Palm Sunday

Hey Aaron,

It's Palm Sunday, the beginning of the end of Christ's mortal ministry. 

In some ways, I've been dreading Easter this year. Does that seem strange? But tonight Michael and I went to a Palm Sunday fireside and I actually felt something besides pain. I felt hope, maybe true hope for the first time in over three months. 

I mean, I know it's been there, but not so much in regards to you. I've laughed and had fun, I've smiled, I've felt positive emotions, and lots of comfort along with the crippling pain. 

Although, when the story of Lazarus was mentioned, I remembered holding your hand for those next hours after you passed, hoping you would return. I know it was not in His plan, and was not what you needed, maybe even not what I needed, but still, I hoped...

Hope, in regards to missing you, well, it's been in short supply. 

I know you're fine, you're more than fine. You finished your journey, but you left me behind. 

The music tonight resonated with me. The Spirit has always spoken to me through music, and tonight was no exception. At the end, we sang, "I Believe in Christ." Several years ago in sacrament meeting, we sang that while you were there, and I felt your soul speak to mine. At the time, the words seemed like you speaking to me, "And while I strive through grief and pain, His voice is heard, ye shall obtain." Tonight, they were mine. 

I'm working through my grief and pain, and I do have faith that it will teach me, I am growing and learning, and I am becoming a better person. Through Christ, I can (and will) become who I am meant to be.

At one point, experts taught that grief can be "healed." I don't think that's actually true. Healing implies that it's "all better" and there seems to be something fundamentally wrong with that. To be "all better" would mean I would forget you, or not love you, or something, at least in my mind. And actually, current theories point instead to growing in and through the grief, that it will always be the same size, but we grow and develop further so we become better. 

And I think that's what growth is about. 

Does it mean it doesn't hurt? Oh, NO!! It still feels like a rock sitting in the middle of my own lungs, like my own heart is constricted, and the tears still often flow freely. My guess is that they always will, in one form or another, at least until I see you again.

But Aaron, I will see you again, I know that. You are my son and we will be together again, thanks to the atonement and the resurrection of Christ. He makes this all possible. I could not go on otherwise. 

So I will celebrate this Easter, and hold you close in my heart. 

Love you, little man.

Miss you. 

"Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection,
not in books alone but in every leaf of springtime."

- Martin Luther