🌊
I’m sitting in a 100-year-old cottage as I write this.
It was originally used as extra rooms for the guests summering in this little area tucked into the east side of Lake Michigan.
It’s now a family cottage.
Owned by our friends for the last fifty years.
People I love.

My sister and her husband were supposed to be in the Philippines this week, starting a three-year assignment to be the leaders of one of our church missions.
They’ll get there eventually.
When foreign travel opens up and visas are extended once again to Americans.
But for now, we’re all here in Michigan.
Waiting.

I’ve heard about the cottage at Pentwater for years.
The magic of it.

Our friends met us at the door.
We did a quick initial tour of the cottage to get the lay of the land.
I stepped onto the porch facing the lake, leaned against the wooden railing, weathered by years of sunny months, snowy winters and beach air.
And cried.
I put both hands to my face and cried tears that I didn’t even realize were there.

I think something is being loosened that has been coiled inside me for weeks.
A different kind of sadness than I've felt during the last twelve months.
A drifting. An uncertainly. A loneliness. A sense that Jason is farther away.
A new kind of searching - one where I now know I won’t find him. I now realize that my grief will never reach who I’m looking for.

Grief feels different right now.
I’m not exactly sure what I need.
I’m not exactly sure what feelings are tumbling throughout my heart, filling my belly. They move and change and get tossed around. I’m still sorting out what I’m actually feeling in Month 14.

I’m not exactly sure what the next step is.
The next thoughts to think.
The next feeling to feel.
So for now, I’m just waiting.
Giving myself a chance to be where I am.
To encircle myself in the arms of people who love me.
To allow the thoughts and feelings of today. This week. This month. To make room for whatever might bubble up.

I’ll just wait.
And let Coleman run free, gathering sand on his feet and sun on his skin at the cottage on Lake Michigan.✊🏻💙