As I write these words, a few hours before the beginning of 2025, my eleven-year-old Pomengranate slides into my bedroom. She has tears behind her green eyes, and she's left her super strong Daddy in the kitchen in themiddle of their baking to sit on my lap. Me? Really? I'm strong enough for you little Brownie? You are picking me over your Daddy?
"What is it?" I ask, and she doesn't know, and I pull her onto my lap and tell her that it's okay to cry. She nods and snuggles in closer, and I rub her back, and I thank God that He allowed me to look my losses directly in the face in a year of refining that was 2024. It is exactly these reflections that are allowing me to understand how important these conversations with my daughter are.
I ask her if I can snap a picture, and she says yes, and I take it, and I don't care that I look older than I wish and weigh more than I would like and am quite aware now that I'm no longer the volleyball and basketball superstar I once was, but instead, I am a 47-year-old mother, most likely over halfway through this journey we call life.
I say words to Hannah that I didn't have just twelve months ago. Debilitated by migraines and so desperate to end the pain, I went off my decades-long-anti-depressant companion. And what followed was the opportunity to look my grief in the face and heal and leave a prison I didn't even know I was in.
I tell my youngest daughter that Jesus is not afraid of her sadness. He is present in grief even if we don't what the grief is from. Go ahead and cry little Hannah Joy Pomegranate Kitsteiner. Don't be afraid of your emotions. Your Savior died for you and you are who He made you to be. And I'm your Mom, and when you don't know what to do, I'm gonna help you for as long as you will let me.
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