I have four sons.  That means I have 4 x 1,000,000 Legos in my house.

They are everywhere.  I have a real bone to pick with the Lego people who package up 5 little plastic men with some other random pieces of plastic and charge me $50 for it!  In order to get the precious figures, we add another hundred Legos to the house.  Over and over again.  Each birthday, Christmas, and mad money day.

Don’t get me wrong.  There are hours of fun and creativity in those little pieces of plastic.  Even the big ones still play with them, and it is often a common ground with the little ones, something they can all play where the big ones aren’t too bored (unlike Candy Land).

But there is a down side to Legos.  They are excruciatingly painful when you step on them.

Of course, they are all supposed to be picked up before the boys go to bed.  I try to do a sweep myself as well so that when I come down for my quiet time, I don’t impale myself on one.  But it occasionally still happens.  And boy, does it hurt!

Grief is like that.

Like the Legos on the floor of my house, I occasionally trip on my grief and have the searing pain of the loss all over again.  All I can do is sit there and wrap my arms around myself for a minute until the pain passes.

I have been through many of my “firsts,”  I am not even talking about the firsts you know you will have–first Christmas, first birthday, first Easter, etc.  There are a lot more firsts you never think of until you step on them–first time mowing the lawn, first tax season, first car repair, first trip to the ER, first call to poison control (I have made three since Keith died–yep, three).

The pesky Legos of the firsts also have another flavor, wrapped in the candy wrapper of the good things in life, the ones I really wish I could share with Keith–first baptism, first lost tooth, first words read, first vacation, first soccer goal–on and on.  And there are more on the horizon–first time driving a car, first girlfriend, first graduation, first wedding, first grandchild…

You never realize how many firsts there are in life until you face them alone, trying to respond to them as two people would.

But here’s the cool thing.  There is a Friend who sticks closer than a brother, who is there for all my firsts, all those moments when the pain is so excruciating I think I will never walk again.  Just like I comfort my little guys when they happen to step on a piece of plastic, Jesus comforts me each time I step on a first.  He is there, there, there!

And He always will be.  That’s a promise.