To my Andrew,
Six months. Unbelievable. It can’t be real. I still can’t understand how you are gone. I look through old pictures and you come alive. I can hear your voice. I can see your mannerisms. I can run my fingers through your scruffy beard and lay my head to rest on your strong shoulder. I can clearly picture us sitting in your truck, holding hands, driving off together on our date night, not saying much but simply being present in the moment, just us.
If I close my eyes tight enough, you’re here sitting right beside me: strong, resilient you. My defender, my provider, my protector, my beautiful other half, I miss you.
Time is really strange. It’s almost as if it has sped up since you’ve been gone. So much time has passed and so much life has happened, yet it feels like you were just here. You were just riding skateboards in the driveway with the boys and planting new flowers in the backyard. You were just sitting in your office working, dreaming, praying, and planning out our future. You were just lying beside me at night, keeping me safe and warm.
And then you left. So abruptly, you left. I will never understand why. Every time I try to make sense of it all, I crumble to the floor. You didn’t want to die, you wanted to live. You loved me and the boys so much. You didn’t want to cause us pain. I know you were hurting. Andrew, I am so sorry I didn’t fully understand. I am so sorry I wasn’t right beside you that morning, rubbing your back and reminding you of who you are. Every day I wish I wasn’t waking up to this reality. Every day I miss you more. . . .
The boys miss you so much, Andrew. We talk about you every night before they go to bed. I call it our “daddy talk.” They share special memories of you. Their favorite thing to share is that one time you pooped your pants when you were sick. They laugh really hard. Every memory is a gift you gave them. I am so grateful they remember you for who you are, their amazing daddy. Smith reminds me so much of you. He is a deep thinker; he is creative, and you would love this: he’s obsessed with basketball! It’s all he wants to do! Your sweet buddy Jethro, the one who had your heart, you had such a special connection with him, he is growing up. He has a new girlfriend every week, he learned how to write his name, he is starting to ride his bike without training wheels, and he still looks the most like you. And Brave, our sweet boy, he is still our baby. He is sensitive, kind, and gentle. He is talking a lot more now and is still really passionate about monster trucks; his favorite is the “mohawk monster truck.” You can’t help but smile when you look at him; he’s a precious gift.
And I’m still here. Somehow by the grace of God managing to get out of bed every morning and walk this out one day at a time. It’s really painful. My whole life died with you. I was handed a blank canvas the day you died. Not knowing how it would ever become beautiful again. Yet, here I stand, six months later, staring at the blank canvas, starting to see tiny bits of color. God, the master artist, the one who holds the brush, is stroke by stroke creating something new: a brand-new life, a brand-new work of art. While the blank space still stretches far across the canvas, a new picture is beginning to emerge. It will take time to become beautiful again; it will take a lifetime, but a lifetime isn’t forever. Forever is with you, and I can’t wait to meet you there.
Until then, I promise to make you proud, raise our boys to be godly men, and continue to spread the message “God’s got this.” Because He does.
Love,
Your Girl1
As much as Andrew loved to work with his mind, he equally loved to work with his hands. It was his way of resting, his sabbath, his refueling. When he had a day to himself he would fill it with house projects. Over the course of our nearly eight-year marriage, we lived in four different homes. Each home was special, each home holds unique memories and milestones, but there is one home in particular that will always have a special place in my heart. It’s the first home we ever purchased on our own: a small one-story in Chino, California, on the corner of a quiet, well-established neighborhood. The kind of neighborhood with neighbors who wave when you drive by, drop cookies off on the front porch just because, and throw big parties in the streets for the Fourth of July.
The house wasn’t perfect. It was actually far from perfect. It had an obnoxious blue garage door, two bright blue front doors to match, stained carpet, popcorn ceilings, a green pool, an outdated kitchen, and wires coming out of the walls in every room. But as soon as we walked through those bright blue front doors, we knew we had found our home. We put in an offer before the house even hit the market, and just a few months later we received the keys. Primed with countless trips to the local Home Depot, hours on Pinterest, and a hundred DIY YouTube videos, we decided to roll up our sleeves and remodel it ourselves before we moved in. Andrew, with the help of family and friends, ripped out the carpet, painted the walls, pulled out the wires, patched the holes, and replaced the flooring—all within a week. The day we moved in, it felt like we were moving into a brand-new home. Andrew, with his strong will, brilliant mind, and skillful hands, had rebuilt beautiful from the ground up.
