6 Months

Yesterday was 6 months. Half a year! It doesn't seem that long, but sometimes it feels like forever ago since I last saw him. I wore all black like I always do on the 22nd. Marshall liked black. I have been so caught up in wedding stuff these past few weeks that I haven't even had time to let myself grieve or even think about Marshall. So yesterday when we went to the grave site, it was just all bursting to come out. Mason drove us to the cemetery but stayed in the van the whole time. :-( Mom, Dad, and Madison worked on the grave: we put a vase with flowers and two flags at the head of the grave for Memorial Day and Mom and Madison made a cross with rocks.

But I didn't want to be near anyone. I walked around the cemetery looking at other graves. People do a lot for their dead. I cried this time and I was sad. But I did feel a lot of peace about the situation. Marshall is in heaven. I will see him again someday soon! That is what I have to keep repeating to myself. Marshall will be at my wedding in spirit. I just hope that I will be happy on my wedding day and not crying that he is not there. God is with me always and Marshal is with our Lord; that is much to be happy about, besides the fact that I am marrying the most wonderful man! But I still wish my brother were here. I just miss his presence. Even when he was in Iraq, it was so different. He wasn't here, but he was somewhere. He was in Iraq. It was a specific place that I knew where he was and I could think about him and imagine what he was doing right then and pray for him. For a while after his death I caught myself starting to pray for him in Iraq, just out of habit because I did it so often before. "And God, please be with Marshall right now in Ir --- oh, wait." And then it would just make me so sad to remember, "Heidi, he's not in Iraq. He's dead." But he is somewhere. The good thing about visiting the cemetery is that it always makes me think of the coming resurrection. If anything, one of the best things that has come from my brother going to heaven has been that I think about heaven and the next life so much more! Paul says, "Set your mind on things above, not on earthly things." Applying that has become much less of a struggle.

So I can rest in that Marshall is in the happiest place, and God will be with me in four days at my wedding. I think that God will make it an extra special day and will fill me with joy and not sorrow. You, dear reader, can pray for that.

Love,
Heidi

Marshall's Head Stone

We went to Marshall's grave this morning and placed his head stone from the Army. Cecil, the owner and caretaker of Live Oak Cemetery, was there with his great grandson and showed us where to put it. He said to my dad, "I don't know if you know this, but my wife died on the 20th." She died just 5 days after their 71st anniversary! Cecil is 94 and his wife was 95 when she died last Friday (April 20). Wow. I can't even imagine living 71 years together with the same person. Cecil also had a brother die in Iwo Jima. We saw his wife's grave as we were driving out of the cemetery; it was in the older part next to his brother.

We dug a little hole and placed the head stone in it at the top of the grave. It was quiet. I took some pictures. Mom and Mason said almost nothing. I felt numb. I didn't cry at all. It was too sureal. Is this really happening? We aren't really putting a tomb stone on my brother's grave, are we? His birth and death dates are entirely too close together. October 10, 1986 - November 22, 2006.

Death is all around us. People die. Maybe someday I won't be so stunned at that thought. Cecil's wife died. His brother was killed. It happens to everyone.

So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God's hands, but no man knows whether love or hate awaits him. All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. ... Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

- Ecclesiastes 9:1-2, 10

the existing grave marker

Derek digging the hole

Mason and Derek setting the grave marker in place

Love,
Heidi

There is this Superchick song that I have heard a million times but I heard it again today and it was like something hit me over the head. I guess I haven't heard it since the accident.

The song is on their website, http://www.superchickonline.com/index2.html. It's kind of a cheesy song overall, or maybe it just sounds that way to me because I have heard it so much. But it just reminds me that what happened to my family is not like this huge tragedy that has never happened before; things like this happen all the time. Death is here. It seems that every person has a tragedy to tell.

There's a cross
on the side of the road
where a mother lost her son
how could she know
that the morning he left
would be their last time
she'd trade with him for a little more time
she could say she loved him one last time
and hold him tight
but with life we never know
when we're coming up to the end of the road
so what do we do then
with tragedy around the bend?

