Out of The Pits of Darkness…

Posted on February 17, 2016 by A Girl Named

And Into The Light…

Loss is the inevitable experience that touches our lives throughout its course. We lose our grandparents, aunts, uncles and eventually our parents. Along the way we may even encounter the loss of cousins, friends or even siblings. These losses are grandiose on our personal suffering and can have an impact on our day to day and even change the course of how we see life thereafter.

The way in which a person is taken from us defines the levels of grief we may traverse. If the death is of an illness; we grieve a little along the way while the person is still with us; at the time of death; and we miss them tremendously. The loss of that person’s existence can evoke an evaluation of oneself; the new you in your new normal. If a person is taken away suddenly; car accident, drunk driver, murder; with each of these being undeniably worse then the latter; the grieving process is compacted and more intense. Death by suicide, well is just unfathomable and can wreck an entire family completely off their steady course.

Unfortunately some of us even lose a child. That is the natural course of life backfiring. It completely goes against nature. There is no greater loss some would say.

What if you lost your child to suicide?

The questions that run through your mind, the how, the why, the blame. The confusion and shock is enough to have even the strongest Christian family spinning on their heels for quite some time. I know it did for ours.

The Holy Spirit immediately covered us when the realization came to pass that she was gone. We were all in a warm blanket-like covering. We saw and experienced peace, and clarity and I have never seen heaven so close in my entire life. We felt the warm love and strength and encouragement that could have only come from the Father (and about 100 knee and prostrate praying people).

A week later we were in shock. Six months later we were numb. We were all going down this hill of a journey without putting in any effort to strengthen our step. It was as though all the life was beaten right out of us. We were surely just going through the motions.

We all dealt with this differently. Some of us talked and verbalized, while others internalized. The kids went to therapy. We all went to a family group-therapy. I started to write.

Although, I didn’t write until a year after she was gone, I wish I had some of that early writing; the rawness of the experience to measure against today’s lot.

I know that in the first year I was discovering. I read everything I could get my hands on about death and the spirit and heaven. I researched like a mad woman, “what was this heaven really all about anyway? What did it look like? What did people do?” It was almost like, “well if my kid is there without me, I want to know what kind of place it is exactly.” I know the ironic-ness of that statement…. but it was the “mom” in me that had to know that she was really, really ok. I think I needed to do that to know that we would all really, really be ok, even though sometimes holding onto the grief felt like I was loving her more.

"what was this heaven really all about anyway?"

You don’t see entirely clear when you are grieving. I measured the pain as equal amounts of love. What I should have wanted to do was to love everyone I had still here on earth with me with as much intensity as I felt I loved her… That painful abundance.

One day I just got tired. I was tired of crying, of wondering, of not knowing, of having unanswered questions. I was tired of abusing myself.

In that numbing time I had started to drink so that I could feel; so that I could process. I couldn’t talk about her or the situation that surrounded her without displacing my emotions. I seemed flippant when talking about it to others who asked about it. That was completely a defense mechanism for my public anxiety of displaying emotions. Then in my private hours I needed something to unlock the door to my emotions so that I could process. I over ate. I would sit down at night and cram every snack food we had to “fill me” from this emotional emptiness that I had. All it ever did was make me obese and my stomach hurt.

Then one day I woke up and there was that epiphany moment where I just wanted to heal. I wanted to finally get out from under this this heavy blanket of darkness that was trapping us and come back to the land of the living. The trigger was my husbands words: I know you are not happy, you haven’t been happy for a very long time. It was two and a half years after she died. We were just surviving. It was that wake up call comment that set inside to the fibers of who I am. “You are just hanging out… You are STILL here”. From that “aha moment” I just wanted to be healthy and better. I changed my focus. I had to have the strength to “manually” change my focus. I realized that in order to “heal” I needed to heal ALL parts of me. I am spiritual, I am physical, I am mental, I am emotional. I had to get into God’s word with a fierceness. I had to get my body clean of impurities and healthy eating habits. I needed an outlet to clear my mind and think through my feelings and actions. I needed to be real with myself and ask God to tenderize me, not be afraid to feel, not be afraid to be real. I can break either way. The fears needed to go.

