Daily Gratitude Year 13 - Day 238:  Today, I am grateful for April. 

Every year, the date comes and goes. 8-26-95 is forever in our memories. Dad and Mama stopped by Matt's office at the John Deere dealership in Clifton where Matthew worked at the time on the way home from their weekly Gideon breakfast. 

It was exactly two weeks before April would be married on the family farm. She spent 15 months serving on Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa, where she met the love of her life, Mark Miller. He was a Marine. She was in the Air Force. He was tender with her gentle heart. He adored her. September 9, 1995, they would be wed. She was 27... not quite 28 years old. 

As Mama, Dad, and Matt chatted in his office, a car pulled up outside. The gentleman asked for directions to the Ken Lindgren farm. They laughed and said, "His son works here and he and his wife are back in Matt's office." So, they directed the gentleman back to where Dad, Mama, and Matthew would receive life changing news. The Air Force Chaplain pulled out the letter. 

You know... the one in movies... Mr. and Mrs. Lindgren, we regret to inform you that your daughter has died in service to our country. That letter. She did not die in battle. Her fiancé found her in her apartment the next morning.  April had "fallen asleep" while talking to Mark on the phone.  

From Matt's desk, I received the call in Peoria. They were together, as only God could have planned for the news, and our hearts broke together when they called. We could only imagine what Mark was feeling on the other side of the world. 

There was wedding tulle from one end of my parents house to the other. There was a wedding to cancel and a funeral to plan. Long distance guests to wedding guests and funeral service details to work out. It was surreal. Shock is a beautiful thing. You go through the motions until you can feel again. 

Jennifer was very pregnant with Ciara. She came early to give us joy near April's birthday. This year, Matt and Jennifer's youngest, Kenzie (and Steven) will be married on September 13th. That same hard week in September has been redeemed in a celebration of love and marriage. We are excited for them. 

As my own children have passed that age when April died, I can only imagine what my parents endured. Chase was four at the time. Losing a sibling changes you forever. They are supposed to be a part of your forever story. Now Matthew, Jennifer, Randy, and I have walked that path of sibling loss. We will never forget them. 

Losing a child is unspeakable pain. I prayed that it would help me serve my St. Jude families better in my time there. My heart for the siblings grew. They can be the forgotten mourners. 

Our last words were, "I love you. See you soon." For her, that is true. For us, 30 years seems long and other days like a blink. 

"Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end." -Ecclesiastes 3:11 

He makes all things beautiful in His time. I am grateful for the things we learn in loss and for the ways God redeems the days, the dates, and the years. 

Today, I am grateful for April.