Don’t feel sorry for me because my daughter is an angel.
I live my life the way that I would want Lauren to live hers if I had died first. I would want her to be happy, and loving, and able to live a good life, and be an example to others. It is not less of a testimony to my love for Lauren, for me to be happy. I don’t have to walk around with my scars showing to prove my love for her, even though sometimes I feel like I should. Lauren taught me how to love, and to forgive, and to have faith, and to be a mother. All this time, I thought I was teaching her, but she was teaching me, and she still teaches me. I miss her every second that I am alive.
Sometimes I feel like she has been drafted into Gods army, and cannot come home. It feels as though she still exists somewhere, and is living a wonderful life, separate from this one that I still live. Aside from my grief, I am a proud mother because she was chosen. The book of Wisdom says that God takes the righteous hearts, lest they be defiled by evil, and tormented for their good works. Lauren must have had a righteous heart! It seems that she accomplished her mission of love before most of us even begin to live our lives. I am thankful that she was spared some of the painful sufferings of life that many of us have to endure as part of our own life’s journey. I believe that there is no better place for her to be, and it would be selfish of me to wish her back.
Don’t feel sorry for me because my daughter is an angel. You see, I have her with me always, and I never feel alone anymore. I don’t fear death, or illness, or suffering the way I used to, because I know that when I face those painful realities of life, I will always have a ray of sunshine to brighten my darkened path. On the day that I embrace my own death, a part of me will smile, because I know that I will be reunited with my beloved daughter. I realize that I should have felt this way about Jesus all along, but I guess I just wasn’t willing to face death and the afterlife until a part of me died. Lauren’s life and death have bestowed many gifts upon my life. Now she is an angel, and she will light my path, and bring me to Jesus on the day I die, and every day I live on this earth until then.
Tara Rodney
4/4/11