Dear 2021,
I didn’t realize how much 2021 was going to be our year of greatest loss and our most beautiful miracle.
Today is the eve of Christmas, I was nestled on my couch mesmerized by the outpour of rain, each drop guiding me back to the deafening hurricane that I have been trying to ignore that defines and encompasses 2021: memories, milestones, miracles, heartache, remorse, regret, grief, death, rebirth - a stark contrast of gravestones and miracles.
Life is such a vapor. Tomorrow isn’t promised to no one.
I know God has not broken any promises, but He may have violated preferences.
Freddie Cancio, my father and grandfather to my miracle, was called into heaven earlier than expected in September 2021.
2021, I knew we lost so much in 2020, but I didn’t realize that 2021 was going to be the final period of a story of such a legacy.
I needed time to let you go, 2021, to forgive. You don’t owe me, my husband, my future child, my family and loved ones anything.
What you taught me is to cherish and savor this life and not to be satisfied with 'waiting room living’.
2021 felt like I was watching my life from the outside, seeing life happen to me rather than being in it, fully present.
Worried that if I was fully present, the potential hurt of taking risks of being fully seen and experienced would hurt way too much.
So many people add resolutions on their ever-growing bucket lists when welcoming a new year, and I am here to surrender the bucket lists and stand for emptying buckets.
My father-in-law poured out his life until his very last breath.
A month before his passing, Michael and I were able to share with him that we were expecting, a new life thriving in my womb; he beamed with joy, smiled so selfless, while he was fighting for his.
He emptied himself of all love and grace until his final day.
2021, I found myself not wanting to fully empty and pour myself into this beautiful life.
I found myself not fully celebrating, not fully embracing, not fully listening, not fully feeling because I was hurting.
2021, I am choosing to walk out of the waiting room, surrender the bucket lists, and take up my bucket and pour until fully emptied.
God cannot fill what is already full of itself.
2021, Michael and I guarantee that our future daughter will learn how to love even when it is hard, to pour out grace, to live this life fully lived out.
Sincerely,
Lauren Cancio
A wife, future mother, & a pouring bucket
“The abundant life doesn’t have a bucket list as much as it has an empty bucket - the given-ness of pouring out.”