JCC

Last year on this day, I was in a major postpartum haze. It was actually my first day at home after Eve's birth. My mom was in town, worrying sick about my dad, who was all by himself in Idaho. And we all sort of just moved around our apartment as if under water, trying to process our feelings in different ways.

Today, a lot of things in my life are different. Almost everything, in fact. Except I still sort of have that underwater feeling. Two years ago today, my brother passed away.

I woke up last night remembering this photo of Jesse and me. I'd completely forgotten about it, but in the middle of the night it was etched in my brain. I've gone through all of my pictures, time and time again, cataloging and organizing any with Jesse in them. But not this picture. I hadn't seen this picture in years. How could I have forgotten about it? How could I have missed it? I felt immediately panicked that I'd lost it. I got out of bed and pulled my photo boxes out of my closet, and miraculously, there it was... a gift, a treasure reserved specifically for this day.

This was taken in Phoenix over Christmas my freshmen year in college. I remember something obnoxious going on... most likely a love-handle pinching. This is the Jesse we all get a gut-check remembering. The one that we ache for our babies to know.

Death is such an individual ordeal. Everyone handles it so differently. I've experienced the bittersweet passing of three of my grandparents and I can certainly say, those deaths felt nothing like Jesse's. Jesse's death left a wake of extreme and strange feelings. Feelings I'd never dealt with before. They're still there, I think I'm just more used to them now.

I have always been able to envision my wearied grandparents, freed from their fallen bodies, racing towards the Savior in a glorious reunion, relieved to be finished with their sojourn on this earth. I knew they had lived good lives. I knew the Savior could look at them and say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. Well done." How happy they all must have been.

I've envisioned this same reunion for my brother hundreds of times. In my darkest moments since his death, I've clung desperately to it. At times it has made me sad--like, I wish I could have been there with him to explain it all. As if Jesse's estrangement from the Savior in this life could have possibly caused unease between the two of them, and that he would have needed me or my family there with him to make it all more comfortable.

But then Heavenly Father reminds me to get real. To get over myself. To shake off the immature and limited scope of my mortal mind and remember, with surety, that no time spent during Jesse's life here on earth has ever brought him more comfort or relief than that of his blessed reunion with the Savior.

In these two years, that is what I have come to know most. Jesse is happy. More happy than he has ever been. More happy than I have ever been. He is not lonely. He is not unsure. He is the very best of the Jesse I knew and more than I can begin to imagine.

And when I see him again, he'll most certainly try to pinch my love handles.