a mother's grieving heart

This morning was meant to be...Wednesdays are my day off, but I had to schedule an IEP meeting for today because of schedule conflicts.  The parent that I was meeting with was the mother of Gabriel (the boy that I spoke about in a previous post about signs).  She told me that she needed to participate in this meeting by phone so I was suprised when I arrived to school this morning and she was there to meet in person.  I told her that I was glad she was there, but thought we were going to do a phone conference...she responded "I felt like I  needed to be here".  Anyway, we had our meeting and in the course of the meeting we talked about how Gabriel was coping with losing his brother (her older son) that passed two years ago.  The conversation eventually led to me telling her about losing my Gabriel and about the day that her Gabriel commented on my cross.  She immediately teared up and said "I'm a believer in signs"...she went on to say that although our situations are different that no one can understand a mother's grieving heart other than another grieving mother.  She hugged me as we both cried and said that she knows that Gabriel is in a better place...although that is hard to hear from other people for some reason I can accept it coming from her.  To me what better place is there than in his mother's arms, but I know that as a believer that sitting in Heaven with our God is...just hard for me to accept sometimes. 

Anyway, I have to believe that God is using this family to communicate with me...a boy named Gabriel and a grieving mother...and one of the few students that I've had to meet with their parents since Gabriel died...can't be a coincidence...