That’s how long our Haddie has been enjoying heaven and all it has to offer. If she is with Him, and we know she is, it stands to reason she has no concept of time like we do. Every day is paradise. Who knows what she is experiencing each moment?! Pure joy.
As for us, well we are still stuck in this time thing...where a day is a day. And a week is a week and a year is a year. And for some weird reason we keep track of those days, months, and years and events that happen on them.
Tomorrow morning could be a sad day. We could experience all those emotions we felt that day. We might remember how crazy those moments were as we were doing all we could to hang on. But I think we will do okay. The reality is we’ve either by accident or on purpose relived that moment several times over and over the past year. Kate had the idea of doing some of the fun things Haddie enjoyed doing. So tonight we ate some Olive Garden (she loved spaghetti), we went to the mall and painted (she loved hands on activities), we ate some ice cream (ok admittedly she liked cake way better), we randomly bumped into Haddie’s kindergarten teacher and our good friends who stood by our side that day, Lauren and Jim Keeling (it wasn’t random, God allowed our paths to cross tonight)...and finally...we swam for a couple hours at the Hampton Inn pool where Kate booked a room for us tonight.
Tomorrow is another day. Will we miss Haddie, no doubt. We miss her every day. We might cry. Humans do that on anniversaries and whatnot. But I think we will also smile. We will smile because death doesn’t win in the end. God does. And those who put their faith in Jesus get to experience looking death square in the eye and saying, “nice try. Better luck next...o wait there is no next time. See ya”. We smile because September 25th, 2018 was Haddie’s first day in heaven. And 365 days later she’s probably not even scratched the surface of all of the wonder it contains and holds. And one day, she will get to show us the place and what’s she’s been up to. Maybe it’ll be in a day, maybe a week, maybe a year or 50 years. One day my time will be up. So will yours. But mark this down, we will see our Haddie again.. And my dad. And many others. And most importantly we will see the One who made it all possible. I hope you all will be there too.* What a day that will be.
In closing, thank you for your prayers and love you’ve shown us over this past year. We’ve felt your prayers carry us through some challenging times and we love you and thank you. God is good.
*(If you aren’t 100% sure please send me a message anytime and we can talk. Seriously).
