Answers that Shake

Hard to come up with a title for this one, but I need to write it down so I remember.   Dark February with all its snow and a husband working endlessly long hours seemed to be plunging the babyMomma into a stagnant muck of despair.  We should know after Amber that the dark, suffocating grief comes back as anniversaries loom.

   (The babyMomma took a class in NYC the end of February a year ago, feeling confident to leave Charlie in good hands.  Charlie was sick while she was away but seemed to get better.   Near the end of March he was sick again and God took him home a week before Palm Sunday last year.  Charlie's second memorial service in Pennsyvania was held the night before Good Friday and the pastor made the connection that Charlie had been born on Christmas Eve and here we were during Holy Week celebrating the end of his life.  His first memorial service was held the day before Palm Sunday.  All this back story that I get bogged down in.) 

I'd been praying hard in February for the babyMomma, for motivation to get in better shape physically as she is now owner/teacher of a ballet studio and needs to rid herself of baby and grief weight as she is an example to students and to protect herself as she dances en pointe. Within a week, she was invited to dance in a production of "A Tale of Three Trees"

She was told she was the only one who hadn't auditioned, they just called and asked her to dance.....in the role of Mary.  "Just a light easy dance, dancing with the tree that becomes the manger for Jesus."    Hard in and of itself, having had her own precious boy when we celebrate the birth of Christ.  I was just amazed as I had been praying for motivation and here comes an invitation to dance and work hard to learn the dance and work with a teacher/dancer she admires and looks up to.  A few weeks into rehearsal, she discovers there is a bit more dancing, a scene involving the cross when everyone else follows Jesus off stage and she has to throw herself at the cross.  This is a tough role for her emotionally and she is my tough, strong on the outside baby girl.  I do not think the people she is working with are quite aware of how hard this is, how close to Charlie's anniversary this is.  The performance is the Friday before Palm Sunday.  Another layer to all of this are the questions people ask who do not know anything.  The people who ask if Zoe is her first baby ....  she says no, Zoe is her third.  .....  and she leaves it there and they smile and say "wow, you must be busy."  She does not want people to feel uncomfortable or to answer that question in front of little ones because that usually leads little ones to ask if they are going to die.

I am grateful and amazed by God's grace and mercy.  He has given her this opportunity to work hard, to have other focus and diversion, and to maybe reconnect herself with her Lord and Savior who loves her very much even though I am sure she and her hubby must find it hard to really believe at times.