I have fallen off that path a few times, I’m not super human. But have always gotten back on it. When I get on that path, it is with more intensity and vigor for life and a passion for God and myself then before. HE is taking me on a journey and has never left my family nor my side. There are days that I can feel him from the inside out, and other days it is purely my brain telling me He is still here. I want to live and love with the intensity that God has shown me through this horrible experience. He walked through hell with me. When I pushed him away or did damaging things to myself he still had his hand on me, He is a stubborn parent. That is the kind of friend I want to be, the kind of mom I want to be and the kind of spouse I want to be.

Thank you God for showing me Christ through the Crap. You have saved my butt, yet again. I will forever miss her and carry her with me, but I leave the grieving and mourning and disabling fears and anxiety behind. I am meant to live, to thrive. I am still here… because there is more to do. Injured? Sure. Crippled? Nope! I know that our family has all lived life with more intensity now. We were shown that life is so much more than we ever expected. We are willing to take risks, we are willing to experience more – we dare to go where most probably wouldn’t. What do we have to lose? God’s got us.

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

To find out more about traumatic loss and grieving:

http://www.journeyofhearts.org/grief/accident2.html

Today, Here. Tomorrow – Gone.

Posted on January 19, 2016 by A Girl Named

There have been so many impact-full deaths lately. What a stupid line huh? Impact-full… Death is impact-full. It makes its permanent mark on the people that were influenced in some way by the deceased. David Bowie, what a shocker. Alan Rickman (Snape) from Harry Potter, stop it I can’t take it anymore. Founder of the Eagles, Glen Frey. I am still impacted from Robin William’s death.

I took a look around me, there is a woman whom I work at the same company with who lost her son over the Christmas Break. He was 22 or about to be. I see her uplifting and encouraging words on facebook, and it reminds me of how we reacted when Dakota died. We were the encourage-rs and many people have said to me, you were such examples of Christ. Your strength is amazing. Your obedience is… etc. Truth is, they were seeing the Holy Spirit moving through us. We were wrapped in his strength and we were comforted so we could comfort. When you are filled with something, you give that away. When you give it away you are filled with it again. That is biblical. Its a shitty club that we; affected by death; belong to. But I am encouraged by the encouraged. What breaks my heart and makes me reflect my own inner pain is when there is a parent that is hopeless or has no hope. They feel empty and lonely. That is so sad to me. No, life is not a party now that our cherished are gone and the pain of the absence of their immediate presence doesn’t go away or fade with time. They were here, they will always have an affect on us. It is how we press into God that gives us the motivation and hope for a successful and fruitful day. It is the love that we have for ourselves and for others that depend on us, that we call on God daily to “come pick us up for work” so to speak.

People have said to me or questioned, how is it that we are in fact that strong. That we could even lay this kind of grief at God’s feet. I have surmised that some people hold onto their grief, they are afraid to let it go because if they let the sting of their grief subside would mean that they didn’t love that person enough, and its just not true. My answer is because I know where my daughter is. There is not a question in my heart and my mind. She had a personal relationship with Jesus. She had a disease that took her life from us too early.

People always say that suicide is selfish. Some of my sons that are still angry and I myself have said it. Selfish in the fact that we do not get to have the privilege of their presence in our lives anymore, yes. Selfish that their actions caused us this unrelenting pain and agony, yes. And grief and has changed us and our lives into something we didn’t ask to become or we aren’t sure we like.We don’t like that we are forced daily to miss someone we love and should be here with us, yes. All suicides are different. Some are planned, some are depressed, some are impulsive. All though, agonize.All want whatever is going on to stop. It has taken me three and a half years of non stop praying for God to reveal that to me and for me to accept that as the answer.

I have a friend who has horrible psoriasis. She said that there is nothing that any of the doctors or the specialists can do to alleviate it or stop it. It burns, it itches and its is from the inside of her body out… Her hands look horrible. They look like someone has held them under boiling water and the skin is just peeling back. She told me that it gets so bad that she could go into her garage and cut both of her hands off just so that she could sleep.

Not all of our diseases are on the outside. It doesn’t stop the family and close friends from wondering what they could have done. It doesn’t stop people from being mad at the person. I am mad at my father for dying from a failed attempt at emergency quad bypass surgery on his heart. It is my opinion that he could have taken better care of himself. He essentially didn’t care about himself enough, got sick and died. The breakdown of your body over years of blaten abuse is a long version of suicide if you ask me. There is a girl that I knew, we were not close but in the same circles from time to time. She died of an overdose on heroine and crack. She has two eight year old twins. I know her mother is pissed that she left these two little boys. I know that she is angry that she allowed drugs to take over her life.

