A final peace..

With each new post that I write, it seems that I have more and more to say. And the thing is... the thing is, I really didn't know that I had that much to say. No, I take that back. Since I was a small child, I have known that I had a world to say. Ask anyone who has known me, I have always had a world to say. So much so, that they have asked me to walk away sometimes. I even remember people falling asleep on the phone.

One of those people who fell asleep on the phone was my cousin, Debbie. She was that fun cousin. That one who you did everything with. That one who stayed up all night with. That one who you jumped on the trampoline with until you got sick. That one who you played games with and cheated and she didn't even care....

She and I went to church camp together. She and I went to church camp together and then snuck out so that we could go and meet boys and make out. (Yeah, she was that cousin...) So great. She was there when I did everything wrong. And I do mean everything. And she was right there with me cheering me on and having a great time.

But, she was also there with me when I gave myself to God, and she was cheering me on and having a great time. She held my hand through it all and told me I was doing the right thing then, too. She cried with me through it.

She was there with me when my father died. She stayed with me for the months and months afterwards when it was so hard to accept it. She never asked me why I didn't grieve the same way that everyone else did. She didn't ask me why I didn't cry all the time, even though she knew how much I loved my father, and even though she cried over him when I wasn't looking.

She was there with me when I got married. She stood up there with me and cheered me on, because she knew how happy I was. She knew how much I loved this new man I had found, even though I knew inside she was crying for she had lost one of her best friends. She knew that our relationship would never be the same. I didn't know it at the time. I thought I would be the same. I thought that I would still be there for her. I thought that I would still be able to devote the same amount of time to her that I had before.

But, I was wrong. With marraige, came children. And with children, came responsiblities and my time went to them. My time with Debbie over the next 15 years was few and far between and her life took on new path. She met different people and led a different life. She began drinking along the way somewhere and much more than I ever knew.

But, somehow, someway, surely I knew. How did I miss that? How and where along the way did I miss that? She was in and out of the hospital so many times in the past 15 years that she became a completely different person. That happy-go-lucky young girl that I knew was now a much older sad person who did not want to live anymore.

I know that it was not because of me. I know that her life did not revolve around me. I was not her entire life in our younger years. I was not her entire life in our twenties or thirties either. But, something, somewhere, along the way, seems like it could have all been prevented.

As I sat in the ICU room the day of her death, I sat there and wondered all of those things. What one thing and on what one day could I have said something to her to prevent this very moment from happening? As I sat there knowing that I would be with her while she died at age 36, from liver poisoning, what could have been done to prevent this wonderful human being from doing this to herself. Who, if not me, could have intervened to help her?

OR, what if she came her for a reason? What if that is what it is? What if we come here for a purpose? What if her wonderful life and the wonderful memories that she gave me and the wonderful lessons that she taught me will passed down?

Once the ventilator was turned off, it took only a few minutes for Debbie to take her final breaths, and with her final breath, her face took on that look of peace saved only for those who see heaven. I recognized it and I was so humbled and so thankful to be in that moment with her. In that very instance, a million memories flooded me, and I couldn't even cry.

It let me know for certain that life just cannot end there. It just can not. The sense of peace was too overwhelming. The sense of her presence filled the room and fills me now even...