It Comes Easily These Days...

Why does anger and bitterness in grief come so easily? What about it is so appealing? Why do I feel drawn to it, even when I know better than to indulge it?

It distracts my energy. It changes my focus. It gives me something else to land on other than my aching heart.

It comes with its own energy source. When I feel completely drained, anger brings me new strength.

Being angry numbs my sorrow. If I give it up, I am afraid I might just fall apart from the pain...

"This hand is bitterness
We want to taste it and
Let the hatred numb our sorrows
The wise hand opens slowly
To lilies of the valley and tomorrow"

Natalie Grant, "Held"

Polar Opposites

I feel:

*hurt
*attacked
*punished
*unjustly targeted
*very unlucky
*fed up
*confused
*tired
and
*unable to see the redemption in my daughters death.


I know:

*God is sovereign
*God is forgiving
*God only gives me what is good for me
*God gives me only what I can handle
*God allows hard things into my life
*I will never understand God's reasons
*God's plans are better than my plans
and
*God is always loving towards me.

So how do I rectify these two lists? How can I feel completely opposite than I know? How can I join these two lists together? And what does that look like in real life?

Wrestling with Faith

Sometimes life is messy, disappointing, depressing, and confusing. I think this is still true if you are a Christian. In fact, sometimes I think it makes it even more difficult.

I find myself in one of those places now. It is difficult to rectify grace and brokenness. It is hard to mesh together joy and deep sorrow.

There are so many questions.

Why would God allow this? Is it straight from His hand, or did He merely chose not to intervene? Is there a difference?

Is it OK to be angry and disappointed with your life one moment, and joyful and grateful for it the next? Can disappointment and joy live together, at the same time?

Does being filled with sorrow and mourning mean you are no longer full of hope?

Why does God chose to intervene for some, and not for others? How does he decide who gets a miracle, and who doesn't?

Did my daughter's life have to be sacrificed, just so we could all learn some eternal lesson?

What do I do with regret? What is the correct Christian response to guilt and regret?

How do I "walk through grief" but not be swallowed by it?

How do I read scripture and pray, when I am still so full of questions and aches?

Is it OK to be angry at God, as long as I am honest with Him about it? Or does the presence of anger at all merely point to my distrust in Him and His plan for me?

How can I know in my head that God is faithful, and yet feel so abandoned and alone?

Can I be disappointed that this is where my life is, and yet still trust God has a good plan for me? Even when this doesn't feel good at all?

I am currently wrestling with many of these questions. Questions that most people can't answer, and I am not sure that I will be ever able to answer either. But I feel very strongly that I must continue to wrestle with them...to engage in them. Not to sweep them under the rug and pretend that the Christian walk is always full of happiness and ease.

And I have noticed recently, that as Christians, we are very uncomfortable watching a fellow believer wrestle with these questions. We would rather they just not talk about the difficult things. We characterize it as a "lack of faith" to voice these kinds of doubts.

I know my blog often becomes too "dark" for some of you reading it, too uncomfortable and frightening. Many say they are worried about me. Because so often we prefer that reality be neat and appealing so that others listening and watching aren't frightened away.

But this is reality. This is part of our faith. We must live authentically in front of the world. We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We must meet with God and plea for answers, pour over the scriptures, ask the hard questions. Our faith will never be more than surface deep if we don't try to rectify the truth of the scripture with the reality of life.

I am not walking away from my faith. God is real, true, faithful, and The Only Way. That will never change, and I have no doubt of that. But I must wrestle. I must wrestle with trusting Him completely. I must wrestle with the fact that what He deems good for me, I don't often agree with. I must work through my questions, my disappointments. I am not walking away. Just the opposite.

Jacob wrestled with God. No one worried about his lack of faith. About how "un-Christian" he sounded when he questioned, rolled, pushed, battled, and struggled with God. In fact, he was blessed. Blessed, and wounded. I know I might end up hurting, like Jacob, but just maybe, by the end of my battle, I too might come out blessed in some way.