[chorus]
we live, we love
we forgive and never give up
cuz the days we are given
are gifts from above
and today we remember to live and to love

There's a man
who waits for the tests to
see if the cancer has spread yet
and now he asks
so why did I
wait to live till it was time to die
if I could have the time back how I'd live
life is such a gift
so how does the story end?
well this is your story
and it all depends
so don't let it become true
get out and do what we were meant to do

Waking up to another dark morning
People are mourning
The weather in life outside is storming
But what would it take for the clouds to break
For us to realize each day is a gift somehow someway
So get our heads up out of the darkness
And spark this new mindset and start to live life cuz it ain’t gone yet
And tragedy is a reminder to take off the blinders
And wake up and live the life we’re supposed to take up
Moving forward with all our heads up cuz life is worth living

The second verse struck me as well about something my roommate Blanca has been sharing with us. She has a friend who has cancer on his brain stem. She went to see him last weekend and she said he is completely different from how he was a few years ago before the cancer. He can't move, speak, or swallow, and he can't really see. All he can do is nod his head.
As she was sharing I just kept think, "God, why, why? Why is there so much pain and sadness and death and sickness in this world? Couldn't there be another way?" I just have to ask that question; I don't really need an answer. I think everyone asks that question at least once in their life. I feel like I do all the time, especially about Marshall stuff and when I see or hear about something so sad in nursing school. It is just so hard to believe sometimes that God has a super huge plan for everything and we just have to believe that it is amazing and that is all works together for good. I cannot WAIT to see that big plan and have God explain to me His purposes for things like this.

I guess it makes us go to Him. Desperate circumstances make us desperately rely on God. And that is a good thing. The best thing. I have felt the closest to God at the lowest points in my life: those times when I feel like everything is out of my control and I have nothing else I can do and I am just on my knees (or more frequently, under the bed) crying and telling God I need Him and can't do anything without Him. But those have been some of the most amazing moments in my life, when I feel God's presence the strongest. He is there and He cares and loves me so much.
Jesus says, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

Love,
Heidi

Birthday

Marshall and Mason in the Bluebonnets on Easter

Today is Marshall's Spiritual Birthday. That means that about 15 years ago when he was 4 or 5 years old he accepted Christ into his heart as His Savior. We didn't know the exact day it happened, but he remembered it was in April, so he picked the 10th day of April to celebrate it. I remember when he was baptised (he was around 10 years old I think) in the lake he had to give his testimony first - that is the story of how he was saved. He told it like he always did: "Well, I got saved by a trash can." I don't remember if he added anything to that. :-) Does anyone remember his baptism? I just remember it being cold and Marshall being small and skinny, of course. But he was so happy!

On November 22, 2006, Marshall understood more than ever before the importance of that little prayer he made by the trash can in his room when he was a little boy. He finally got to meet the God he swore to follow! And God said to him, "Well, done, good and faithful servant! Come and share your master's happiness!"

Marshall's Slideshow

Update: Slideshow can now be viewed from the link in this post.

Original Post:

I made a slideshow of pictures of Marshall. I made it just for me because it helps me to go through all the memories again, but I thought it would mean a lot if I posted it for everyone. So here you go.

This is only a shadow of Marshall. There is nothing that can show who he really was adequately, but in this project I tried to preserve some of his uniqueness. The first song is "In the Secret," which was one of the songs we sung at his funeral. It was special to Marshall because it was a song we used to sing at our church (Liveoak) and when he went to a different church when he was in the Army, he was encouraged when they sang this familiar song. The second song is by Marshall's favorite band, Demon Hunter. It is actually my favorite song by them and I know it was one of Marshall's as well. Listen closely as the lyrics are very appropriate for Marshall's situation. It brings me to tears.

There are two files:
large file with music (35 MB) [click to download]
smaller file without music (13 MB) [click to download]

They are in zip folders so you have to just extract the file to view it. The slideshow is pretty long, a little over 10 min. Plan ahead before you watch this: it may be hard to sit through, especially if you knew Marshall and/or his family well.

I still miss him dearly. Some days are seemingly normal and others are terrible. There is a hole in my heart that will never be filled. It has been a little over 4 months.

