Come sit with me for a moment…
The Day Heaven Celebrates Too
June 19th
THERE ARE DAYS IN THE YEAR that don’t feel like days at all. They feel like memories wearing the shape of time, days wrapped in both ache and grace. These are the days when heaven feels closer, as if the veil thins just enough for your heart to touch something holy.
For me, that day is June 19th. It is the day heaven gained my daughter. The day my world dimmed. The day everything changed. And somehow, it is the day love took on a new form.
Every year, as the date approaches, there is a quiet stirring inside me. It isn’t panic or fear; it is something deeper and softer. It’s like the pull of a place you once lived that still knows your name. I wake up with Brianna on my mind, as if she slipped into my dreams to say, “Mama, I’m okay.” Even though my body remembers the pain, the heaviness, the hospital beeping, and the moment her heart stopped beating beneath my hand, there is also a knowing. A presence. A whisper I cannot explain.
It has taken me years to understand the difference between heaven taking her and heaven receiving her. This day used to swallow me. It used to bring back the sterile lights and the shaking in my legs. It used to break me open. Now, it pauses me. It quiets me. It brings me back to her, but it doesn’t destroy me.
I imagine what she would look like now, older, wiser, and even more stunning. I imagine her as the amazing woman she would have become, and I let myself believe she is that woman. Not here, but somewhere real. Somewhere bright. Somewhere whole.
And Chris… I like to believe that on this day, he holds her hand in heaven and reminds her that her love is still moving through this world. Through me. I imagine angels speaking her name gently, not as a loss, but as a presence whose love still echoes.
On earth, I continue what love asked of me. Not loudly. Not perfectly. Just faithfully. Because on the day heaven celebrates her, so do I. Not because she is gone, but because she lived.
Thank you for sitting with me.