Her Name in the Sand

I wrote your name in the sky,
but the wind blew it away.
I wrote your name in the sand,
but the waves washed it away.
I wrote your name in my heart,
and forever it will stay.

Carly, at To Write Their Names in the Sand did this for me. She lives in Australia, and goes to the beach to remember her son Christian, and to provide this wonderful service to grieving families. Her mission is: "When your child dies you are left with the most indescribable feeling of emptiness. In some cases there is no record of your child. No recognition of their life. No birth certificate, not even a death certificate. To Write Their Names In The Sand honours, remembers and recognizes the lives of children lost."

Bad Timing

Max has officially hit "the terrible two's." For Charlie, it hit right around 18 months, Max was kind enough to wait until 22 months.

But let me tell you, he is doing it up in style. He follows me, EVERYWHERE. If I walk more than 12 inches from him he explodes into crying. If he asks for something, and you say "no" be ready for a fully blown, body throwing, guttural explosion. He is loud. And the frequency of his "opinion outbursts" is staggering. Right now I wouldn't be exaggerating if I told you he has them about every 40 minutes. (Or maybe one fit just comes and goes for hours at a time...) His favorite phrases are "Hold me," "That's MINE", and "Get up Mommy!" He wants no one but me. I am supposed to carry him at all times. He is in a perpetual bad mood.

Needless to say, because of where I am right now (see the last post) I am not handling it well! It is just so ill timed! I guess I think most things have been ill timed as of late. Perhaps that is what is leading to my dissatisfaction and frustration lately. I admit, I am no Job, but seriously, there are times I don't think I can take one more thing! Everything has pilied one on top of the other. And everything seems to have terrible, rotten, horribly ironic timing.

I won't go into my list of trials as of late, although I tend to scroll through them frequently in my mind, but I am feeling like my plate is just about as full as I can handle. Before, I felt overwhelmed by it all, now I tend to just get peeved that all this is happening at one time. That I am being stretched in so many areas at once. That I just can't seem to "catch a break" or have some down time.

All this being said, Max's tantrums have been the "cherry on top" of a pretty difficult 8 months. And of course, they are beginning at a point where lots is going on. Because we have been tapped out financially (yes, this is one of the many "things") I am going to start babysitting my friends 3 children 3 days a week next week. And we all have colds. And I am sure these kids will enjoy the show Max is going to put on for them.

I am just hoping I can handle it all, or it may be me who begins to start throwing fits!

Backwards

Do you ever feel like you are moving backwards?

I think I did really well throughout the pregnancy. I was positive. I concentrated on enjoying the time I had with Adelle. I worked to treasure every kick, roll, photograph, hiccup.

A month after she died, I was still positive. I was still so thankful we had 59 hours with her, when we expected 20 minutes.

Two months after I was grieving, but remembering where she was, and trying to focus on the Hope I have in seeing her again one day. But I was healing, staying positive.

At three months, I returned to work. And I did so much better at work than I thought I would. Pregnant women didn't bother me. Other people having healthy babies didn't bother me. I still felt like I was moving toward joy. But, I missed my baby....so much.

At four months, I feel like I am back at square one. No, not square one...worse. I don't feel positive. I feel upset, peeved, down right angry. I feel like everything I worked for has all of a sudden fallen apart. After all this time, now I land in angry? I want to know why. I want to be pissed off. I want to escape. Run away. Find another life. My patients are starting to bother me. "Really, you just didn't bother getting prenatal care? You just didn't care, and yet look at this wonderfully healthy baby you have!" I don't want to think about how much I will grow from all of this. I don't want to know about some greater plan. I don't want to know that her short life touched so many people. I want her here, with me. I don't want to couch every emotion with some truth about hope or grace. I don't want to end every sentence with something positive to make sure I don't sound too depressed or angry for people reading this blog. I just want to be angry.

And now I am wondering, where the first three months just denial?

How are you doing?

I still don't know how to answer the question, "How are you doing?"

My daughter is dead. I will never get her back. I will forever wonder what could have been.