Please comment if you have anything to say, any reaction to the slideshow, any suggestions, etc. You can also email me.

Love,
Heidi

More A Grief Observed

"... all human relationships end in pain - it is the price that our imperfection has allowed Satan to exact from us for the privilege of love."

- C. S. Lewis' step-son Douglas Gresham

in the introduction to A Grief Observed

Heidi

A Grief Observed

Over the Christmas break, my family read A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis. He wrote it when his wife of 4 years died of cancer. It is a passionate and honest journal of a man's struggle with grief and thoughts about life, death, and God. He originally published it under the pseudonym N. W. Clerk, but so many people gave it to him as a gift because they thought it would help him in his grief that he revealed the authorship. Perhaps my dad will give a sermon on it some day; it so affected him. I will post quotes from the book every once and a while that impacted me the most.

The opening line: “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

Heidi

Marshall's Car

Mom took this picture of Marshall soon after he bought his car.

Mason and I had quite an adventure the past two days! After the Army Memorial Service for Marshall in Fort Hood on Thursday morning, Mason and I drove up to Dallas to pick up Marshall's Toyota MR2 that had been there for a few months. Marshall had a new engine put in it with turbo, a turbo timer, some new stuff for the clutch, and I don't know what else. Well, when we got to the mechanic, he said it still wasn't ready and to come back in a few hours. Right. So Mace and I got dinner together and saw a movie (Night in the Museum - pretty good), and then called him back around 8pm since we hadn't heard from him yet. He said he would call us back in 20 min. Nope. After sitting in the parking lot of the movie theatre for an hour, we decided to make our way over to the shop. Well he ended up working on it really late, so we called up a friend and he let us stay with him at his parents' house! The mechanic said he would work on it through the night and we could pick it up in the morning. In the morning we went to the shop at around 10:30, and, surprisingly, he was almost done with it. We finally left Dallas at around noon that day, with the car! I had fun driving around Dallas, getting lost, and hanging out with Mason. I like adventures. I only wish this didn't have to be done under these circumstances. The car is a sharp reminder of Marshall and who he was.

More later.
Heidi

Army Memorial Service

The Army is having a special memorial service just for Marshall next week. It is so late because November 22 marked the beginning of their holiday, so they had to schedule it later in January. The memorial service is this Thursday, January 11, at 10:00am at Fort Hood. We need to know as soon as possible if you plan on attending because the Army needs to know how many seats to reserve for us. I will be there with the rest of my family (except Hannah). You can reply to this post or email Dad or me.

I hope you all had a merry Christmas. This was a hard one for us but it was good. I hope to update you all soon.

Love,
Heidi

Getting Better All The Time

A common activity for Mace: playing Ricky's Wii that he graciously left for him until he comes back to Austin for Christmas.

Mason’s condition continues to improve. He went to the outpatient burn clinic on Saturday and had hardly any debridement at all. Mom said they basically did the same thing she does at home (which includes cleaning the wounds, applying ointment, and wrapping in bandages). They want Mason to come back next Saturday, but Dad said they probably won’t go because he doesn’t think it is necessary unless Mom needs more supplies or something. He only has bandages on his lower right leg now and has been up and about more often. He uses crutches but today he has been walking a little bit without them! It is like a “sliding limp” - I don’t really know what to call it – but I think the fact that he has started moving without crutches is great no matter how it looks! :-) He says he has to get better for his soccer game on January 4th – umm, I don’t think that is going to happen. I think he says it half-jokingly. That has been one thing really amazing about this whole thing: Mason has been so light-hearted and cheerful! I can’t imagine what it would be like if we were all emotionally exhausted AND Mason would be down or irritable or something. But he is always making us laugh by his jokes and witty comments. It is such a joy for me to be at home with my family during this time. I am almost done with finals; my last one is on Tuesday at 2pm and I have been studying a lot for it. I have to pass it to pass the class, so yeah, that is something you can pray for me.

Thank you to everyone who reads this blog and also to those who post comments. I think it has been something that has helped me in the healing process as it gives me an outlet to share how I am feeling. Knowing that people care about me and my family is so comforting. I thank my God for you!

Love,
Heidi