I look up at the stars when I’m missing you the most…

They remind me, there’s no place like home!

Sitting here, I’m llistening to Anne Wilson sing this and I just cried. I held it together until she sang the line that I used as the title for this post. She and I used to climb out onto the roof of her parents house and look at the stars. If we were going to feed horses and goats at night, we rode, laying down, in the back end of the pick up to watch the stars.

I did fine during “My Jesus”, but this one killed me. Because of that one line about looking at the stars when I’m missing you the most.

It hits so close to my heart and grief.

Anne also sings about stopping by her brother’s grave to talk to him, but she knows that’s not where he is.

But I have not been back to Marriah’s grave since we laid her there. That’s not where she is.

And I had an extremely hard time with that on the night of the family viewing. It hadn’t sunk in yet. I hadn’t grasped that she wasn’t there, and that the body we were viewing wasn’t MY Marriah anymore.

I didn’t walk up to the casket until the very end, and they had to walk me up there because I didn’t want to. I believe it was my daddy who said to me that I would regret it if I didn’t.

I can’t say one way I the other about that, but I can say that I lost it when they started to close the lid of her casket.

Marriah was severely claustrophobic and didn’t even like riding in elevators. Her anxiety went to a another level when it was a dark tight space.

I couldn’t get a grip on myself when they started closing her into a tight, dark space.

It was my momma or my aunt that finally got it into my head that it doesn’t matter what is happening to her body right now because she wasn’t here.

That was just the flesh and bone that used to house her, so it didn’t matter that it was being enclosed in a dark, tight space.

That wasn’t Marriah anymore.

That’s still a hard concept for me. I still occasionally will have a nightmare that she is trapped in that small box, 6 feet underground.

Logically, I know that she isn’t. However, my anxiety doesn’t think logically.

One day, my journey will get me past the anxiety.

I’m not there yet, and I don’t know when I will be.

And that’s ok.

I have said it before and I will say it again: Everyone grieves in their one way and in their own time.

One day I will be able to go “see her”, but I’m just not there yet.

And that too, is ok.

Love you always. Miss you forever, Sunflower. 🌻

Credits: “No Place Like Home”
Artist: Anne Wilson
Written: Matthew Joseph West / Jeff Pardo / Anne Wilson
https://youtu.be/cWunilHijhc