But life goes on. And as much as I wish it wouldn't, it does. I have to work. I have to bathe and feed the boys. I have to run errands, go to the grocery store, clean the house. I still go to Church, play dates, and dinner with friends.

I have no choice! I must survive without her. I am forced to put one foot in front of the other. To go about this world without the daughter I wanted. Everything makes me think of her. Everyday I wonder why she had to go.

But the world, the world without her, moves on without ever thinking twice.

So how am I doing? I am here, living, breathing. I am fine.

Can You Imagine?

Can you imagine...


Going through grief and not believing you will see your loved one again?

Feeling broken and not knowing if you will ever be whole again?

Seeing your horrible mistakes and regrets and not knowing if they will ever be forgiven?

Crying from heart ache, and not knowing that Someone is crying with you, counting every tear?

Not knowing that this world, in all it's brokenness, is not our final home?

Feeling that your pain, because it is so deep and heart-breaking, might consume you?

Wondering if your mistakes are so big they can never be fixed?



I am so glad I don't have to imagine.

"Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail."

Lamentations 3:22

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

4 Months

It snowed today, sweet one. I know...snow. And not just any snow, 8 inches! Your brothers had so much fun playing in it and building snow men. But I couldn't help but think of you. Everything is so white, pure, untouched. What is it about snow that makes everything seem so quiet and still?

Four months ago, my life suddenly became very quiet and still. You entered, and my heart became still. And today, after four months, the soft falling snow, the way the cemetery was so white and new, reminded me of you. I wished that I could snuggle you up in my warm sling, and take you out in it. It is so rare and precious here in Texas. Just as you were so precious, fragile, and rare in this world.

Your Dad must have visited your grave before I did, today. When I drove up I found your beautiful stone shoveled and clean, an our family of snow people next to your stone. Like we are watching over you. Amidst a cold, snowy day, it made my heart warm. Daddy really misses you too.

Happy Heavenly 4 month Birthday, Adelle. I hope you enjoy your perfect, white, snow angel, and our family of snow people watching over you. We love you and miss you.

Our Family Photo, when you were 4 months old...

Losing Her Again

It is late at night, and I am thinking of her. It is still so strange to notice at what times I become overwhelmed with thoughts of her. Tonight, as I drove home from work, I saw the dreary lights of the cemetery on. I wanted to go over and see her, but we aren't supposed to be there past sunset. It is dark, and I wish I could go be with her. It looks lonely, cold, and wet, and I wish I could just go over, touch her spot of grass, talk to her, and tell her I love her. I know she isn't there. But something about the mood of the night matches the whisperings of my soul.

I have needed to start my memory book for her, and have not been able to. I had a friend help make a book for each of her grandparents for Christmas, but I haven't done one yet for me. Every time I think about it, I become paralyzed. I get the same feeling in my gut that I had planning her funeral, buying her burial gown, choosing her cemetery, choosing what to wear to the funeral. I become instantly overwhelmed, and just think to myself, "How can I begin to decide these things? How can I chose the gown my daughter will be buried in? How can I chose the music played at her funeral?"

You would think it would be easy. The decisions I made for Adelle were significantly fewer than will ever be made for my other children. I will make the same amount of decisions in a day for my boys that I had to make in her entire lifetime. But that is what seems to make them so difficult! I just keep hearing the same thing over and over again in my head. This is all you have. It better be perfect. If this is the only gown she will ever wear, I want it to be absolutely perfect. If this is the place where her body will rest forever, then I want it to be the right place. I want the funeral to be the perfect reflection of our love for her, since all her birthday parties, Christmas presents, hugs and kisses, and notes in her lunch box won't get to communicate that to her. This is it. And since this is all I get to remember my daughter, it has to be perfect.

And this same feeling haunts me with her memory book. I want every picture, every memory to be in this book. It will be all I have. One book will recount her entire life, her beautiful and short existence. I don't want to forget anything, leave anything out. I want it to be perfect.