There is the cancer patient, the car crash, the poor diet, the murdered, the old age, the still birth, the broken and suicidal.

Death is inevitable. We all feel wronged by someone or something when someone that has impacted us is no longer with us physically on earth.

If my dad died in a car accident, would I still be angry with him? I am sure I would find an excuse. How is it that I am angry at my father who chose to eat badly and not exercise, yet I can forgive my daughter who took her own life at my house while her brothers were home? I don’t know. I can’t answer that. Maybe because my dad was older and he should have known better? Maybe its because the way my family changed after his death? Maybe because I have compassion for my daughter the way a mother has when her child is injured and now is in complete peace and health.

I can’t answer it. I will however continue to be encouraging to all that encounter what we feel is untimely, the abrupt absence in a much loved person.

Celebrate life, today is a gift. Tell your mom you love her. Tell others how they have impacted you today instead of wishing you had, tomorrow.

Almost Three Years… And The Great Longing.

Posted on September 9, 2015 by A Girl Named

The month has crept up on me. The days are getting closer. The moments leading up to the anniversary of her initial disappearance takes the breath out of my chest and I find it harder and harder to breathe. Inside, I know what happened to her, I know where she is… my head is IN the game. It is just the “anniversary” that always tries to relive different scenarios. You know, like in movies you love, that you have seen a million times. Even though you know what is going to happen next, “Don’t open the black book,” “Jack, find a better flotation device” or “Don’t watch the stupid DVD!” no matter how much we plead, we beg, we are helpless to watch the events unfold in front of us the same way they did the last time we saw it.

I miss her every day.

There is not a day that I get up and don’t think about her. Thoughts of her are not consuming, but they are there never-the-less. Today for example, just a song triggered my sadness. I was turning the corner to my street at lunch and one of her songs came on the radio that were played at her funeral. I instantly was kicked in the stomach. I pulled up to the hill in front of my house and was just mortified because she died right over that hill. I walked up the steps and before I could get to the top, the warmth of my tears drenched down my face. I realized that I am reminded of her daily because she is everywhere in my life. I looked at the plant sitting on my porch and the Wandering Jew that she picked out for our landscape caught my eye. It humbly touches the ground it is so long. As I approach the front of the door, I see the wooden “hope” that is affixed from it. I told myself, that “hope” is only there because of her. A boy made it for me the week after she was gone. As I walked into the house and passed the word “hope” which gave so many people comfort in that amazingly difficult time. I noticed that I was immediately OK. Like I was given a supernatural hug. It was the same feeling as someone giving you a hug and you have that “relieved” feeling. That is something I have never been able to give to myself… I will let you make your own assumptions.

I want to do something for her. I will get there. I am not quite there yet. I need to work on me still. I just hope that those that are in our lives are not discouraged by that with the thought that I am dragging this grief thing out. I am not, it is just my process.

There is no one in my life that has left that I have ever missed more. I was driving home from work today and thinking, God I can’t wait to get to heaven so that I can see my girl. I immediately was given two thoughts. One was mine, I know I want to be here on earth for my kids and my husband and friends. I know that I am here for a reason, and I need to fulfill my created purpose. I am good with that. I was given another thought and it wasn’t from me. It was comforting and it set me back in the correct direction: “Your focus should not be on the dead in which you know where they are. I should be your only focus, when I am your focus, you are strong, not held back, not held down.” “Free”. This seems potentially harsh and maybe jealous and insensitive. But if you knew the conversations that I have had with God lately, you would see this was a blessing. I have been working on developing the rest of my life. The direction anyway. I love my girl, but I want to LIVE. I want my kids to LIVE. I want to see what else is out there for me to uncover, discover, help, heal, or just be more than this grief. It is not really grief any more. It is more a longing, but not more longing than that I do for Jesus.

F O C U S: positive – 1

Posted on February 28, 2015 by A Girl Named

Getting to the head of this emotional weariness, I asked God to give me SOMETHING.

– I guess I had to ask…
He gave me Positive. I am supposed to focus on the positive.

