Marshall's Maple

Marshall's little tree is growing bigger! It is flourishing. Dad put new mulch around it recently and a little soldier guards the trunk.






"Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants . . ."

Heidi

R.I.P.

I read this in my quiet time this morning:

The righteous perish,
and no one ponders it in his heart;
devout men are taken away,
and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away
to be spared from evil.
Those who walk uprightly enter into peace;
they find rest as they lie in death.

- Isaiah 57:1-2

Have I even read this before? It was underlined in my Bible. I need to be reminded of this! Did someone share this verse with me soon after Marshall's death? Probably. People shared a lot of encouraging words, and I would keep telling myself to write them down so that I could actually process them later. Now I can let myself think about these things. It is hard to understand why God took Marshall away, and that is exactly what this verse is saying. Isn't that what people always ask? "Why did God do this to me?" God always has a grand purpose that is good for everything that happens on this earth. I forget that. Marshall's death spared him from evil. Marshall was immediately taken from this fallen world into blissful reality. He went from seeing shadows of truth to seeing Truth itself! Marshall is in peace. He is at rest. His soul really is "resting in peace."

I miss his uniqueness. I miss being around him. I miss his presence, his personality. Last night at Bible study we were sharing the results of a personality test we had taken, and I couldn't help but think of Marshall when I saw the characteristics of "Reserved." He fit them so perfectly!

- works alone or one on one (definitely)
- be serious (not so much Marshall)
- be practical
- not worry about what others think (definitely him!)
- be modest
- work quietly and listen (definitely - I worked along side of him a lot and he would do the job quietly, quickly, and perfectly. He was also a good listener. Sometimes on the way to school or on the way back home, I would just be driving and blabbing and he would just listen to me ... )
- be withdrawn, alone
- appear secretive
- be pessimistic
- be curt
- appear shy
- drained by social contact (not so much Marshall - I wouldn't say he was drained by it, he just went with the flow, but normally wouldn't seek out contact of people he didn't know very well.)

Mom used to say he was like a Labrador Retriever. I imagine a big, gentle yellow lab with shaggy hair ... laid back, doesn't get too excited or too angry about anything, even-paced, patient, very loyal, but has this firey streak in him that lashes out when someone puts his family in danger.

I just miss knowing him. I am afraid I will forget who he was. IS, Heidi, IS! Who he IS! I have to keep reminding myself that he still IS - he is still the same person who God made him to be. Now that he is with his Creator, he is all the more the Marshall God made him to be now that sin is not warping that beautiful creation. Oh I can't wait to see him again! I wonder what he looks like? I wonder what he is doing right now? Will he look the same? Will he still be 20, skinny, cute, and smart? I want to see that little smirk again - when he knows he's just said something funny and you look over at him and there he is, just sitting there with that sparkle in his eyes and that little smirk on his face. Oh gosh I miss him. Tears are streaming down my face ... I'm crying for Mason too ... I wonder what he is thinking about while at Basic Training ... does he not think of his brother all the time? His letters are so like Marshall's - even the handwriting looks the same.

I just realized that this Blog is called, "Hagen Updates" but I'm not a Hagen anymore! Oh well.

Heidi

Inside my head

I don't know what to say. The pain is here again. But it's different this time. I'm different. God has done something amazing through marriage. There was this huge hump of grief before me, and I think that I was so happy and so excited and so in love that God got me over that hump. It was like a haze around me and Derek was my sunshine that broke through. God allowed me to be happy again - not just regular happy but to feel a deep, deep peace, excitement, satisfaction, joy. After the wedding and the honeymoon and all that, I still miss Marshall like crazy, but I feel like I am more like myself again - finally. I can be free. I can be carefree. Derek brings out the little Heidi and it feels so good to be that little girl again! I don't have to feel sad for Marshall. I used to feel guilty whenever I would start to feel happy because somehow it felt like I wasn't appreciating Marshall enough if I was happy that he was gone. It wasn't that I was happy that he was gone, but somehow my mind made it out to be that way. But now, it's like God gave me a license to be happy. Truly happy, completely happy - oh, how can I describe it? So marriage is wonderful and God is good. I still miss Marshall like crazy. I don't think that will every go away, and I'm not sure I even want it to.

I recently started my summer internship at Seton and last week I went out to buy scrubs. There were some black ones on sale and I was going to buy the pants anyways, but I went ahead and bought the shirt too so I could wear black on the 22nd of the month. Satan tells me that's dumb. No one really understands. But black was Marshall's favorite color and it is just something I can DO every month for me to remember him by. I almost look forward to the 22nd because it gives me a chance to think about him and remember him. A lot of the time I just block it out because it is too painful. But I try to release it on the 22nd. So it has been 7 months. Can you believe it? That's more than half a year we've been living without him. There is this girl at work who I am just loving getting to know - she is one of the CAs (clinical assistant) and she is super sweet. Yesterday she was showing me a picture of her brother on her phone and she said, "That's my brother Marshall." I gasped. "Marshall??!????" I said, "You have a brother named Marshall?" "Yeah ... why?" Oh. And then I didn't know how to begin. There was another co-worker there. I just said something about my brothers in a car accident in November and he died and my other brother was on the 8th floor for two weeks, etc. Their faces immediately turned sad and concerned and they just seemed like they wanted to comfort me. "Oh I'm so sorry. That's so sad." That's pretty much the best thing people can say. I got all hot and embarrassed and I felt my face turning red. I couldn't say anything else except, "yeah." Hopefully we will get to talk more.

Well, I guess I found something to say. God is working. May I never, ever forget it.

Love,
Heidi

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