To Cindy-from Ashley Ingram

My dear friend, what a week this has been—so many special occasions for which you have been missed so very deeply.  Aside from the regular hustle and bustle of every day life, and Anna being sick (which always worried you so for one of the girls to not be well), Addie had two proms this week, Friday was Jacob’s birthday, and today Emirie was baptized.  Anna is feeling much better and has done an absolutely incredible job of being “Anna”—a perfect balance of a big sister and mother figure.  She was sure to leave no detail undone—just as she always does—for Addie’s special days and Jacob’s as well.  As Karen has said before, and you and I spoke of as well, I know that I can talk to you anywhere, but I had to come by your grave just to tell you how incredibly amazing your two girls are.  They are truly beautiful both inside and out, and their wisdom, strength, and character continue to impress me even when I think they cannot impress me any further.  I hope that I can be even a fraction of the mother that you were.  Again, I come back to my selfishness, but we missed you so much this morning.  Emirie’s baptism is something that you and I talked about before she was even born, and I wish that you could have shared in it with us on earth.  The service this morning opened with us singing “Holy Ground”, and when we sang the verse “…and I know that there are angels all around…”, I really struggled to regain my composure.  I do, however, know that you were all around. 

Also this week, I attended my first “post-funeral” funeral.  It’s never “fun” to go to a funeral and never is it something that you look forward to with any sort of positive anticipation.  Funerals are, however, the opportunity to see an outpouring of love and support for someone gone from this earth, and are often a testament to who a person was during their earthly years.  My friend, yours was the most impressive display I have ever seen, which was truly fitting—a very appropriate response to the person that you were and the person that we all miss so deeply.  You know that I am generally not an outwardly emotional (or at least not outwardly tearful) person—although that has changed very drastically in these last few weeks.  Knowing that my mind would without question be flooded with memories of you and the day that we gathered to celebrate your life, my apprehension about attending this funeral was high because I did not want to be a blubbering mess in front of my coworkers.  Again, I was given the grace to keep it together, only shedding a couple of tears, for which I was very grateful.  As in so many experiences over the last few weeks, God has put me in the perfect place at the perfect time, and this funeral was yet another one of these instances.  The pastor that gave the message compared losing someone to leaving your firstborn baby with a babysitter for the first time—appropriate for me, right?  He said how you know that they are in safe hands, are happy to be where they are, and will be better for it.  He also said how despite knowing all these things, you want them with you and believe that no one can care for them the way that you can.  Again, drawing a metaphor to letting a loved one go.  Certainly, we know that you are in a much better place, and it is not for your betterment that we want you here with us, but ours.  That being said, this week especially, my friend, we want you here.  He concluded his message by saying to the family, “we have not come here to say ‘goodbye’, but rather have come here to say as we have some many times before ‘goodnight’—‘goodnight, rest well, and we will see you when the morning comes’”.  With a tear (or two, or ten) in my eyes, I knew that God had put me right where I needed to be, as He so faithfully does. 

With this week of so many joyous occasions, full of blessings that we know you are sharing in from Heaven behind us, we continue to miss you so deeply, but are so grateful that you brought us together, and that now as an angel you are “all around”.  The week ahead of us will also be so full of you with so many other wonderful things to come.  We are looking forward to it all.  In the meantime, my precious friend, I miss you so and have come here to say to you as I have so many times before, “goodnight, rest well, and I will see you when the morning comes.”