7

Today was so hard.  Every day is so hard.  I am hoping someday, maybe ten years from now I will say, “I was happy ALL day today.”

We went to my Mom’s for dinner.  We frequently go there on Sundays and this was the first time without Lucas.  It felt otherworldly, like in a dream…how are we all just here doing our thing and our precious Lucas is gone? It didn’t feel right.  Not at all.

When we would go there for dinner one thing that always brought me pride was the way he treated my parents, with such love and respect and reverence.  My Dad, God love him, is one of the greatest men I have ever known.  He does however have a penchant for sometimes telling long rambling stories.  Lucas would always sit there next to him, in rapt attention, never once acting like it wasn’t the most exciting thing he had ever heard.  Family was EVERYTHING to Lucas.  He would have gone to visit Papa and Grandma every day if he could have.

He wasn’t there today.  I didn’t think it was possible for my heart to hurt so much.  Something sacred has been torn apart.  A communion of family has been forever changed.

When I got home, somehow out of the blue Lucas’ belt appeared on the floor.  It was the one that I had bought him to wear to homecoming.  How is got there I don’t know, but I sunk to the floor and sobbed and immediately thought to go light candles.  Something to radiate in the pitch black night.  I don’t do it every night but it always comforts me.

So I went to buy new candles and I thought- how many?

Part of me wants to buy a thousand.  There isn’t enough flame in the world to represent my Lucas. He was ablaze with life.

Then it came to me.

Seven. Seven is the number of completeness and perfection in the Bible (both physical and spiritual). It is used 860 times.

I lit seven candles for him because he is complete and whole and perfect in heaven.

He was my everything on earth- but he is everything to God.

“But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

Titus 3:4-7