Musings of a Still-Mourning Sister

                Just over a week ago Bruce and I finally got to see our wedding pictures. They are lovely! Neither of us has a single doubt that we hired the right photographer! We sat down and looked at them all together, and it was like replaying our wedding!

                But something was missing and it has been haunting me ever since. There are various combinations of family members, so that everyone in our immediate families will be able to pick a few to frame that contain the people they want in them. His whole family, our whole family, his siblings and their families…. You know… the usual combinations. My brother Mike got to be in quite a few as he was one of our ushers as well. So I had him in a tux in the wedding party photos as well!

                It was the picture of Bruce and me with my immediate family that has made me cry or at least tear up every day since I saw the pictures. There in the middle is the happy couple, with my mother on the left next to me. On the other side next to Bruce is my father, and next to him is Mike. But alas this family wedding picture is sadly lopsided, for on the other side of my mother a sixth person should be standing. The boy who was my best friend by default when I was born, grew up next to me and encouraged me through hard times, as I did him. The person I always confided in and went to for advice when I didn’t really feel like getting advice, because he knew how to shake sense into me and was wise enough to always have the right answer. The brother I searched for a rental house with in December of 2007 because neither of us wanted to deal with room-mates, and after his recent battle with cancer I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from him.

                Steve had every right to be standing in that picture, as well as many other pictures that day, before, and since. Four Thanksgivings and Christmases have passed since the horrible day we lost him, and every time I look at a picture I sense that something is missing. Concrete thoughts don’t come to mind all the time, just the feeling that not everyone is there. My family is broken… not by our own doing but by the actions of one who was outside of our control. An evil, malicious person took the wonderful brother out of my wedding pictures and out of every holiday photo he should have been in. This past Christmas when I helped to set the table I actually opened my mouth to complain to my mother that we needed another chair, until I remembered the horrible truth. We had enough.

                NO woman should have to look at her wedding pictures and cry, except with joy. No woman should cry on her way to work the day after seeing them because someone so beloved was missing from them, and NO BRIDE should feel sorrow while getting ready, because the photo of her and her brother pinned to her bouquet is the only semblance of him that could stand next to her while she said her vows.

                He should have been there to see me get married and to celebrate with my new husband and I as we set out to have our own family. When I give birth to my first child, Uncle Steve will not be there to hold the little angel. I would like to say that I will be so overcome with joy at the sight of my firstborn that the thought won’t occur to me, but when someone so close has been taken the memories don’t just fade. Sorrow at your loss invades your mind every time something important happens, or every time something reminds you of them or that they are gone. When I give birth to my first son, there is no doubt in my mind that I will bestow the name of my beloved brother on him. It only seems natural.

                Someone else should have been at that wedding too, because he promised me he would tell my husband how he should treat me and take care of me and be the perfect husband etc. Matt should have been there. Granted I had two brothers at the time to take care of lecturing my future husband, but Matt had some sense of brotherly affection that he wanted to be included as a protector as well. And there is no reason he should have been denied that.

                But sadly, they are both missing from my pictures and my life. Two wonderful men that I will be forever thankful to have had in my life are gone. And to murder!?!?!?! I still can’t quite come to grips with it. It’s like a really bad nightmare that comes back to mind every so often to haunt me. Like those dreadful dreams of an alternate reality, and when you wake up from them and realize they were just dreams… just a mental picture of something that didn’t really happen. But for me, the nightmare is a reality. And it is every so often that good things happen and I let my guard down just long enough not to remember that the horrible dream is real. I wake up and realize it was not a bad dream, but reality.

                I have every reason to be happy right now. I have a wonderful husband that I truly think God hand-made just for me, and we are planning for a wonderful future together. We want the same things and are willing to work together to achieve them. Life is not peaches and cream, but we are doing what we have to in order to build the life that we want for ourselves and our future family. We even like our jobs!  But the crime that was committed very early in the morning on June 19^th, 2008 has left my life forever shattered, and all the wonderful gifts God has bestowed upon me will not completely remove that pain until we all are reunited in heaven. For that is the one hope that I hold on to. Someday I will be in heaven and in the midst of God’s glory. Someday I will again be with Steve, he will get to meet my husband. Several have gone ahead of me to see my brother, and I know he has friends from this life in heaven even now. There is a little girl there, whose mother was close to Steve. She left to be in God’s presence at the age of seven. Our dear “Uncle Art” who was a close family friend is there as well, among others. Steve has both mentors and youngsters he knew on earth to keep him company, not to mention the fact that he is in the very presence of our Creator. So why do I still mourn?

                Because I don’t have him. I am jealous of those who get to be with him now. I was robbed of my time with him. I know I will see him again but I was robbed years of life with my brother. I miss him so much, and really I mourn for myself and others who are left without him. I could go on and on with how much he still had to give and how much I miss him but I will close with this:

                When that day of judgment has come and gone, and all those who are to be in the presence of the Lord have been separated from those who made the choice to hold on to their sin instead of allowing Christ to wash it away, I will be in the presence of God and reunited with my brother. I hold on the promise Christ has given me that he will intercede for my behalf because I have put my faith in Him and asked His forgiveness for my sins. That is what keeps me going. I believe in His promise and I believe in the cross. I will be forever with God and His children.

Where will you be?