Looking Forward With Hope

We have often had this conversation since hitting the road: “What do you miss most about home?”

The answers vary from day to day, but there is a common thread. Dear friends. Two bathrooms. Trader Joe’s.

I usually try to answer in some light-hearted, almost shallow way. I try to keep the focus light and happy. 

But really, there are things I miss. Deep things. That go beyond my cherished people and the beauty of where we called home for 10 years. 

I left the place Mason lived his life on this earth. I left the only hometown my son knew. I left the parks we played at, the donut shop we’d visit, the beaches that beckoned us for those spontaneous trips. I left the places I heard him laugh. The rich memories of his life. It’s there that I breathed the air he lived in. 

There just aren’t words to explain the sacredness of home to me. 

When I was struggling through embracing this new chapter of life, of selling everything, moving into a 5th wheel, living life on the road and the unknown of where we’d settle at the end of things, the hardest thing for me… was Mason.

I could say the reason I didn’t want to leave home was because it is where my son is buried.

But really, that’s not what it is. It’s not where he is buried, but where he lived. Where he breathed and laughed and experienced life. My life with my other kids keeps going. We have memories to make. We have a future to look forward to. But that chapter with Mason is closed. 

That’s a hard thing to pull away from. 

A week before we left our home, we went as a family to the cemetery. 

I don’t visit there often. This was only my second visit since the day we buried Mason. 

It’s not a matter of avoidance. Or denial. It’s just that to me, Mason isn’t there. It’s too heavy for me to think of his body being buried. Instead, I think of his soul in heaven. That’s where he really is. 

The cemetery is just not where I go to remember him.

Instead of visiting the cemetery and focusing on his death, I watch the sunrise every morning on my run and think of him in eternity. I watch sunsets at the beach and think of the magnitude of glory he experiences every moment. I visit places he used to enjoy. I have memories of him all around my town that bring me smiles and tears and I am grateful that for 6 too-short years, I got to be his mom.

So when I had to wrestle through leaving our beautiful town in Southern California, I was wrestling over leaving the places where Mason’s memory is so vivid to me. Where I still hear his laughter. Or picture him playing in his cowboy boots. The fields where I watched him play soccer and the pizza place where he shoved an entire container of napkins down his shirt.

Home for me is where my memories are. And I have some pretty sacred memories in Camarillo. Memories that can’t be replaced or built upon. They are frozen in time. A special gift to me for a season. One that I desperately wish I could reach back and grab out and pull close to my heart and never let go. 

But also, they are memories that will never fade. They will forever be a part of me no matter my zip code.

What makes it hard to leave is also what pushes me forward.

The depth of my loss is shadowed by the magnitude of hope that awaits me. I keep on. I long for what’s better. What’s true and certain. 

God has called us to more. He has called us to rich experiences as a family. To a drastic life change that switches off much of what is unnecessary in our life so we can make room for what is better. He’s called us to live with more purpose. More focus. He’s called us to share our story and raise awareness for children who have no one to fight on their behalf. 

He’s called us to deep things. And while I still look back with longing and grieve what once was, I simultaneously look forward with expectancy to what lies ahead.

I believe eternity will look different because of my loss. I know that my life here has changed. Longing and hope have been magnified and the focus on purpose has been honed. And the beauty God is writing with Mason’s story is growing. 

I don’t want to miss the best chapters. So I press on and say goodbye and wipe the tears. 

And I know with confidence that what awaits me is a better country. A heavenly one. Where a spunky little boy will be there to greet me with grand stories.

Faith-filled stories.

Glorious stories. Of how God turned loss and pain into redemption and hope.