I'm sitting here today in Houston, Texas. I'm supposed to be home. This delay was unexpected. We've been on vacation in San Diego over the last week and we were on our way home yesterday but due to bad weather in Dallas we were rerouted in mid-air to Houston instead. We should have been able to book another flight to get out of here and get back on our way, but we stood in line at the ticket desk for about 4 hours and were almost last in line. Unfortunately there were no flights with empty seats going back home until late tonight, so I'm sitting here with my family in Houston.
I had other plans for today. Other things I wanted to do and expectations for a different kind of day. After all, this is a sacred day every year for me.
Life is kind of like this at times. Your travels are diverted, expectations are not met, and you find yourself sitting in a foreign place for some amount of time. This day nine years ago has a lot of similarities to today. What we expected when I was pregnant was that nine months later we'd come home with a baby and that would be that. But as you know, that didn't happen. Braelyn was born too early and we left the hospital with empty arms and shocked hearts. We had been diverted mid-flight and brought down into foreign territory.
I've really struggled this year with what I wanted to say on her 9th birthday. So much has changed in those years since we handed her over to Heaven. Then it hit me today with all of this travel mess there is such a parallel to her story. We've been through the mess that re-routed travel took us through, and we are learning to be flexible, to be patient, and to try to find ways to enjoy the crazy chaos the unexpected journey took us on.
If I could go back to this day nine years ago I'd tell myself to prepare for turbulence ahead and that the trajectory of my journey was going to change drastically and without much warning. But I'd also tell myself that if I take time to look around where I've landed, I will see that I've arrived in a place that is still beautiful if I stop to take it all in.
I miss Braelyn. Life isn't the same without a 9 year old girl in our house. I think as the boys have gotten into school it's easier to realize what I am missing. They have friends that are 9 year old girls - and I see that's what it would be like for us to have her here. But I think God placed some of those 9 year old girls in my life so that I would be able to know what Braelyn would have been like, the things she'd be into, and the challenges and fun that comes along with raising girls. But it's a tangible loss to me still, nine years later.
Today I'm going to try my best to enjoy where I've landed - both physically and metaphorically. It's not what I planned, but life rarely goes according to our plans anyway.
