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This Is My Mug and I'm Sipping From It

How does one even begin to encapsulate an entire year of searching for our daughter Emily Rea and the voids that are left?


Yes, today is the one-year mark of living in a tediously fast-paced dimension into which we were tossed in an instant. Today could be a day full of empty, but it’s not, partly due to you!


This post will be a diversion from my typically picturesque and allegorical posts. A nutshell of bullets. I promise to name-drop next time!


Successes since the last post: 

  • Organizational Show Up and Sign Up for Emily Rally

    • So much help and numerous printing resources given for Rally flyer distribution 

    • Businesses that stepped up to donate set-up materials for Rally

    • Wonderful donations for the gift drawing to help raise funds for a Private Investigator 

    • Never Stop Praying T-shirts available

    • 3rd generation Emily plants available

    • Great music: a fiddle piece composed by friend, local guitar artist and surprise vocals.

    • Sign-ups for local help such as new flyer distribution, foot search volunteers, supplies, etc.

    • Numerous local media “outlets” came to help share Emily’s story and publicize request for additional help

  • Return of the deep-water sonar specialists, Gene and Sandy Ralston

    • Scanned for a week+ until a summer solstice snow and following inclement weather drove them off the water and home to Idaho!

  • Petition posted and circulated to encourage the local Sheriff to invite a federal agency’s assistance in Emily’s search 

    • Over 5200 signatures; online and hand gathered were delivered to and received by the Attorney General of MT

    • Subsequent assistance offered

  • Paddle-out, a peaceful and powerful gathering to bring awareness to the continuing search for Emily

    • envisioned and organized by one of Emily’s local paddle boarding friends; gorgeous weather! 

  • Engaged a Private Investigator 

    • As stated elsewhere, ”We appreciate not only his credentials and work experience, but also his demeanor and desire to work with us in cooperation with the Sheriff’s Office in a professional and complimentary manner.

    • We are confident that joining together, with the ultimate goal of finding Emily, his help will ease the burdens of time and resource demands on the Sheriff’s office.” 

  • Continued Flathead Valley community support and involvement demonstrated in so many tangible ways

  • An uptick in Go Fund Me Funds: A little over ½ of initial $60K goal has been reached

    • Through our MT accountant, we have meted out funds as judiciously and with as much scrutinizing as possible to get done what needs to be done in the best way possible at the time.

    • Although we will NEVER stop looking for Emilly and what has happened to her, as mentioned, there will be a logical and realistic end to the request for resources and funds. This is not yet it!. We have taken a step forward by hiring the help of a PI, 

    • To our knowledge, outside of our privately funded PI, a formal criminal investigation has yet to even be begun. 

    • If so inclined, we do need additional funds to bolster the account. 

(in not doing what I did as a young Girl Scout by buying my own cookies, how about considering sharing our need with someone new – spread the wealth (request) so to speak.)


In spite of a wretched circumstance, there have been and will be more blessings and great good to come from working together in our efforts to find Emily. We all grieve differently and find silver linings within that grief. I’d like to invite you to share what has been a “goodness” finding along this path.


There are two contributors to this post today. The second is Michaela Schwartz, Emily’s bestest, best friend ever from their first day of college. I can tell you she is amazingly gifted, incredible at a keyboard and innovative ideas, is funny, contemplative and has been more of a gift to me than you could ever know. Hear from the depths of her aching soul.


Grief and I are old friends. Perhaps that’s why it’s no surprise that these words hit me so deeply; or that the loss of the author (Andrea Gibson) two days before this Big Day feels like a tug on the strings of fate. 


So much of the past year has been centered on a question: where are you? 


One year later, my social media feeds are filled with these words, this loud answer inked in pixels. 


“I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living.”


It’s not the answer I want. It is the answer I’m getting, and I am trying to be grateful for that. It takes work to bring my awareness to the connection I still feel with Emily. But I am doing the work.


I am getting married in about 2 months to my sweetie, Dave. Emily is supposed to be next to me. I weep for that loss; it feels deeply unfair. 


“When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand.”


Dr. Pauline Boss is a psychologist who works primarily on what she has coined ambiguous loss - a loss that lacks clarity or resolution. I have learned that this flavor of grief is different from the grief I am familiar with. 


“Ambiguous loss makes us feel incompetent. It erodes our sense of mastery and destroys our belief in the world as a fair, orderly, and manageable place. But if we learn to cope with uncertainty, we must realize that there are differing views of the world, even when that world is less challenged by ambiguity. If we are to turn the corner and cope with uncertain losses, we must first temper our hunger for mastery. This is the paradox.”


I set out to write something about Emily, but it seems instead that I want to use this space to talk about grief. Make space for it. Hold its hand. Let it walk with me today, tomorrow, on my wedding day. 


Today, I will be thinking about my cheek as a perennial garden. A garden whose soil has been made richer by Emily. By the sweetness of an enduring soul-level friendship that I know I am lucky to have experienced. I’ll be thinking about how soothing it is to be snuggled up on Em’s couch, the sound of a crackling fire in the wood stove, and the sweet rhythm of Hugo snoring. 


Emily is pressing her palms against the soft walls of my living.


Yes, this could have been a day full of empty, but it wasn’t. This mug states the source of my strength. It’s my mug and I’m sipping from it!

ree
ree

 

Mama (bear) Rea



 
 

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