I’m not sure if this is important to anyone or if this is
just me that needs to write this to get it out...but here it goes. An explanation the best way I know how. In written form.
Parenting decisions can be tough. Right? So many variables
and each child is so different and what they each need can be so different. I
will try to make this as short and succinct as I can without getting too wordy. Well, I will at least try :)
7 years ago when my dad died, my husband felt very strongly
that it would be the best choice for our girls to send them to the school where
their cousins were so, we as a family, could be together. He thought it would be
a good idea for me to be close to my sister during our grief and well beyond and for our girls to be with their cousins. I
fought him. I fought him tooth and nail. I begged to not send me back to where
I grew up. I’m not a country girl. I never was but there I sat with a decision to be made
to go back to where I came from.
Do I say yes to take the girls out of their school and place them up with their
cousins and me with my sister (which that part I loved...it was the drive and
disconnect from my life down here that I didn’t want to leave) or keep them where they were. Jim was very adamant about this decision to send the girls up
to the school with their cousins at New Life. I finally acquiesced.
For the first few years I begged him to let us go back to Parkway.
Not for any other reason other than the fact that I knew the area around New Life wasn’t our community we were living in. We were so far away. I
watched the girls build friendships and fit the best we good despite that though. Great school. Great people. It just always came back to the distance and how far removed from the community up there we were but everyone was so awesome at including the girls despite that distance.
The summer of 2015 before the 2015/16 school year began, maybe
Jim got tired of me begging him to lessen our drive and let us go back to
Parkway or maybe it was just coincidence that the subject came up again one
summer night that we take them back to Parkway. I think the thought of
driving that far weighed on us all as we looked to start that upcoming school year.
Truth be told, at that point, I had settled into the fact that this is where the girls were
going to stay. I had realized that it wasn’t about me it was about them anyways. I had begun to
make a few friends and the girls were doing well so quite honestly I had given
up asking him for us to go back. The
subject, however, came up that summer night that what if they went back to Parkway. We talked about our community and how our church and a lot of
the people there overlapped into Parkway. The girls still had friends there and
the drive was much less. We discussed that option as we talked about sports and
events just being closer and friends being significantly closer and us not
being so far removed from a community of people like we were up at New Life.
Emma, however, was adamant though that we stay one more year for Grace’s senior year. We all agreed that that was the best choice. We decided to re
visit the option of leaving after Grace graduated in 2016. A decision I would later come to realize was
the most profound and necessary decision of Emma’s life to date. So we stayed.
Obviously, you know the rest of the story. Grace’s accident happened
3 weeks into the new year of 2016 and changed the trajectory of our entire
lives and will for the remainder of all our lives I'm sure.
We grappled with, what
I felt was the worst decision of my entire life, as we began to watch grief
unfold in my girls. I had told my sister that we had wanted to send the girls
back to Parkway after Grace had graduated but said after the accident that we
would stay at the school for them as long as needed instead now.
Like I said though I
began to watch grief unfold for our girls and, for more reasons then I could write or even
articulate at this point, it began to be very very clear that we were to take
them out of New Life and send them back to Parkway. Reasons, that I told
several people from New Life, were beyond what I could explain. It was more of
a just ‘knowing’ that they needed to live out the rest of their schooling in a
building that was separate from a reminder around every corner of Grace.
We
wanted the girls to all grieve at their own pace without being thrust into or
forced into talking about or facing every detail constantly but rather give them the ability to process their own grief at their own pace apart from everyone watching them. We wanted them to be able to cycle through it without onlookers.
This is where the
parenting decision making is tough. I told a mom at New Life, that nobody pulls you to the
side when you have a baby and gives you a handbook on how to raise kids in the
event of extreme, untimely and tragic death. Nobody told us how to do this. We
just were two parents, praying and trying our best to protect our kids and
guide them through extreme loss when even we were turned upside down in shock and grief. We also knew that you were not suppose to make big life decisions that first year of grief. We fully believe that God, in His mercy and wisdom, went ahead of us and the day before the accident we went to a Parkway open house so that God could remind me that we made the decision apart from and before our intense grief not in the midst of it. God was so faithful to do this for us.
It was the worst decision for me personally though because
I felt like I had to choose between staying and supporting my sister or
leaving and choosing my girls (which I later realized was not the case bc I found out I could choose both her and them but be in a different place but felt like it during that season). My decision was excrutiating though and one that I did
not take lightly. I prayed and prayed for guidance to know what was the right
decision. Jim and I finally had peace and knew we were suppose to take the
girls out and send them back to Parkway.