We went through a quick lesson. (Bear with me, this happened)…

I thought of something that would normally come to my head: Dakota. My next thought was the pain and agony and sadness that comes from missing her. I wasn’t focused on missing her. I was focused on the PAIN of missing her, the result of missing her. (The negative)

Now God said, focus on the positive. I thought Dakota, and thought of how she made me smile. My whole body warmed up, my eyes got filled with tears and my soul was over turning inside, happy.

Because without experiencing Dakota, I would have never felt so loved the way that she does, or the happy that is deeply rooted in who I am because of her.

She taught me something about myself that I forgot along the way. I have been so blinded under grief and concentrating on merely my own survival inside a dying shell of a person that I lost who I was. I used to flourish because of who I was. I am not everyone’s cup of tea, but God gave me my flavor. What I remembered about what she specifically taught me changed my ever evolving quest to be better. Never sell out – always be who you are, and fuck em if they don’t like it.

F O C U S: positive

Posted on February 28, 2015 by A Girl Named

Intro:
This is a spin on what I experience in Life After Dakota.
(To get the full on story of how I lost my 15 year old daughter look at some of the earlier posts)
I hope that you enjoy the NEW SPIN with Focus Positive.
The writing style will change based off of my experience, my feeling, my calling, my passion and of course anything that I have learned.

I encourage you to read my past posts; there’s good “stuff” – straight forward, raw emotion. That is the kid of person that you will shortly find me to be – I am open and I am honest and its raw, because life is just that.
I hope that you find entertainment, because if not I should pack it in right now – what are real life struggles if there isn’t some fun mixed in it somewhere right? Who wants to read depressing lulls? Not I, there is enough of that everywhere we look. Besides, the Spin Is called: Focus Positive…. no false advertisement here.

I hope that you find encouragement if you are facing something like this, or other challenges that have you struggling to create a smile through the dark agony we sometimes have to face: in the morning, the wee hours of dawn, the sudden quiet and hot blackness of night or about 2 O’clock in the afternoon when it blasts you again in the middle of a big important meeting with VIP Customers from Japan. I want to offer up a different perspective. I don’t want to bring the same self help, healthy, looking from the outside in, kind of message. I am in the trenches, I am right next to you, going through my own personal hell, looking to heal and searching for the light. The sky is black ladies and gentleman and the rain is pouring down. Lightning flashes unexpectedly and just when you think you can’t breathe through it anymore… there is a break, a clearing in the clouds and a warmth of the purest of pure love comes and envelopes your whole being. You would stay here in this perimeter of safety and protection, but like any good soldier we are all here on a set mission and a set purpose. Sometimes part of the fight is going through one hell of a storm, but your commander will never leave you nor forsake you – and I reiterate, I am in the trenches too, with you.
I hope that you pass this on (God forbid), to someone you know that may need to read a site like this one.

Peace

I Wear It

Posted on December 17, 2014 by A Girl Named

I wear it.

It’s waiting for me every morning when I rise. It is staring at me like an old friend, waiting for our day to start together. Sometimes it is so eager to see me that it hovers atop me and is the first thing that I focus on when I open my eyes. Sometimes I can feel the weight of its presence even before my eyes open. Most days I wake hoping that it is not there. Not that it is delayed or late, but that maybe it took a vacation, moved away, or was supernaturally destroyed in the night. Without fail, there it is. And I put it on, wearing it for another day.

It looks like.

It appears mostly invisible. It doesn’t typically show in my eyes or my face. If you had never met me, you would not know I was wearing it. It looks like a glance shared between someone close when the subject is brought up. In public it is very well behaved. In private, on those highly active days, it looks like, carving a turkey with your emotional heart in its place. It looks like crocodile tears and an ugly cry face. It looks like unbelief, unbearable pain and hyperventilation.

It acts like.

It urges memories to appear in the surface of my conscience. The details that are sacred now, that brings my focus back to it. Mostly it lingers. There are small and gentle nudges. Little pangs of hurt, followed by small rushes of want, desire and yearn. First the light tingles tempt me into gazing upon memories of late – something I remember makes me smile because I experience amazing moments when there was much warmth around my heart. It builds on those moments; one by one they pass in front of me; and I smile and remember what it was like to be in her presence. One by one, they pass until they are gathered together and have collected enough steam. The moment it has me alone it pounces on me and pulls the bottom floor from underneath me. I am reminded that the one that helped create those magical moments is gone and it will be a very long “time” before I see her again.

