Each year is a new experience. We celebrate birthdays, wedding anniversaries, even sobriety.
Today, I commemorate the third year since my first wife passed away. If I were to talk of the last three years, transition would be the first word that comes to mind. Lots and lots!
I remember back three years to that day I held Jill in my arms as she collapsed, certain that something had happened to her heart. She was one of the best gauges of her own health I have ever seen.
She knew.
Within 24 hours, despite superb care in the Cardiac Care Unit, she was dead.
We sang over her in the last hours. Friends and family gathered. The memories are vivid.
And then she walked in her next moment without heart problems. With her friend, confidante and rescuer – Jesus. That picture, for me, is as vivid as those last hours of gasping breath and dying mercy.
These things stand out to me on this anniversary!
We too, remember our Jill on this day. Missing her beautiful spirit and joy so much but so happy too, that she is whole and complete and safe in the arms of Jesus.