This is one of my favorite pictures of Marshall and me.
This was at a waltz class we were taking in Sept. 2004.
Marshall and I were dance partners for the classes.

Just because I don't post on here very often doesn't mean I don't think about Marshall very often.  I think about him all the time.  My heart still has a hole in it.  A piece of me is still missing.  I still long to see him and know him again.  "Uncle" Marshall has three nieces now; they will never know him on this earth.  It makes me sad every time my daughter T points to his picture on the fridge and I say, "Uncle Marshall."  She won't get to know him.  She won't get to see my relationship with him.  It is getting so weird now becoming friends with people who have never met him.  I feel like it's a part of ME they can never get to know.  I am thankful for so many of those who did know him and still know me well.

I still have dreams about him.  The most recent dream I had was: My family was together at some sort of arena.  Marshall was there visiting us from heaven.  He looked like a normal person to everyone else but we knew he was from heaven.  He had spiky hair and was wearing all black and a trench coat, of course.  There were some "bad guys" who were threatening me.  Marshall threw Chinese throwing stars at them and killed them all - bam, bam, bam - just like that.  His accuracy was incredible and everyone in the audience was amazed.  So dreams are weird but the point of this dream was that Marshall was protecting me.  It reminded me how much he cared for me.  He really did like me even if he didn't say it verbally.  We had this special relationship, this unseen understanding.  I'm sure God is using Marshall for great things right now.

I hate that as time goes on I feel like I am losing memories.  I am so thankful for pictures, letters, and the few videos, but I find it harder and harder to remember what he was really like day-to-day.  In some ways I didn't know him very well at all when he died.  In some ways God gradually distanced our relationship over the 2 years preceding his passing, perhaps to make his final absence easier to bear for all of us?

"I lift up my eyes to the hills.  Where does my help come from?  My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth."  (Ps 121)

There is SO much more I could say ... his absence affects me constantly: when someone asks me how many siblings I have ... when I visit the LEGO store in Orlando, FL ... when I see an mr2 ... when I hear of someone losing their son or brother ... when I look at my own daughter and think about all the thousands of memories I already have with her as her mother and she is only 15 months old - I can only imagine what my parents go through!  ... when someone else says they have three brothers and I have to stop myself from saying . "Me too!" so that I don't have to go through the whole story ("well, I mean, I used to, but now I just have two ... one died in a car accident ... uh, yeah, don't really want to tell the whole story right now") ... and when I hear of anyone dying anywhere ... O Lord, comfort the broken-hearted.  I know You fill my life with good things.

And to think ... God chose to lose His one and only Son for us scumbags!  Wow, I've never even thought of the grief of God the Father as His Son died!

I cling to the promise of seeing Marshall again.

Heidi