It feels like.

At times it is heavy. It is always taking up residence in my heart, kicking it softly. Other times it reaches up into my throat and takes hold. It punches me unexpectedly in the stomach and takes my breath away and I physically gasp for the air to return into my lungs. It will open the door to my emotional room and empty me of the pressure that has risen inside, for if it did not, I would lose myself in it. It is not always bad and I do not resent it. Greif helps me relieve and heal. If it did not love me, it would not show up every day to traverse through small pieces at a time. It will always be with me, this lifelong friend knows that it gets weaker every day it is with me, making me stronger. It has a mission and it will fulfill it to the end.

The alternative is to become numb and I refuse to die.

To grieve is to live; love, endure pain, feel the sting of sadness and the bliss in joy – finish.

To become numb in the world is to perish.

Rabbit Hole

Posted on June 20, 2014 by A Girl Named

Just when you think that you are ok and you realize that you have been ok, and for a while. You start to smile and come out of that shell of a hole you had found was your safe spot. Stretching your arms and feeling the heat of the sun on your face. You are not hiding anymore. You realize that life isn’t that bad, even though it’s different. You may even wish the lost one a happy day and blow them a kiss. You know they still exist, just in a different realm of existence. You may even feel strong and be surprised in your new found strength and realize that you are healing.

Then just like clockwork, the storm clouds rush in and scare you back into your hole, but this time you aren’t going to cower and hide. This time you are taking shelter but are not burrowing yourself in. You are not going to allow yourself to go that deep into the hole. You have seen the sun, you have felt its warmth, and you know it’s beyond the dark clouds just waiting to warm you with its rays of love and happiness. The sun is peace. You want that peace. You want to stand in the sun and allow its rays of light to wash over your body, to penetrate into your soul. You need that sun.

You decide to stand out of the hole. You decide that you are going to stand in the rain and the thunder and the lightening so that you get all that the sun has to offer once those rain clouds have passed. You crave the sun so much that you are standing in the storm with your eye on where you know the sun is, just beyond the darkness.
While standing in the storm, you realize there is danger and it is wet. It’s uncomfortable, but it has not destroyed you. The lightning flashes close to you and you stand tall. The taller you stand the more violent and close the lightening becomes, almost as if it’s driven against you on purpose. It wants to see you hide, it delights in your fear. You don’t give in to the threats and you remain sure footed. Thunder sneaks around you and spews the enormity of its most dreadful clash, startles you and hurts your ears, makes you jump right out of your skin. Then you remember thunder can’t do anything to you. All thunder is, a warning sign of how far away the lightening is. The lightning flashes are the real danger. So you use the sounds in the darkness to gauge your safety from the swift light. You start to use the storm against itself, you tell the rains to rain harder. You turn the storm on its side, it begins to rain like it has never done before, you challenge it to become more fierce and it can’t bring the destruction that it imagined. You are stronger then the storm. The storm realizes why you are stronger than it is, then it sees it. It’s the sun, the storm thought that it was hiding the sun from you. The storm didn’t know that the Son is in you. The storm starts to cower because it knows it has been defeated. There is no winning for the storm and you begin to drain it of its power. It loses its steam and starts to diminish.
As the storm begins to dissipate into small screams of defeat, the flashes of floods become sparingly drops, to finally a springy mist. The clouds break apart and you can feel the brightness of the sun become overpowering. It’s not the contrast that makes the sun seem so much brighter than before, the sun is shining brighter upon you because you weathered the storm. You stood through it, you challenged it, you threatened it, you used authority to dissolve it, you allowed the storm to see that you are filled with the Son and nothing that it tried could form a weapon to come against you. You showed no fear, Only Victory. The Son awards you with a Rainbow.

The rainbow is a message to your soul that all is well. That all will always be alright and there is a delight awaiting you that you cannot imagine or fully embrace while dressed in earth’s clothes. He gives two things for my soul to take upon this earth, one is the rainbow, the other the remembrance of her smile, the rainbow in heaven.

