This was our third holiday season without Texa.
I didn’t think I’d survive the first week after she ran ahead of us to Heaven, yet here I am, nearly three years later, still breathing. Looking back, I’m unsure what I thought this journey would be like. Maybe I hoped I’d get better at navigating grief over time. Perhaps I imagined that if I worked hard enough, I could make my way through the maze of emotions and eventually arrive at a place where the pain might soften and I could feel whole again.
But instead of finding a destination, I’ve learned to keep moving through each day. I’ve become practiced at holding back the rising tears and silencing the flood of terrible thoughts. On the days when I can’t, I’ve learned to slip away—into a bathroom, behind a corner, or even behind a store display—where I can let the tears fall unseen. My heart has adjusted to a strange new rhythm. It beats steadily—until it skips a beat for where Texa used to be. Then, somehow, it carries on.
The loss and sorrow no longer feel like a heavy burden on my shoulders. Instead, they’ve settled deep into my bones, becoming an inseparable part of me. I know I’ll never be able to lay or set them aside. This is my reality now.
Sometimes, I feel trapped in a kind of prison. I used to live with a sense of freedom to dream, hope, and live with joyful abandon. But that freedom vanished the day I lost Texa. No amount of wishing, working, or crying can bring her back. I can’t change what’s happened. My daughter is gone. Like Israel in the Bible, I find myself waiting for the Lord to bring release. O Come, Emmanuel.
This Christmas, my heart felt divided. I thought about the birth of Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah who brought light and hope to the world. But I also reflect on the centuries of waiting that came before—those dark and silent years when God’s people longed for His promise to be fulfilled. There’s something comforting about remembering that I’m not the first to wait in the dark, hoping for the light to break through.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes—and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside—is not a bad picture of Advent.” This is where I find myself this season: waiting in faith, trusting that God will open the door in His time, and holding on to the hope that true freedom is coming.