Those early memories, those special days when it was just Andrew, Smith, and me moving into our first home, feel like a different lifetime, a different life. The memories, the moments, the snapshots of days with Andrew are all captured in the years before. Before life lost its color, before all of the dreams shattered, before my heart was ripped in two. I would do anything to go back to before, but I can’t. I live in the tension of before and after, forced beyond my will to say goodbye to before and pushed toward accepting after. The hard, lonely, exhausting, depressing reality of after. I don’t want to accept it. I want to reject it; I want to trade it in for a different life. Every day I wake up alone, raise three grieving boys alone, fix up a new house alone, and figure out how to live this new life alone. Alone is lonely, alone is painful, and alone feels far from beautiful.
Beauty after loss is like a game of hide-and-seek. Each new day I wake up searching for beautiful, believing if I look hard enough, I will find it. Believing if I find enough of it, somehow, it will cover up all of the ugly empty. I don’t have to look far to find beauty; beauty lives in my home, in my boys: in their big blue eyes, their warm, gentle hugs, their innocent giggles, their precious little hands, their chubby cheeks, their peaceful sleep. They are the purest form of beauty, and God gave me three. Maybe he knew I would need three beautiful reasons to pull back the covers and step into this new life every day. My boys will never be able to take away my pain, but they give me a million reasons to stay.
Walking with my children through tragedy is the most painful thing I have ever done. Loss is woven into who we are as a family. Andrew’s death is a part of our daily life and conversations. At school, it isn’t uncommon for my boys to receive questions from their peers about why and how their daddy died. Questions a three-, five-, and seven-year-old should never be asked to answer. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to shield them from the questions and the pain. The reality is, loss is a lifelong process, and we are each on our own unique healing journey.
I will never forget the first time I took my son Smith to the cemetery. The surreal reality of watching him process the gravity of death as his small fingers slowly traced every single letter on Dave’s, his Papa’s, headstone. Letters that spelled our last name. His family. His papa and his daddy. Two people he deeply loved, two of his best friends, just a few plots apart, both gone way too soon.
As I stood watching my son, images flashed through my mind of life before. Of Smith and Papa playing in the backyard together, Papa towing a little red wagon behind his wheelchair with Smith sitting proudly inside. Both wearing matching bucket hats, Smith covered from head to toe in dirt, and Papa with a genuine smile stretched across his face. Of Smith and his daddy mowing the lawn together. Andrew in a tank top and swim shorts, pushing his bright-green lawn mower. Smith with a backward baseball cap on his head, a Home Depot apron filled with tools strapped around his waist, and a small, bright-green lawn mower of his own following close behind. A patient daddy and his little boy doing chores and making memories together. The snapshots of life before loss, before two people who made our world beautiful left us behind. Two men who were pillars of our family. So much loss in just a few years, so much for Smith’s precious young mind to comprehend.
I wrote a letter to Smith the day I took him there. We sat on a small bench next to Andrew’s plot and I read him these words:
To my brave little warrior,
This is hard. Your first time here at this place. This is all so much to absorb, the earth-shattering, life-altering, heavy, ugly brokenness. The daddy who played basketball with you in the backyard, taught you how to ride a bike, took you on dates to the movies, comforted you when you were sad, and made you laugh until you cried. His body, his empty shell, just a few feet below your feet. Your beautiful mind slowly grasping the raw reality. Real, tangible brokenness. I’m so sorry.
I just want you to know I am so proud of you, your daddy is so proud of you, and you are incredibly brave. Thank you for asking tough questions, thank you for helping me manage your brothers, thank you for hugging me when I’m sad and for loving me at my lowest. I just want you to know you don’t have to be so strong. I know you’re sad and broken. I’m sad and broken too. God’s got big plans for you, son. You are creative, athletic, inquisitive, and brilliant, just like your dad. I can’t wait to see how God uniquely uses you to change the world. I love you, Smitty.
Love,
Mom
Tears streamed down both of our cheeks as we hugged tight on our little bench. I explained to Smith that when Andrew died, he received a new body, an even better body, a body that will never break, a body that will never get sick, a body that will never have a headache or pass a kidney stone, a perfect body for a perfect place. We both smiled at the thought of our favorite guy flexing his new strong muscles in his new perfect body, building a new perfect home for us all to be together again one day. And for a moment we saw beauty in the after, beauty beyond the grave.
Every time I visit Andrew’s quiet resting place, I sit on the same bench and think about time. The small weathered bench is our spot now, the closest place on earth to him. I don’t visit very often, only when the pull is strong and I have no choice but to go. Sometimes I sit quietly without saying a word, other times it feels like the words will never stop. Benches, I’ve discovered, are an important part of the process. They beckon us to stop and rest for a while. They change our perspective and provide a safe space to take a deep breath and find our bearings again. They remind us all that life is a marathon, not a sprint.
From my bench I can see hundreds of headstones. Each stone engraved with time, each life marked between two dates, a beginning and an end. So many thoughts race through my mind. What do we do with the dash in the middle? Why do I get more time?
