Remembering....

Ok...so there are a few dates in the year where my (if you know me) you may notice that I get a little quieter (hard to believe, I know!) - my Mom & Dad's birthdays and then the days they left this earth.

Johan Seligmann - 7.03.1957 - 21.05.1994

Merle Seligmann - 28.10.1957 - 4.6.2003

I've shared a little of my story on this blog here, but not really everything. I feel like it's about time to share the basics, but I feel like there's something I need to say first - this story used to define me, and everything I was and did had this lingering in the background. For the longest time, I felt broken by it, beyond repair, beyond loving, beyond understanding. I'm proud to say that today, as much as my heart breaks when I stop and remember, truly remember, my parents story no longer defines me as a person. It is an integral part of who I am and who I've become as a person, but IT is not ME. And the difference is what has allowed me to become who I am today - happy.

My parents were two of the best people that I've known - it was a privilege to have 6yrs to know my Dad, and 15 to know my Mom. I say that confidently, with only a little bias, but it was not only my life that they touched. For, you see, my parents decided to devote their lives to the work of the Lord - at the time my brothers and I were born they were living in Zimbabwe as missionaries. Yes, I am a Missionary Kid :) The year I was born my Mom was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, a degenerative neurological disease. Thank the Lord for the foresight of my Dad, who even then began making plans for us to ensure our family would be well-taken care of. Even then he must have begun preparing in his head for the time when his beautiful, gentle-natured wife would be debilitated by this disease. The greatest tragedy and cruel surprise was that we lost him first - he was severely injured in a car accident in 1994 (on a car trip from Zim to JHB to surprise us by returning early) and passed away after complications 3 weeks later. What my Mom went through then only hits me now. Losing your husband? 3 young children to care and stay strong for? An illness she new would take everything from her? The panic and heartache must have nearly taken her even then..... A long story short, eventually MS did take her from us - a slow and agonizing process that she handled with the most beautiful grace I have ever witnessed - but by the time she left us she wasn't her anymore, and there was a peace in knowing she would've have to suffer any longer. I sometimes daydream and wish I'd been older when they left....not only to have more time....to understand better, to say the things I felt but couldn't articulate past the fear and the immaturity. Isn't that always how it is? We wish we'd said more, did more, appreciated more.

Today, my Dad would have been 55. And if he were still here, if I'd known then, this is what I would have said to him:

Daddy, I miss you. It's so strange to feel like I knew you, in parts of me and the memories of others, when actually, how well can a young girl know her father? I wish I could hear you tell me how you coped with knowing Mommy was sick, feeling powerless, growing in Faith & learn from that. I wish I could tell you how much I appreciate how you loved and cared for Mommy, I wish I could hug you and tell you that your example of how to love made me seek husband who would love me the same. I wish I could sit next to you, our cameras in hand, and have you be the one to teach me all that I've learnt. I wish I could tell you that I've learnt it's often not the things you say, but the way you live your life, that defines you. I wish I could say THANK YOU most of all... When I think of you, the memories feel out of focus - fine when you look at them out of the corner of your eye, but become blurry when you look dead on. My newfound love of photography makes me feel closer to you than I've felt in years, I wish I could tell you that. 

It's impossible to miss one without the other...

Mommy, I wish I'd understood then. I wish I'd had the power to understand your sacrifice, your strength. I miss you especially when it's quiet, it creeps up on me out of nowhere, wells up in my throat & chokes me. It's the small things that hurt the worst some days - the bittersweet feeling of someone telling me my laugh is just like yours, the wisp of your wedding veil, the pages of one of your much-loved books, the Velveteen Rabbit. Your soft voice on video tape. It's easy to forget the pain most days - it isn't desperate, it isn't agonizing anymore. I forget that it feels sharp, but with dullness around the edges - like a well-worn ball with sharp parts that my fingers stumble over unexpectedly. I miss your advice, over silly things that don't really matter, I miss the way your perfume smelled on you. I wish I could be the one to support you in your pain, rather than the way it was back when you were hurting and I didn't understand. I wish I could just have a cup of coffee with you on my couch and tell you about my day, and get to know you for who you were - not through the hazy perspective of a child. I am eternally grateful for the small things that carried over from you to me - our weird laugh, my love of cats, classic books. It makes you feel more real, especially on the days where it feels like holding tighter to the memories makes them more slippery. I wish I could say I love you one last time....

These two images, that my amazing husband captured, really move me. I feel like I spent so much of my life 'suspended' as in that first image, waiting for something to happen. The second image captures what I feel now - action, passion, impact.

There is somehow great beauty in sorrow....

In knowing great pain, you can truly and fully appreciate happiness...

It reminds me, each day, to LIVE and to LOVE without reservation....

And that, that makes me more grateful than I can say.