We knew that people were going to ask
questions, we knew people were going to question how I could leave my sister at
a time like this (I had one mom tell me she would fill in for me as the sister roll to
Sara if I left...that felt wonderful), we knew it wasn’t going to make sense to
most people, heck, it wasn’t fully making sense to us either. We just knew we had a
peace knowing that this was the very right decision for our girls. We went
forward with our decision. Bumpy. Haphazard. Not perfect. But sincerely and genuinly
about the well being of our girls. Maybe not a choice everyone would have chosen
but again each child needs different things and each family is responsible to
God for the kids they have been entrusted to by him and Jim and I take this responsibility
very very seriously.
And so they started back at Parkway for the 2016/17 school
year. Confirmation was given with every step that this was exactly the perfect decision for
all 3 of our girls. And with each confirmation, I would point out to the girls
how God has confirmed over and over again that we have them in the exact right place for them.
A few months ago, as the girls and I were driving home, I
off handedly made a comment that we wasted the last 5 years of our lives
driving up so far to New Life and should have just stayed put at Parkway. There
was a long pause from all 3 of them (they all looked at each other as if they
had talked about that subject many many times before without me....sisters do that kind of
stuff) and they slowly proceeded and said mom, can you promise us that you will
never say that those 5 years were wasted ever again? I paused because they were
all very serious and honestly we are never that serious so I was stopped
cold....I slowly asked why, girls? With tears in one of their eyes, they slowly
said it wasn’t a mistake to be up there....it was an act of God. They proceeded to tell me that He directed our steps to that school for the
last 5 years of Graces life for them to spend every moment of every day with
their beautiful cousin. To make every memory possible, to be in every event so
closely with her that they would have all those precious moments to cherish now for the
rest of their lives that they now have to live without her. At that point, I
had to pull over because I was crying so hard. I realized that, while Jim
pushed so so hard to send us up there and I complained about that decision for
probably the first few years constantly I, at that moment, realized that God
so clearly ordered our steps to New Life for that reason alone. Grace. To be with Grace for
her final years and to build a strong relationship with Evelyn that would
help carry us through this very deep valley. That realization in that moment of God's bigger picture than I could see, was one of the most profound moments of my entire life.
Last night, was the sports banquet and as Brooke’s new soccer
coach spoke about Brooke and seeing her play for New Life last year and how she
was excited about Brooke coming back to Parkway to play soccer I smiled through my glassy eyes. Brooke was suppose to be given the #6 jersey like she had at New Life
but that was taken so they gave her #5. I'm sure they didn't realize
this but 5 in Biblical terms is the number of Grace. Brooke played
all year with jersey #5. Pretty significant to us. My heart was
again reminded last night that our choice to move them was the most perfect decision we
could have every made for them. But, as tears streamed down my face, I thought 99% of
the people in that room last night had no idea of what the weight of that decision
to move them back held for me and how excruciating it felt to feel the guilt of seeming to choose my girls over my sister. Or the overwhelming fear I had of losing my relationship with my sister if Jim and I made that decision
to move them back. Now, after the fact, I have realized that I can have both. I can love both Sara and my girls and we can still be close... it's just not at the same school. I realized again, that it was the right choice. I realized a few months ago when talking to the girls in the car that day, that moving them to New Life was also the
right choice 6 years ago where they got to spend every waking moment
possible with their cousins. And it was the right choice to move them back to
Parkway again. All those steps were ordered by God.
Sometimes, life doesn’t make sense when you’re in the
moment. Sometimes, you can’t understand if you’re going forwards or backwards.
We’re not given a handbook for the exact right paths for each of our kids. We
are given the Word of God to raise them up to love and follow Him but the
details on what school, team, college, car, etc etc are not laid out clearly
all the time for us. That’s where trust and peace come into play. All our
decisions might not make sense to everyone around us. That’s alright. They don’t
need to. They didn’t make sense to me 6 years ago. Now they do and I trust that
God will keep ordering our steps like He always has. He is faithful to do that always and
will continue. He knows all along what He's doing. We just need to listen and follow even when it doesn't make sense.
I encourage you to do the same with your kids. Give them to God,
they are a gift from Him anyways, pray for wisdom on how to raise them, where
to send them and what to do. The answers might be surprising sometimes and
there might be years that go by when you think, what am I doing? Is this right? Do I have the
wrong direction? Then God pulls it all together and lets you know He’s had a
plan all along and whispers gently to you at a sports banquet that you’re doing
alright and you’re listening to Him. Just keep going because I'm confident that He’s ordering your steps, too.
And for the record, Jim was right to move them. There I admitted he was right in written form! It's a happy day for him ;)
