Scissors, Glue & a Shattered Heart

I had no idea how much a pair of scissors, a bottle of glue and a bit of creativity could help heal a shattered heart ... until the days following January 20, 2021.

It was a beautiful day in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. The sun was shining, the waves were sparkling and the water was a breathtaking shade of blue - another perfect day in paradise celebrating (early) Krista's graduation from University of Illinois with a BS in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. Krista and I walked down the beach, watched a sloth up in a tree, then hung up our hammocks and enjoyed the fresh ocean breeze. As soon as my husband arrived Krista was eager to get into the water. They took off and that was the last time I would see my beautiful girl alive.

Krista drowned that day.

In the coming days, hundreds of cards piled up. Facebook messages, texts, food, heartfelt videos, songs and gifts of many kinds flooded in. Because of our family's work in clean water projects and Krista's active life in college and marching band, we were surrounded by the most beautiful condolences and outpouring of love from around the world.

Hundreds of public schoolchildren in Kenya lit candles and sang songs for Krista. Technical school youth in Kenya said prayers for our family and sent us pictures. A representative of one of the largest indigenous churches in Kenya recorded a beautiful message in memory of Krista and her work with clean water projects. Even our Kenyan Catholic sister friends who work in cases of the most extreme poverty held a special mass for her (and we aren't even Catholic)! Expressions of love came from Eastern Europe, Western Europe, East Asia and central America.

Here at home, a high school friend of Krista's painted Krista looking out into the ocean as a way of processing her own grief and gifted the beautiful painting to us. Krista's marching band family created the most amazing video tribute in Memorial Stadium at University of Illinois. And on a Saturday afternoon in February, the bell tower chimes rang throughout University of Illinois campus for 30 minutes in memory of Krista. And these are only the highlights!

I am part of an amazing online community called “The Creative Genius League.” The night of Krista’s visitation I had planned to be part of a group retreat. The assignment that night was to create a collage, and though I could not participate at the time, I tucked an idea in the back of my mind for the weeks to come.

Inspired by the overwhelming support, I wanted to create something that would remind me of how I have been surrounded on all sides by expressions of love. This would be a way to hang on to the happiness in the midst of my unthinkable tragedy. So I took my scissors and started cutting … I cut objects, words, colors, whatever grabbed my attention, from the myriad of cards. I printed and cut out messages and pictures from friends, family and even people I didn't know that were especially moving.

The image of a wave is what kept coming to my mind.

I know. Some people think a wave would be an object repulsive to me, as it was a wave that took away my amazing Krista. But for many years, whenever I visit the ocean, the haunting melody of an old hymn I grew up with in church rings in my ears. And, for some reason, one phrase of that song touches the depths of my soul … "Underneath me, all around me, is the current of God's love." And in this moment of the greatest loss a mother could imagine, I have felt swept up in "the current of God's love.”

And I was reminded of that “current” each time I re-read a card, cut out a picture and glued it onto the college. This creative process helped me visualize that in my deepest pain, expressions of God’s love had been and continue to be an amazingly huge cushion. And it is possible for happiness, joy, grief and deep loss to co-exist.

This collage now sits in my living room. But there's a problem. As I look at it, it is WAY TOO SMALL! There are so many more cards that have continued to come in, donations to Krista's memorial fund, social media messages to cut out and stories to tell. This collage does not even reflect the thousands of children who will have access to clean water because of Krista's desire to "solve the world's water crisis" or the hundreds of trees being planted right now in the Monteverde Cloud Forest of Costa Rica because of Krista's childhood dream of saving the rainforest.

I guess it's time to get out the glue and scissors and keep cutting!

You can learn more about Krista, her "incredibly short but incredibly full" life, and some of the beautiful tributes made in her honor here:

http://candokidsinternational.org/krista