Of The Billions

Post 259

I haven’t written in a week and there is a lot on my mind.

I have so much gratitude for all of the thoughts and prayers that held us up during the past week. Thank you! I will say that it was as hard as I dreaded it would be, but not continually, because knowing that others were remembering Morgan helped a lot. I am happy that the anniversary and Christmas are in the rearview mirror.

The Chipotle idea had an impact with some family and friends sending us pictures of their “memorial meal” throughout the day on Saturday. Each time it truly helped. I hope there was a way for Morgan to see it happening. She would have gotten a kick out of it and definitely participated herself on someone else’s behalf. One day I guess we’ll know. Hubby and I were practically the only ones in the restaurant around 4pm in Bowling Green, KY. There was a young family with three or four kids just finishing eating and cleaning up as we were paying. The cash register had an issue and the employee had to run it twice. We’d already bought the gift card, but could we get it to them before they actually walked out the door? Yes, barely!

It rained in the morning so we hadn’t gotten out of the cabin until early afternoon and took KK for a walk on a really nice paved path mostly along a street and through some woods at a mid-point location between our cabin in Cave City and Chipotle in Bowling Green. At the beginning I said to hubby, “I predict we’ll see a GBH” which would be unlikely on our path, but I felt it since I’d seen so many in the last week. An hour later, crossing to where we parked above the Barren River, I said, “Let’s look out across and see if we see her.” Hubby suggested we go down the hill to the river itself so we did.

His eyesight is much better than mine and he thought he saw a bird standing on a piece of wood near shore. At that point I decided to pull out my phone and start videotaping, and it’s actually quite funny listening to our banter on whether it was a GBH or not, but you can see for yourself how gloriously she showed up. Even with the pictures of Chipotle arriving sporadically, my heart was indeed still heavy, but the load came off after we witnessed the below. “Mom, I’m free as a bird and I love it in heaven” is the message I feel like I get when I see these “smart and planning” creatures.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YAhDDhmBoAqRFGKwTytxKJV36dbjvCRx/view?usp=drive_link

Somebody asked me when and how I first felt like the GBH represented her and now I have spent the last hour trying to find the post where I first mentioned it. Finally it came up in one of the comments between me and one of the commenters at the end of January. One of these days I will go back and read everything and count up how many posts have mentioned me feeling her through a GBH.

A whole month later is the first time I actually posted a picture. Interestingly, in my memory, I thought this was the first time and that it had happened much earlier. Here’s that post that I’d thought was the first time I’d felt her. It wasn’t until the three-month anniversary in Biloxi that it became my “go-to” feel good symbol of hope and peace.

Now onto why I named this post ‘Of The Billions.’

Do you know “they” estimate there are 8 billion people living on the earth right now? One of these billions made her way to my ‘little ol’ just started substack’ posts and cared enough about my journey to offer a bit of her own on my behalf. Nancy took a little time and shared a piece of her journey with a complete stranger, and she, as well as others who have encouraged me this past year, have made all the difference. If I was writing about seeing a heron and nobody cared, would I have continued? Only God knows, but I kind of doubt it.

But this week I have contemplated souls. That C.S. Lewis book, The Problem of Pain, I have listened to three times this past year talks about why our souls have to have a body to encase them. So here I am, having lived nearly 59 years now, and of the 8 billion people, I’m making this journey with each of YOU! You are sitting here reading this so I am one of the 1,000 or 2,000 people out of 8 billion that is having an impact on you SOMEHOW. That’s perhaps too high of a number or perhaps it’s too low. I guess it depends on the person and what we would consider having an impact. Does it count every person on every airplane or bus? Or only the ones you made eye contact with? Spoke with?

I think I like to view it as the people I’ve met whose names I know or knew. So for me, what’s that, maybe a thousand if I’m lucky? Now let’s get to the people whom I’m aware have made an actual difference in my life. Maybe less than a hundred people? If I get to the people with whom I’ve shared secrets and hopes and dreams, it could be less than twenty or thirty people out of 8 billion. What I’m saying is that God orchestrated our souls to take these trips around the sun together. We are the ones to impact each other.

Morgan was one of the 9 other souls called ‘nuclear’ family to me. I had two parents and four brothers and sisters and I have a husband and son, and had a daughter. The closest people to me at different points in my life were and are the nuclear family. Nine people!

If I add in the closest friends or boyfriends in various times of my life, I’m lucky if that number adds another ten or twenty people. Relatives and extended family add in a couple dozen more. For coworkers who I saw “more than family” and felt a connection with, I’d add another twenty. I guess you are getting the idea. I’ll say it again. We are the ones to impact each other. Let’s do it God’s way. Love one another even when it means sacrifice on your part, whether it be a tiny sacrifice of a few minutes time, or something larger. We make the difference in other people’s lives for better or for worse.

Give it some thought and thank God for those people who have impacted you in a positive way. Thank you to my family and friends. Thank you readers and commenters as I start year two of life without my daughter.

Now to give you a great laugh after all of today’s seriousness, I was perusing the photos on her phone during our stay in the cabin. I pulled a couple off that should make you smile!

I have no recollection of the reason I did that.

Loved her humor!