The first year after Andrew’s death I was determined to fill my dash with beautiful. I made a promise to myself and my boys that we would have a “happy, beautiful life,” and I was willing to chase after it as fast and as hard as I could. I accepted nearly every invitation to places all over the world. I traveled more in one year than I had in my whole life. I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge in the pouring rain. I sat with my boys on a large wooden boat in the Sea of Galilee. We ate cupcakes at Magnolia Market in Texas. We watched dancers throw fire at a luau in Kauai. I wrote words for this book at the top of a high-rise in Miami. We took a train ride with Santa through the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. Every opportunity a chance to reclaim beautiful, a chance to reclaim what was lost, a chance to fulfill the promise I made to us all. A chase, a hunt, a journey to discover new beautiful, new happy, new life.
Out of all of the trips we took the first year, there is one I will always hold close to my heart—the first one. It was the first brave yes, the first time I traveled across the country alone, my first trip without Andrew. My new friend Bob Goff had graciously invited me to Dream Big, a workshop he was hosting at a place called Onsite in Tennessee. A workshop where people from all over the world would come together to grow, learn, and dream again.
I was only a few months post loss, and I was living a life of shattered dreams. How could I possibly be ready to dream again? How could I even think about dreaming big? I didn’t know the answer, but I knew I had to say yes. Saying yes meant choosing to believe there would be life after loss, hope after loss, dreams after loss, and beauty after loss.
I boarded an airplane, flew far away from home, followed a GPS through Nashville out to the countryside, and found myself at the beautiful Onsite campus. A place where people travel from all over the world to find healing and hope. A refuge for broken people like me to find fresh strength to carry on. Dream Big is just one of the many workshops they host on the Onsite campus. I wiped away my tears, pulled my suitcase out of the trunk, and stepped into my future, into new life, and into dreaming again.
Over the next few days I wanted to soak in every moment. I made new friends, shared my story for the first time, and discovered new dreams hidden deep inside my heart. During one of the workshop sessions, we stopped to write a letter to ourselves. A letter the team would later send in the mail to remind us all of our hopes and dreams.
This is what I wrote:
Dear Kayla,
Dream big. You can do anything you set your mind to. You are beautiful, you are loved, you are seen, you are heard, you have a heavenly Father who loves you more than any man ever will. You are going to go through hard things in life, but don’t let those things knock you down. Get back up! Shake off the dust! Take a deep breath and move. Your life matters, your story matters, you are surrounded by people who love you deeply. Be a good friend, be a good mom, have fun with your kids! Take your kids on adventures. Your kids love you so much. They need you. Be present with them, have fun with them, take them to see the world. Speak truth into their life and love them to death. Love God, love others. Put others first. Find ways to help people who are hurting. Those people need to hear what you have to say. Your voice matters. You have something to say. You are wonderfully and beautifully made. God has a divine purpose for your life. You may not see it right now, but you are going to make a difference. People are going to come to know Jesus because of you. Lives will be changed, lives will be saved, the landscape of eternity will look different because of the way God is going to use you. Be fearless! Don’t ever let fear hold you back. You do not need to be afraid of anything. Be loud, be you, be bold, be unique, be different, see who God sees and be her! You are honored, you are chosen, and you are loved. You’ve got this because God’s got this!
Love,
Kayla
Wouldn’t it be beautiful if we could speak to ourselves this way all the time? If only we could see the beauty we already possess, the intrinsic beauty God so intimately designed and delicately placed in our unique DNA. We can stop searching tirelessly for beauty when we discover it already dwells within us. We are all beautiful vessels writing unrepeatable stories, stories that matter right now, stories worth fighting for.
Through my time at Dream Big, I learned that dreaming is at the heart of rebuilding. To rebuild we must dare to dream beyond the destruction. When I think about the word rebuild, I think about my precious, weary days as a stay-at-home mom, sitting on the rug, passing the time, playing blocks with my boys. Each time we would create a tall tower, someone would knock the whole thing down. Sometimes there would be hurt feelings, and other times we would all just burst out laughing. But every time we would build again. We would search around the floor, pick up all of the scattered pieces, and build something new. Each new creation would take a different shape, reach a different height, and develop a unique style of its own.
Now, here in our pain, we are rebuilding once again. We are gathering up all of the shattered pieces from every corner of our broken hearts and building something new together. Just like our toy towers, this new life will take on a new shape, reach a new height, and develop a new style of its own. It will never look the same as it did before, but we are choosing to believe beauty is still possible.
