Not Easier - Yes, Different - But Not Easier

As I've been working on unpacking and sorting through some more things this last couple of days, I have come across many items that bring back so many memories - good and bad.  

But the thing that struck me the most were a couple of notes that Luke wrote not long 

after his dad died.  

He was supposed to be working on his math the day he handed me these notes.  

DeD = SAD  (Translation: Dead = Sad)

DeD + HeviN = i Am SAD  (Translation: Dead + Heaven = I Am Sad)

An 8 year old little boy had lost his dad.

  

And even at 8, he knew what the subtraction of his father from his life meant.
Even when he was supposed to be working on addition - he knew that the loss of his father, 

while it was Heaven's gain, 

really only added up to sadness for him. 

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Please say a prayer for my friend, Marisol, and her children, Jael, Victoria, and Joseph.  Richard, Marisol's husband and her children's father, died 1 year ago today.  Their children were the same age when their dad died as my children were when their dad died.  

Click here and here to read about them.

When I reminded my sons (Anna was still at the theatre for her play) to pray for their family because it was 1 year since Richard's death, Wesley said, "Oh, the death day.  That 1st anniversary is hard.  But we can think of it as Richard's first 're' birth day - his 1st one in Heaven - just like we did for Dad."

I have smart children!