And thus far, I have been unable to even begin it. What order will I put the pictures? Will I write the memories of her, or to her? What kind of book will it be? Do I add my blog writings to it too? Will I be able to eloquently write how special this little girl is to me? What her short life has done to impact me? Will I be able to remember every detail? I want so badly to make this, to have a place I can go and read her story, look at her beautiful face, and remember. But so far, I haven't had the strength to even start it.

The other reason that makes me want to start this, is because I feel like I a forgetting. And it makes me sick to my stomach. It hasn't even been 4 months, and I am forgetting what it felt like to hold her, kiss her nose, hear her breathe.

It is one of the cruelest things about losing someone you love. And no one talks about it. I have to wait a lifetime to see my daughter again, to hold her, to just stare at her and love her. I miss out on years of learning about her and knowing her, watching her grow. I don't get to see her personality grow and develop. I miss out on the luxury of taking it for granted that she is physically present in my life. I lose all of that. And on top of all of that, I am losing my memories of her too. I am confusing the sequence of events of the 3 days we had with her. I am forgetting how warm she felt sleeping against my chest. I am forgetting.

And it is so painful. Almost as painful as when we lost her. I feel like I am losing her again. That the one thing I had left is being taken from me, until I end up completely empty, with absolutely nothing. Nothing but a box of items that represent her short life. And will I even remember why all these items were important to me? Will I someday open the box and not be able to remember why each item was sacred enough to save?

And then, once the searing pain of loss rolls over me again, guilt isn't far behind. What kind of mom am I that I would forget? Isn't there some way I could have burned these memories into my brain? How can her memory feel so fuzzy now? How can I stop it from slipping away from me?! Why can't I stop it? Have I not been spending enough time looking at her pictures, going through her things, reviewing every memory? WHY, oh why, didn't I video tape her when she was alive, so we would have that to look at, to remember? Have I forgotten her too quickly? How will I ever forgive myself if I completely forget everything? I don't know if I can bear to lose her again. I am terrified she will slip away, and one day I will never be able to find her.

Isn't it enough that she was taken from me once? How is it fair that her memory too is being taken from me?

A nudging...

I don't know why. I will never be able to answer why. My daughter died. But...I have noticed something lately. I feel nudged. I can't even place it, define it, or describe it.

There is only one other time I have felt the same way. I wrote about it in February of 2009 in this post. And strangely (or maybe not so strange) it was about the same topic.

Before Adelle, before this journey, before...

I have always been drawn to infant loss bereavement. I felt like I might have some kind of future in it. I wanted to hold mommies' hands, provide resources, cry with them. I was so angry at other nurses who didn't take it seriously, who didn't take the best possible pictures of these mommies' babies. It was weird, and I didn't understand it. I work in Labor and Delivery. I have been these mom's nurses, I still am! And even before all of this, I wondered. I felt nudged. I have friends who work for NILMDTS, friends who had lost babies. And I just had this tingle. A....wondering.

The moment I got Adelle's diagnoses, I thought it was a cruel joke. Really? I had been praying about finding some way to enter into this ministry....not be in need of it! My friend, who I had shared my wonderings with, felt just as flabbergasted. Had I prayed for this? Brought this on myself? Would God really sacrifice my daughter's life so that I could somehow relate to this club of women that no one wants to be a part of?

I can't answer those questions. And, I don't want anyone trying to answer them for me. No one can speculate for God. Quite frankly, He could have chosen that. He might not have. I don't think I will ever know.

But I know a couple of things. God is good, I mean really good, at making blessing come out of our seemingly hopeless lives. Secondly, this feeling. This feeling that I ought to somehow be a part of this world, to minister here, it hasn't gone away. It has gotten stronger.

I feel an instant connection to these women. I want them desperately to have the resources they need to heal. To live authentically in the path in front of them. I want them to feel loved, special, not alone. I want others to treat them with respect and comfort. I want them to have the best keepsakes of their babies possible. I want them to have everything they need. And I get kinda feisty if they don't! (I know, it isn't like me at all to get feisty, is it?!)

So how does this play out? Where does it go from here? What path does God have for me? Where is this nudging coming from? Where is it nudging me to? Is this just the words of a mother in grief? A mother desperate for meaning from her child's death?

