(I was cleaning out my inbox and found the following excerpt from an email that I sent on Sunday, Jan. 25. I thought it was worth posting here, because although it’s painful to re-read, it is evident to me that God was already at work, healing and providing for us in our moments of need.)

In the span of two days, I have broken the news to my two nephews that their Daddy is gone, written my own brother’s obituary, helped with funeral arrangements and cried out to my Creator from the aching crevasses of my heart.

And yet — God is good … ALL the time. In the midst of the visitors and plans and decisions and phone calls, I have had few precious moments to myself, but God remains faithful to help me put one foot in front of the other. He has graced me with rest and answered my prayers for empty dreams.

My nephews are being well cared for and loved on, and although this is still all so very confusing to them, they are holding up well. My mom is surrounded by family and church friends, and she is doing much, much better than when I first saw her Friday night in the ER, where she was in shock from hearing the news of my brother’s accidental shooting.

Please continue to keep all of us in prayer. Tell your loved ones just that … “I love you” … and give them an extra hug today.

I deleted Nathan from my Yahoo contacts today. I don’t know why it took me so long … I just liked seeing his name on the list.

I still look at his Facebook and MySpace pages every once in a while. They have memorialized his sites, so they should stay active, just not allow any new posts. There’s something heartwarming about being able to read the last few things he wrote and see his picture, all smiling and happy. 🙂

I miss him so much.

I am sniffling and crying tears of unparalleled joy, so I hope no one walks into my office right now, because I look like a mess! All my mascara has been cried off, and I can barely see to type through my bleary eyes. We serve a God who is SO big, SO mighty, SO good … my heart is full to bursting. Today has been chockfull of blessings!

First of all, our bid on the house we wanted was accepted! This means that we will live just a mere couple of blocks from Nana & Granddad, which is positively wonderful. It’s the same school district but a larger and newer house. We are all thrilled to pieces. We close on June 15, so the next three weeks will be a flurry of packing and purging!

Secondly, as I was still reeling from signing the contract on the house and meeting Lane for lunch to talk & daydream about some particulars (now that we could really brainstorm about the house!), I got back to my office and received an email from the attorney. The final custody papers have been signed by the judge! My nephews are officially our dependents now. (There she goes – crying again!)

Four months ago tomorrow, one of the Constants in my life disappeared. People always say that God will give you the strength to get through whatever challenges life throws your way, but you always hope you won’t have to test that theory. The events of today are a reminder to me, yet again, that our Savior never fails. If you haven’t heard the song “Always” by Building 429, I encourage you to listen to it and really let the words soak into your spirit. (http://www.building429.com/media.php – Click Listen, then choose track #5)

By the time Independence Day rolls around, we’ll be unpacked (I hope! Ha!) and have all five boys settled into our new home. Thank you for walking alongside us and praying us through everything. We hope you’ll come visit us at the new house … better yet, come visit us at the old house and bring some empty boxes with you! Ha!

We watched “Seven Pounds” the other day. While it pained me to see Will Smith’s character so desperate to redeem his mistake, it was easy to sympathize with him.
After the movie, my mind was reeling about the lives improved – if not all together saved! – by organ donors.

For the record, Lane and I are organ donors. My only stipulation is that I don’t want my ovaries/eggs taken. I may not be able to stop embryonic stem cell research on a global scale, but it darn sure won’t happen with any of my eggs!

Anyway, I started thinking about all of the potential lives touched by Nathan’s organs. He was a healty, athletic young man, and it makes me smile to think of others’ lives being better because of him.

It has been exactly a month since my ”big-little” brother died. It is as heavy on my heart as if it happened this weekend. I’m reminded of when a newborn baby turns one month old, and you realize that the past 31 days have been a semi-conscious blur of functioning somewhere between grogginess and sleepwalking.

On some levels, we’ve made great strides toward healing and trying to discover what a new sense of “normal” is supposed to be like. Talking the boys through some of their thought processes has helped me a lot, because it brings to perspective their childlike faith and reminds me not to over-think things.

At other times, I function one hour at a time, because everything around me reminds me of him, and I feel suffocated with grief.

Right now, to be perfectly frank, I’m dealing with some angry feelings toward my brother. I guess it’s the same way you might feel about someone who was in a car accident and died b/c they weren’t wearing a seatbelt. The accident wasn’t their fault, but it was perhaps preventable, in a way. You’ll never really know. That’s how I feel right now – that if he’d been more careful, it wouldn’t have happened this way. Logically, I know it’s pointless to rehash the coulda-shoulda-woulda scenarios, but that’s what’s weighing on my heart right now.

It was also pretty difficult to go through and pack his belongings this weekend. Besides being sore & tired from lugging boxes, it was emotionally draining. I just stood in his closet for a few minutes by myself and smelled all his shirts. I turned on his iPod and listened to his music.

I want to hear him laugh and then set his elbow on my head and call me his “little-big sister.”

I want what I can’t have.

When will I stop seeing everything through the lens of my brother’s death?

My tradition whenever I travel out-of-state is to buy souvenir t-shirts for the boys of either the major university in town or the major sports team. I was in St. Louis for a conference the past few days, so I picked up three Cardinals t-shirts for my boys. The next day, I went back to the store and bought two more for my nephews.

We experienced turbulence on the plane on the return flight, and I thought of dying and seeing him waiting to greet me at Heaven’s gate.

I had a meeting today with the chiefs of risk management and campus police to review our department’s emergency preparedness plan, and as we talked through the recommended plan of action should someone with a gun ever enter our building … I wondered what he must have felt when he was shot.

I couldn’t figure out how to get to the draft email message that I had saved on my Blackberry, and after several failed attempts of scrolling through menus and feeling increasingly inept, I wanted so badly to call and ask him.

Speaking of said Blackberry, I know he would hound me relentlessly for getting a pink one.  😉

People I meet ask how many kids I have, and although I say three, my heart feels five.

Someone will say, “Hi, how’s it going?” and all I can think to respond is, “Right now, I’m ok.”