Top Ten Things I'll Miss the Most: The End

#2 and #1 – My Cot Carriers and My Girls

I have struggled to write the last two of my Top Ten, so I’m just putting them together.  They bleed into each other.  They are so close to my heart it hurts less to try the denial tactic when thinking of saying goodbye.

Several years ago, I sat across the table from Cheri (whom I call my spiritual mother) and cried.  I had faced hurts before, but the road in front of me at that time was more than I could bear.  Cheri assured me that, yes, it was more than I could bear alone, but God never said I had to walk alone.  She read me the story in Mark 2 of the man who lay paralyzed on a mat.  Jesus assured the man that his own faith had healed him but when he was incapable of doing so on his own, it was his friends who carried him to Jesus.  Cheri promised to carry my cot at the times I was incapable of getting through on my own.  She kept that promise ten fold.  But one person alone can’t carry your cot, so others came alongside me and poured out their love, care, affection, kindness and grace.  God used Mike, Mikele, Deb, Dr. Jim, Janay and so many others to carry David and I as He strengthened our faith and healed us. 

Each of those people holds a piece of my heart.  They saw me at my worst and carried me anyway.  They knew the cost and still chose to love me.  That is a rare gift.  Everyone needs to know that feeling.  My feelings for the friends who carried my cot are deeper than words can express.  How do you say goodbye to the ones who carried you to Jesus?  I can’t.  All I can do is trust and know that the Jesus in me has seen the Jesus in each of you and that makes every mile between us Holy Ground.  And Holy Ground makes us family.

Sometimes your family carries your cot and sometimes carrying your cot transforms friends to family.  Hope and Brandy will always be my sister-friends.  I have the rare privilege of calling their girls my goddaughters, and I hold that responsibility with the utmost honor.  It makes me sad to think I’ll be farther away from gymnastics meets and first steps and birthdays, but I know we will remain connected as we have for almost 20 years because our hearts are linked. 

But now I have more than just two to miss.  When I moved to Dallas I thought I’d never again know the type of friendship forged over time.  I assumed that only someone who has known you since you were 12 can feel as close as family. I’m so grateful God proved me wrong.  I am sad with a hole in my heart but because there will be a void in the absence of my girls.  I will miss being there the day Kelly, Kelli and Tania bring home their first babies.  I won’t be there when Lisa finds her wings and really learns to fly.  I will miss comparing shoes with Kris and dancing with Cassandra, Brittney and Kemi.  I will miss laughing about life’s messes with Stephanie, Jami, Kim and Yanci.

And then there’s Janay.  We laugh that on the outside we couldn’t look more different but somehow people continue to mix up our names.  We just chalked it up to the fact that we’re so alike on the inside it spills out and confuses people.  When I inspect myself through a raw and honest lens, I know that my life would look completely different without my sister-friend.  God used Janay to open my ears to Him.  I couldn’t have learned many of the lessons I have in the past several years or grown and matured as I have without her friendship.  We have sharpened each other as iron but more importantly, she was the laughter I needed in the midst of hurt.  She understood my jokes and my life experiences.  When I felt alone, she was the one with whom I could be my real, authentic self.  She understood the color of my heart.  That safety and security softened me to hear God’s voice. 

I can’t begin to understand what life is going to feel like without my girls.  It doesn’t seem possible that I’ll wake up tomorrow and they won’t be down the street.  I keep hearing in my mind a poem by E. E. Cummings.  It ends with…

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)