I don't know. The only thing I can do, is the same thing I did in February. Pray. Pray and watch and see if God has something in mind for me. And I will admit, it does seem so ironic. An L&D nurse. A Mother of a baby in Heaven. A women who loves to write, speak, and teach. Why have all these things come together....in me?

Heaven

Do you ever think about Heaven? I am sorry to say that I haven't spent most of my life really thinking too much about it. I was certainly glad it was there, but other than "streets of gold" and "God's glory all around," I sure didn't put much energy into it.

It is amazing now how much I find myself day dreaming about Heaven now. Sometimes it is so comforting to sit and think about, and other times it is just the opposite. It makes me wonder how much I really don't know about it. How much do I make up just to make myself feel better in this grief process?

Do you know that some people think that when you die, you don't go immediately to Heaven? Instead, they think we all rise together during the end times. Those people say that time is "just a second" to those who died, and to them, it does feel like they went to Heaven immediately. But that breaks my heart. That means Adelle is just lying there, in the ground. Alone. Waiting. Cold. Dead.

Others take the opposite view. That we go to Heaven immediately to be in Paradise. And those who are still alive when Jesus returns rise together. This means Adelle is alive, in Paradise, happy, and at peace.

But what about the other things we say to each other when we are grieving, how many of those things are true? Those little platitudes that we use to make this process easier. How many of those are just things we wish were true? Are they just fairy tales we tell each other?

Can people in Heaven see us? Do they ever get a chance to peek down at this world they left behind? Can Adelle see the things we put on her grave? Can she hear us when we talk about her? When I talk to her at her grave, does she hear me? When I whisper to the wind how much I miss her, does it make to her ears? Does she see me cry myself to sleep because my arms feel so empty? Does she know how missed she is?

Would she even understand me if she could hear me? Does she have the intellect of an infant in Heaven? Does she understand why she is there, and where her Mommy and Daddy are? Does she even understand anything? At what spiritual and intellectual level is she in Heaven? And is she even an infant, in Heaven? What age is she? Will she be an infant when I get to Heaven? Will she be a toddler, a teenager, an adult? Will she have an age, at all? Will any of us?

Does she think of me in Heaven? Can she miss me? Long for me? Does she know I am missing at all? When I write to her, will she ever be able to hear the words I have for her? Will she ever get to read it?

I go over and over these questions in my mind. And they don't always leave me feeling great. I want them to be true, but I will never be sure. I know she isn't in pain. That she has no sadness. And that makes her feel so distant from me. Like she is so happy and peaceful, that she won't remember me or ever think of me. Why should she. She is so full where she is, fulfilled completely in the arms of her Savior.

So what about all those things we say to each other. "She is playing in Heaven. She knows you love her, she sees what you do for her, how you miss her. She looks down on us, comes to us when we need her. That now I will have a baby for all eternity. That she comes to me in my dreams when I really miss her. That she will be waiting at The Gate for me when I get to Heaven. That she will give me the grand tour of Heaven when I join her. That my family and friends are holding her and loving her until I get to." Are any of those things even true? Or do we just use them to soothe our hurting hearts?

I don't understand Heaven. And I don't know why God chooses to leave so much of it a mystery to us. Perhaps He wants us to use our imagination. Or perhaps no words could ever do it justice, and could never be explained because it is so different than everything we know.

All I know is, I wish so much that she can hear me. That she can look down on our family, and see that we remember her and love her. That she sees me place flowers on her grave and hears me spill everything in my heart out to her. I hope that the words I write and whisper to her, somehow make it to her heart. That these words I send to her, connect us while we are apart. That I am not just doing these things to heal myself. That I don't live in a fantasy where I am just fooling myself to make myself feel better. It makes what I am doing, what my heart longs to do, feel so cheap.

It is reassuring that she is in Heaven, don't get me wrong on that. I guess it just doesn't take away the longing for her like I expected. She is whole, at peace, and I am here, still missing a piece of me and missing her.

Adelle, sweetie, can you hear Mommy? I miss you, and long to hold you again...