andy in the pick-up.  Jake and the girls are living in Philomath now and I love this new arrangement. The house they are renting is small and abused and will not be their final landing place, but it is a fine place from which to seek their long-term Oregon home. I get to see the girls nearly every-day and we’ve enjoyed the sweetness of a late-blooming Oregon summer. We’ve been to Otter Beach, picked Strawberries, picked Blackberries, recycled cans, enjoyed coffee drinks, and played in parks. This weekend we will all be at South Beach together for the church’s Family Camp. School is only a couple of weeks away with registration next week. The girls and I have been by there a couple of
times and they are excited and just a bit anxious about this next step in their journey. I’ve so enjoyed getting to know the girls better. They each have their strengths and their weaknesses and very distinct personalities that reflect both you and Jacob. I love them dearly and you have reason to be proud of them and the depth of their strong love for you.

Jake is amazing. And so is God! Within two weeks of moving here and starting the job-hunting process Jake had two job-offers from which to choose.  He starts Monday, August 22 at the Corvallis Clinic as a Building Engineer. Isn’t that exciting? Somehow this rich provision is a confirmation to me that the move here is being blessed by God. It also gives me comfort – a knowing that God was in the midst of you leaving us. I can’t explain beyond that, but then I suspect you know much more than I about that situation.

For the months after you died I struggled to understand how I could be faithful to the off-hand promise I made to you that if anything ever happened to you, then your Dad and I would be a support to Jacob in raising the girls. I am at peace now as I get to help on a nearly daily basis and will provide before and after school help to the girls while Jacob works. The girls and I have shared our feelings about you so often and we’ve remembered you with joy and sadness.  We are thinking about how we will celebrate your birthday and what will Thanksgiving and Christmas look like? We get to process all of this together and it helps so much.

I am still overcome at times with the unreal reality of you gone. It surprises me – this intense grief that hovers over me like a predator of which I’m unaware until it swoops in and I’m undone. These attacks are becoming less frequent, but when they come they are no less intense. And I can never sense when one is around the corner. In some ways it feels like the accident and losing you all over again each time. There was no way to prepare for that and no quick and easy way to ‘adjust’ to the lack of you. And the adjusting goes on and on and on.

Becky, no doubt about it, you are missed – intensely missed. Your absence is shaping our lives even more than your presence did. I completely trust that God is in the present process of making our lives into something beautiful even through that absence.

Oh – I hear the girls and Jacob!  Time to sign off!  Love you forever!
Mom