North Carolina has interesting weather. Today Alexa told us to expect sunshine and thunderstorms, and I couldn’t help but think that’s pretty much the daily forecast for a bereaved parent.

When you lose a child, you never get over it, but you learn to get through it… one moment at a time. Brooke is always on my mind (along with Blake and Leah) but there are times when the emptiness from not having her here becomes unbearable. And that’s when the storm hits. Sometimes these storms are in the forecast, like holidays or her birthday. Sometimes these storms come out of nowhere,  and these are called triggers.  These unexpected moments of overwhelming sadness pop up when I see a girl around Brooke’s age with her wavy hair swinging as she walks by me in the pickup line at school. They happen when I hear a song by Meagan Trainor or Taylor Swift, when I’m channel surfing and come across her favorite Disney XD shows, and especially when I see a brother and sister goofing around at the mall. They remind me of all that was. But the big storms come up when I think of all the things she will never experience like graduation, prom, college, and that walk down the aisle.

Back in the early days, the storms were relentless, but as I get farther along on this never-ending journey without her, I’m able to welcome any ray of sunshine that breaks through the clouds. And sometimes we even have clear skies for a while like when Leah laughs with delight, when Blake hits three doubles in one baseball tournament,  and especially when I see the carefree and wild way that Brenn and Blake can play together again.  The sun shines bright on our strong yet struggling family. And while we realize there is always another storm on the horizon, and that they will never subside, we also know that we can survive them all. Because Brooke is always with us, through sunshine and thunderstorms, and all the lonely nights in between.