This story is a parody and reflection of recent things in my life. It has been a year and a half since my daughter died. The journey since then has been one of discovery and deep filled sorrow. I would find the strength to stand in the morning, with my happy face and be burrowed inside my “happy place” which was a place of pure numbness. I filled myself with so many worthless things trying to fill myself up from the depth of the hurt. I started to become an ugly person. I gained so much weight in the last year and a half. I allowed so much misery and soaked it all up with cheese and a bottle of wine. I would make myself sick at night, constant eating. Stuffing anything and everything that I could find into myself. I would wash it down with whatever I had. Beer or wine was preferable. If neither of those, I made coffee and stayed up half the night. I began a habit of soda, I have never had a habit of soda. I prided my former self for never going down the road of sugar drinks. Compiled stress and overeating, thinking I have lost my mind – because of all the gaps that were now in my head. There are parts that I cannot remember. Parts of my brain went under attack and must have been a causality of war because I cannot remember simple things like, where did I put the birth certificates. To make matters worse, we moved three bedrooms at the same time. I was so obsessed with change. I didn’t realize that the outward appearance of our home does nothing to heal if I am not taking care of the inside of who I am as well. I was so obsessed with the appearance of everything. I was so pained with the sting and the hurt and the finger pointing. I was so stressed with my life as I knew becoming scary dark and different.

I got a glimmer of hope that put me on the healing track and that was being able to leave and fly to San Antonio to see my oldest son graduate from the Air Force. That gave me the light that I needed to see that there was better. I would grasp at every good thing in life. This started me on a sure path to healing. Now my obsession has changed focused, and I am no longer in obsess. I am in Focus.

I am detoxing my body of all habits and bad choices. I am clean eating and haven’t had a drop of wine in forever. God is clearing my mind like the sun warms the body.

I did realize yesterday driving home that life is, ok. The inspiration for this writing. Just as I realized that I have been ok, the tears started to flood in, I was overwhelmed by emotion. That is a victory. Stay with me, I used to be controlled on my emotions. I would stuff them down, and I was using whatever I could to hold them down within me. I was burrowing them and myself from the reality of the world. When the “storm of emotions” came yesterday – If I were out in public, I would not have been able to reel in my tears. I would have shown the world, that yes, in fact, Kelly cries. She cries over missing her daughter. Wow, she really is human… just checking. Next time just pinch me ok!

Reset Me

Posted on June 10, 2014 by A Girl Named

I am about to start an innovative program and I am thrilled to get moving forward with this.
I want to share with you, the vision I see for this new journey.

If you have read in my other posts, my weight is primarily an effect by my exhausted adrenal glands. I have adrenal issues because of the emotional stress and deep grief of losing my daughter to suicide, ultimately. I was on my way to increased adrenal issues with just my ordinary life.

Because we were foster parents, we were under the careful watchful eye of social workers and therapists. Then of course there were the issues my daughter had that brought other social workers, therapists, and the courts. My ex who would stir up trouble for the sport of it was an extreme case. We were also ministry leaders in a pressured environment. I was volunteering in too many places and trying to launch a new business at the same time. No wonder everything came crashing down, it had to. When it did I had no concept of how to manage the life I had built for myself.

Clear thoughts would not come for many months. I needed to run on just robotic type movements. Things in my life would ultimately have to be discarded and now I am re-writing them.

Looking to this new journey – with every pound that comes off, in record time, it will be like victory over the new changes that I want for our lives. Everything we do is with passion now. Everything is a purpose that we actively pursue. At the end of this journey, I will be 20 – 40 pounds lighter. I will be cleansed of any desire for alcohol or bad foods. I will be more health conscience and will be tons healthier. I will fit into clothes that I haven’t worn in years. I will have more options; I will also be able to lose weight with exercise. I will be reset.

Reset – I need that. I want to be reset from years of things that I don’t want to hold on to anymore. Reset, I want to give the bag of sadness for the loss of my dad, and grandparents. I want to give up the hurt that I experienced from my mom and brother while they were hurting. I want to give up all the things that have ever come out of my mouth that was ugly. I want to give up the memories of what kids have said about me when I was in school, when I first realized that people were mean just because. I want to erase the knowledge of cruelty and prejudice. I want to give up all the things that have shaped me into a bitter, tried, worn, tired, short tempered, quick to fight person.

Reset – reset my metabolism and set weight. Reset my mind. Reset my emotions. Reset my thought patterns. Reset my spiritual fervor. Reset me.

