{"id":5833,"date":"2014-11-19T02:26:44","date_gmt":"2014-11-19T08:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2014\/11\/19\/a-double-dose-of-grief-part-2\/"},"modified":"2014-11-19T02:26:44","modified_gmt":"2014-11-19T08:26:44","slug":"a-double-dose-of-grief-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2014\/11\/19\/a-double-dose-of-grief-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Double Dose Of Grief &#8211; Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Today marks almost 2 weeks since my time of grief began.<\/strong>  I last wrote about this on the 9th in a post titled <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2014\/11\/09\/a-double-dose-of-grief\">A Double Dose Of Grief<\/a><\/strong>, and so this is an update.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\"  class=\"goright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net\/hphotos-ak-xpa1\/v\/t1.0-9\/10406633_761467323902547_7841354693822647665_n.jpg?w=270&#038;ssl=1\" \/><strong>In short, I am still grieving, but now a new grief has been added to it.<\/strong>  You see, we attended the funeral today of Vernon Lee Brooks III, who is the brother of one of Leighton&#8217;s best friends, Jared Brooks. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Vernon was only 25<\/strong>, Jared is just a year younger, and the two were very close.  <\/p>\n<p><strong>For me, two of my own brothers have died,<\/strong> but each one was old enough to be my uncle. And one of them, James, had four children of his own before I was even born. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Despite the age difference,<\/strong> their deaths were still very hard and I think about them often.  I can only imagine what Jared is going through&mdash;even with the peace that comes from the assurance of Vernon&#8217;s salvation&mdash;and our family is praying for him.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Of my original two griefs,<\/strong> one of them I was not able to write about out of respect for my son and daughter-in-law while they grieved in private.  The time for that has passed, and now Hannah has shared publicly in a blog post that they lost their daughter in a miscarriage.<\/p>\n<p>And now we have learned her name &#8230; <strong>Khava Grace<\/strong> &#8230; our first granddaughter, whom we will now only meet in heaven.  <\/p>\n<p>Here are three excerpts of <a href=\"https:\/\/fieldnotesofanadventurer.wordpress.com\/2014\/11\/18\/khava-grace-hajicek\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">what Hannah wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Three weeks ago I was pregnant. I was excited. I was nesting and daydreaming about what the coming months would hold. I would hold my tummy and talk to the child inside. My husband Leighton and I had picked out names and a nursery theme. And.. even though that baby wasn&#8217;t in our plan, it was in God&#8217;s and we loved that baby.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; Losing the baby taught me that life is short. It taught me that anything God creates, He can take away. It&#8217;s up to Him. This earth and this life are incredibly temporary and it is the next life that we should be concerned with. It&#8217;s the next life that counts for anything. Losing the baby allowed me to see God&#8217;s grace in a way I never had before. There&#8217;s something about having the body of someone who is now with Jesus inside of you.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230; I take comfort in the thought that my baby is up in heaven playing with all it&#8217;s little cousins that were miscarried. It&#8217;s not alone. My baby is with Jesus. My baby was a gift from the Creator and has gone back to live with Him. My baby&#8217;s life was lived for the sake of glorifying Christ and for that I am thankful.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>And so now you understand my grief.<\/strong>  I shaved for the first time in many years because Leighton shaved. His goal was to grow his beard out until the baby was born, and what a beard he had!  When they found out the baby had died, he shaved, and I joined with him out of solidarity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>And so even though we smile,<\/strong> and even when Jared smiles &#8230; we grieve .. and we live &#8230; and we laugh &#8230; and we praise &#8230; and we trust &#8230; and we grieve again. Isn&#8217;t life mixed up like that?  <\/p>\n<p><strong>May the Lord comfort Jared, and may He comfort Leighton and Hannah.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><center><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\"  src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.EpicTales.org\/images\/Robert\/LeightonHannah2014_Vignette.jpg?w=300\" \/><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Views: 73<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nToday marks almost 2 weeks since my time of grief began. I last wrote about this on the 9th in&hellip;\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/2014\/11\/19\/a-double-dose-of-grief-part-2\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;A Double Dose Of Grief &#8211; Part 2&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9,10,8,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements","category-christianity","category-family","category-publishers","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/LeightonHannah2014_Vignette1.jpg?fit=456%2C540","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p67v0M-1w5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.epictales.org\/treskillard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}