Breaking and rebuilding, falling down and getting back up again. It’s who we are; it’s who we have always been. None of us have arrived. None of us have it all figured out. It’s what makes us human—and it’s okay to be human. To be human is to experience it all: the ups and downs, the ebbs and flows, the highs and lows, the scattered in-between. It’s all part of life—wild, broken, beautiful life—and it’s all okay. To feel is to be alive, and to be alive is a gift. A gift we take for granted until we lose a life we love. Loss reminds us of our expiration date, a reminder we need from time to time. Our feelings now will end one day, and our end will be the beginning of new life somewhere else, somewhere far better than this. For this short time now, we can take a deep breath and whisper to ourselves, “It’s okay.” It’s okay to feel all of the feelings we need to feel right now, and it’s okay if the rebuilding doesn’t happen overnight. We must give ourselves permission to be human.
When we whisper “It’s okay,” we replace shame with grace, and grace is the best gift we could ever give ourselves. Grace to be real with how we feel, all of the time. We all need more grace, more empathy, more space to feel. Without grace we will spend our one life always wishing things were different, and we will forget it’s all a gift. Every single memory, every single day, every single moment, every single breath—a beautiful, precious gift. The gift of being alive.
Rebuilding, beginning again, is a daring choice. Just because we choose to begin again doesn’t signify an end. Because there is no end, there is no goodbye—there is no moving on or letting go. There is only moving forward with the pain. Loss requires tension. We have to mourn, but we also have to keep on living the life God has given us. The pain of Andrew’s death will stay with me for the rest of my life, but I can choose to build a beautiful landscape around it.
The Wilderness
There is a question we can each stop and ask ourselves when we walk through unavoidable trials in this life. It’s a powerful question I believe fits the rebuilding while clearly acknowledging the suffering. It’s a question Jesus asked his closest friends, his disciples, just hours before he would pay the ultimate price for us all. He said these words to Peter: “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). What I love about Jesus and what makes him human is before he asked this question, before he ultimately submitted to the will of the Father, he wrestled.
He wrestled with his reality.
He wrestled with his purpose.
He wrestled with his mission.
He wrestled with the pain he knew was right around the corner.
He was fully God, but he was also fully human. And just like it isn’t easy for us to accept our circumstances, it also wasn’t easy for him. In his wrestling, Jesus begged God to take the cup away. “‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will’” (Mark 14:36). Jesus was literally on his knees with his face to the ground, pleading with God to change his circumstances, to save him from the pain he knew was coming. He was pressed to the absolute limit physically, emotionally, and spiritually, to the point of sweating blood. Yet he was still willing to reach out his hand and accept the cup.
This picture of Jesus’ suffering can bring us comfort in our pain. It’s a reminder that even for Jesus, the son of God, remaining faithful to the end was deeply painful. And just as he wrestled with God, it’s okay for us to wrestle too.
We may wrestle with accepting our “cup.”
We may wrestle with pain.
We may wrestle with illness.
We may wrestle with loss and grief.
We may wrestle all throughout our lives with circumstances that are beyond our control, because we don’t always get to choose our trials. We don’t always get to decide how life pans out. Sometimes God will hand us a cup that is completely overwhelming, but he promises we will not have to carry it on our own. “Don’t panic. I’m with you. There’s no need to fear for I’m your God. I’ll give you strength. I’ll help you. I’ll hold you steady, keep a firm grip on you” (Isa. 41:10 THE MESSAGE).
I have no idea what your cup looks like or how jagged its edges may be. I have no idea what it’s like to live with the pain you are living with. But I do know that we do not have to carry our pain alone and that peace is possible. God wants to invade every area of our pain and brokenness with his perfect peace, but we have to posture our hearts to receive him. Maybe posturing our hearts looks like listening to worship music in the car in the morning. Or maybe posturing our hearts looks like going for a walk outside. Or maybe posturing our hearts is sitting with a cup of coffee and reading the Bible at the kitchen counter in the early hours of the morning before anyone else is awake. Or maybe posturing our hearts looks like Jesus in the garden. Maybe the pain is so overwhelming that it beckons us to our knees, it beckons us to the foot of the cross. And maybe today is the day when we declare that although we are broken, we aren’t going to stay broken. We are going to choose to rebuild again, we are going to choose to accept the cup, and we are going to choose to bravely step into another day because we are still alive and God isn’t finished with us yet.
As I have learned to accept my cup instead of walking away, I have received supernatural peace even in my pain. I have peace because I have seen God show up, I have seen his mighty hand at work, I have witnessed his miracles, and I have reaped the benefits of his favor and his blessing in and through my heartbreak. I still have pain, but I am confident God is using my pain for his purpose, he is using my story for his glory, and he has great plans for my life beyond the death of Andrew.
My life will always be defined by before and after, before Andrew died and after Andrew died, but it can still be beautiful. Even though after will never be the same as it was before, I can still choose to gather up the shattered pieces and build again. I can choose to own the story God is writing right now, and I can choose to believe my story, his story, will one day be beautiful.