You can view my weight loss blog at http://www.mybigfatissues.wordpress.com

And All Of A Sudden… I remember her songs… pt 3

Posted on May 21, 2014 by A Girl Named

Because of her radiant smile, this of course was one of her favorite songs. I love when she sang. I love when she was so serious about singing a song and her brothers would mock the song a little bit, and of course ruffle her feathers… She was just go off on them. It would ruin the spirit of trying to sing the song. Everyone would pretty much be put on alert status. When she got mad – the entire atmosphere was changed. To say she had a big personality isn’t quite cutting it.

“I Smile”
I dedicate this song to recession,
depression and unemployment.
This song’s for you.

Today’s a new day, but there is no sunshine.
Nothing but clouds, and it’s dark in my heart
and it feels like a cold night.
Today’s a new day, where are my blue skies,
where is the love and the joy that you promised me
you tell me it’s alright.

(I’ll be honest with you)
I almost gave up, but a power that I can’t explain,
fell from heaven like a shower now.

(When I think how much better I’m gonna be when this is over)
I smile, even though I hurt see I smile,
I know God is working so I smile,
Even though I’ve been here for a while (what you do?)
I smile, smile..
it’s so hard to look up when you’ve been down.
Sure would hate to see you give up now
You look so much better when you smile, so smile.

Today’s a new day, but there is no sunshine.
Nothing but clouds, and it’s dark in my heart,
and it feels like a cold night.
Today’s a new day, but tell me where are my blue skies,
where is the love and the joy that you promised me
you tell me it’s alright.

(the truth is)
I almost gave up, but a power that I can’t explain (the holy ghost power, yo)
fell from heaven like a shower now.

I smile, even though I hurt see I smile,
I know God is working so I smile,
Even though I’ve been here for a while
I smile, smile..
it’s so hard to look up when you’ve been down.
Sure would hate to see you give up now
You look so much better when you smile.

Smile.. for me
Can you just smile… for me.
Smile.. for me
Can you just smile… for me.

ohohoh you look so much better when you
ohohoh you look so much better when you
ohohoh you look so much better when you
ohohoh you look so much better when you
ohohoh you look so much better when you
(and while your waiting)
ohohoh you look so much better when you
(and while your praying)
ohohoh you look so much better when you
(look in the mirror)
ohohoh you look so much better when you
(always remember)
You look so much better when you smile

I almost gave up, but a power that I can’t explain (but the holy ghost power, yo)
fell from heaven like a shower now.

ohohoh (Dallas) you look so much better when you
ohohoh (New Orleans) you look so much better when you
ohohoh (Clevland) you look so much better when you
ohohoh (Detroit) you look so much better when you
ohohoh (Philay) you look so much better when you
ohohoh (Jersey) you look so much better when you
ohohoh (L.A) you look so much better when you
ohohoh (all my people say) you look so much better when you
smile…

See I just don’t want you to be happy
’cause you gotta have something happening.
I want you to have joy
’cause can’t nobody take that away from you.
I see you.. SMILE!!

It bites deep that my dad, grandparents and Jesus get to enjoy that smile; I would have loved to capture it this year in her would be senior photos. (That she wanted me to take).

And All Of A Sudden… I remember her songs… pt 2

Posted on May 21, 2014 by A Girl Named

This is another song that was played at Dakota’s funeral.
I had forgotten that it was. Listening to it this morning – hot tears pouring down my check as I make an attempt at putting on makeup for work. I just now read the lyrics – as this was another one of Dakota’s songs she would sing. It tells so much about what we didn’t know.

“Where I Belong”
Sometimes it feels like I’m watching from the outside
Sometimes it feels like I’m breathing but am I alive
I won’t keep searching for answers that aren’t here to find

All I know is I’m not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

So when the walls come falling down on me
And when I’m lost in the current of a raging sea
I have this blessed assurance holding me.

All I know is I’m not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong

When the earth shakes I wanna be found in You
When the lights fade I wanna be found in You

All I know is I’m not home yet
This is not where I belong
Take this world and give me Jesus
This is not where I belong
[x2]

Where I belong, where I belong
Where I belong, where I belong

Yet it screams everything I wish I could heal.

Life After Her

Our story after the suicide of our daughter

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