The smile that heals... (this may be painful to read)

Kadence can smile now, and it's not because of gas or because she has had too much to drink (her milk coma's) it is a smile that warms my heart and fills my soul with joy! I don't know what I would do with out her, especially this week...

This week two years ago- it was a monday much like today...beautiful! I had a couple of meetings but nothing crazy sets apart my day. About two o'clock that day I had a meeting with one of my teens that had talked about killing themselves. We talked about the pain, the hospital stay, and why I had to be the one that called the police and how I could not imagine my life without him. It was emotional but the night before I had researched everything under the sun about suicide because I wanted to understand him greater, wanted to know how I could help. About three or a little later that day I got a call from one of the girls and they couldn't find one of our other teens and said she wasn't answering her phone and wondered if she was with me or if I knew where she was...she wasn't and I didn't. I immediately got in my car and started driving around. I drove to the park, to Lakeland, to the lake...anywhere that had significance...I looked for a broken down car, I looked for signs that would point me anywhere...but I had to find her. I remember being right at Todd George and Langsford and crying out to God saying, "You know where she's at! I am so mad that you won't tell me! God is she okay? God help! God where? God help!" Even remembering the terror in my prayer and the urgency and my tears to Him sends chills all down my body. Right then and there were sirens...and an ambulance appeared out of the   flood of cars. And I said to God, she's hurt? she's at the hospital? And I drove home. As I pulled in the driveway I got a call from one of the girls and they said she was at the hospital at Center Point. They didn't know anything but would call as soon as they did. That night was small group and Andy asked if I wanted to go to the hospital and I said no- I figured she would be bombarded with family and friends and so I wanted to wait till the rush died down and then I would go. So off to small group we went. I remember being distracted and not being able to focus, watching my phone like crazy waiting for an update. Then the phone rang, I excused myself and walked to the end of their hallway and the man on the other line asked if I was Kylie, he told me he was a detective for Independence police department and wanted to let me know that Emily had taken her life (his words, not mine) and I (not knowing why I would ask such a thing) asked with what or how she did it. He said hand gun. I dropped to the floor gasping for air, crying and not being able to form words. Sobbing, uncontrollable sobbing. He said, "sorry for your loss" and hung up. At this point I am in the bathroom of our friends house, curled up in the fetal position crying tears and feeling an emotion I have never felt before. The amount of pain I was feeling at that moment could not be described. I cried and cried, my husband joined me in the bathroom and I cried and cried and cried, and muttered the words she's gone. And cried and cried...just telling you that I cried brings back the emotion that was in that day. I eventually pulled myself together and put on my "professional" face and told andy straight I have to go find Travis. We have to go to miller J, the kids need to know, we have to tell them, we have to go now...we abruptly told our friends we needed to leave and headed to the park. We went to the park, we told the kids, they cried, they smoked...we all tried to find a way to cope. The phone calls started, first to our board, then to volunteers, and friends, and then my family...Emily was not just a teen (although I would argue that none of my kids are "just another teen" they are my life, my family, they mean everything to me...and Emily even more so because I had been close to her since she was 15. She was one of those girls that could just bring a smile to your face and she warmed my heart. We were vulnerable together in our struggles, in our walk with God...Emily was like a little sister I never had. The next days passed and we had a ton of kids passed out all over our floor (this was beautiful) because it was just to painful for us all to be alone. We all wanted to be moved to action yet we were all paralyzed by our grief. Thursday was the visitation and there were so many people, so many lives effected by her smile, her spirit. I remember walking through and being sad for the family of whoever it was that we were mourning but it not sinking in that it was Emily. Friday we buried her, Friday night we had a candle light vigil. I remember praying that night, I remember before I prayed out loud that I told God I wanted those kids to know that they could be mad, that they could grieve, that God was big enough to hold them in their pain and that we did not have to come to him "pretty". We all went home friday...and somehow life was supposed to go back to normal...it didn't...all summer I hibernated...all summer I grieved...all summer I didn't make a single phone call to check on anyone else, I sat in my pain (looking back I regret this but I couldn't muster up the strength to  reach out to anyone). Looking back I wish we would have educated each other on how we grieve because instead of dealing with it we had/have kids that resorted to alcohol, sex, food, cutting, anger, laughing...they all dealt differently with grief and then would get mad at each other when they weren't on the same path. So friendships got strained, and in general life was hard. I cried for 8 weeks straight at church, I wondered if I would ever be able to make it through church and not cry. Days and weeks of loneliness and grief followed. Somewhere I figured out how to suppress the pain...Fall started back and I got into a rhythm...but my rhythm was missing an Emily.

It's been two years this week (last year we went on vacation this week so I didn't have to be in here) since she passed. I am still wounded, I still cry, I still grieve. I try to find her in the weather, and at hobby lobby when I find bedazzled office supplies...but it is just not the same. I want so bad for her passing to mean life change for our city. I want her life to be a change agent in our community, where we rise up and fight for teens and their struggles and we talk about suicide. My life is forever changed because of her passing. I wish desperately that Emily would have gotten to meet Kadence and then I stop and a smirk comes across my face...I have no doubt that she "helped" pick out our little girl. In my head I picture her, my dad, and my grandpa all sitting at a table with God talking about our little girl. Talking to God about what she would look like, how she would smile, what she would like to do, and even the orchestrating of all the little details leading up to Kadence's birth. All of them knew how much I needed to be reminded that God gives and isn't just in the game of taking away. They all knew I had wounds, they all knew I needed a miracle. They all knew how much I needed a little girl of my very own. I think I always would have been grateful for Kadence but I think going through the amount of pain I have gone through in the last 6 years and THEN getting a miracle...makes this miracle all a little sweeter. So, when I look at my little girl and she smiles, it warms my heart...not as a baby smiling at a mommy but as God loving on me, reminding me that He loves me and that He has not given up on us, and that he is still creating miracles in this fallen world. When Kadence smiles I feel My dad tell me Thanks for giving him a granddaughter, and that he is proud of me, and that he loves me. When Kadence smiles I hear my grandpa telling me how beautiful she is and how he wished he could have held her and that I'm going to be a good mom. Then I see Emily in Kadence's smile and I hear her say...here's your little girl we prayed for, now dress her well and make me proud and don't forget to accessorize (I think we are doing fairly well at this:))...I smile for I know Kadence is a special kind of miracle whose smile heals her mommy's broken heart and is a gift from God to meet me right where I am. So this week I will hold Kadence tight, missing Emily and the sunshine she brought to my life but thanking her for helping mold me into the woman and mom I am today. Emily will always be sunshine in my heart, she will NEVER be forgotten.

There is pain this week and I'm feeling it but I also feel God's peace as he has brings healing in my heart...