Showing posts with label Relief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Relief. Show all posts

10.31.2009

My Heart on Halloween

Jenna, remembering you like I did has helped me. I was at your cousin's birthday party today surrounded by loving family and friends, elated at my new blessing on the way. But my heart still misses you. I kept trying to imagine what it should be like having an almost six month old in my arms. Would you have liked the caramel apples? The candy? The cake? The riot that your cousins are(whom I adore!)? I think you enjoyed it all from your little corner in my world. I have to believe you see it all. Just know I missed you. The pain was different today. It was less aggressive and more sobering than anything. Maybe I am accepting this fate of separation. Or maybe I really did just get a glimpse of you and how refreshing it is to feel you close to me again.







9.14.2009

Picking up the Pieces and Healing Tears

I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but last night I felt so much better after I just let it all out. I waited until after I thought my husband was sleeping and I cried and cried and cried. I had a mountain of grief sitting on my chest and a million different emotions that can hardly be handled that were desperate for some relief. So I cried and it HELPED.

Nothing got solved, just released. Maybe that's what it was.

Aside from the million emotions, I didn't get a chance to blog away my heart. This added to the reality of facing my grief, which at times, is unbearable.

On a different note, I find it difficult to talk with people. Just simple conversation makes my brain crazy. It's not that I don't want to (or maybe I don't?) but it is so hard to FOCUS. I have never been more scatter-brained and that makes me crazier. I also find myself avoiding certain people because I don't want to talk about the frivolous things in life and they don't want to talk about my baby who died too soon. So I become a hermit who crawls out when I MUST be ok or when I finally reach a "safety zone".

On top of that, I haven't been able to go see her. Her marker is so pretty but its ugly too. It just urks me that she is in the ground. My brain knows she is in Heaven, but my heart can't get past her body being buried - the very one I felt kicking and moving inside, is buried. I can't write in words what that does to me. I hate it. I used to love going to see her and I wish I could see past the marker that so delicately marks her putrid grave. Why did I spend so much time trying to make it look so pretty??!! It is not going to matter! I thought it was the last thing I could do for her. Now it just keeps me away. I feel guilty, angry and disgusted that I can't make it better. It hurts so much to see her like that. I mean to go this Friday. She will have been gone four months. I want to go Friday, but it's going to be hard.

I thought about it like this.

In this house there is this beautiful, fragile yet perfect glass vase. And it sits in a place where it can display its beauty to everyone in the house, at all times. But one day it gets knocked over and it doesn't just break - it shatters throughout the entire house, in every corner and under every stool, table and furnishing. No matter where you walk in this house there are sharp remnants of this once-beautifully adorned glass vase. But the beauty is gone and all that's left is a mess and pain with every step you take. As I think about the glass pieces everywhere I go, I can't help but think I am just leaving the glass pieces on the ground to continue to wound my already wounded heart. How do you pick up the pieces? How do you tell yourself it's time to find a way to heal? When does the pain stop tearing you apart everywhere you go? When do the little things in life that bring you back to the darkest hour stop bringing you to tears? How does life return to a sense of normalcy after your innocence is gone? How do you pick that first piece off the ground and not feel guilty?

I don't know. But I do know that it has got to start soon. Some sort of stepping forward. Not "moving on" or "getting over it" as people say without the slightest idea of how those careless words rend your heart, but a true finding of what it means to live with this grief and without the guilt of leaving her behind.

It won't happen overnight and I know these next few months and even years will try my relationships. I hope that my friends and family can be patient. I pray that I can have grace. I know that I serve a good God. There are few things that I know for certain anymore but one is that He is right there, ready to help me pick up that first piece. And the second and the third.

...forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark...

Philippians 3:13,14

9.07.2009

HIGHER!!!!

Returning to the backyard bliss of my childhood tonight was comforting. I was in the playground where I used to go as a teen and swing because I was bored. But today I was there, desperate for a sigh of relief from the relentless waves of grief. Relief from this thing I call the aftermath of my fate. Life without the one who was my purpose seems so shallow. I have daily reminders that pull me a million or so directions, urging me to continue in this unfortunate world.



For a split second, I was swinging.


                               Higher…


               Higher…


Higher…


I almost convinced myself that I could escape. Swinging has a whimsical likeness to it. The increasing speed and hustling wind against my face brought such an illusion of flight. I had a thought that if I could go high enough, I just might escape this harsh reality; this new normal as we like to say. I kept swinging because for a few moments my feet were off the ground that often required more of me than can be handled. The ground where we buried our firstborn. The ground where all my burdens would meet me when I stopped swinging.


And amid this useless wishing, the grace of God prevailed. I saw her in the sky. Flying to a faraway destination, no doubt a safe place. All alone, small and insignificant to this world, yet perfect. And in the blink of an eye she was gone. Just like that.


These feathered creatures remind me of her likeness. Her unfathomable beauty. The swift tenderness of their beings relates so perfectly to her fragile self. Now and then.


Words cannot begin to describe my agony tonight. I talk a lot about hope and I have it. But tonight my empty arms are crushing me.


8.13.2009

Thank God for the Roses

Lately... I have been having some rough days. I literally felt like I was drowning in this sea of grief, with no relief. I have been angry about what happened and the frustration that tags along with the loss has been eating away my joy. Not to mention all the millions of other emotions that follow anger...

But today I tasted the goodness of God. I forgot just how good He really is. He was there with me today. I carried a newborn for the first time after my sweet Jenna Belle today. And I think He must have been carrying me. Some might think it too soon but it helped me. It wasn't my baby - that part hurt. I realized what I am missing out on. But just to hold a miracle from God and know that healthy babies really happen. And to smell the sweet baby smell and to rock the baby to sleep - it really really did something. It gave me hope and something to look forward to. Something to treasure and be thankful for. Someone told me God won't let you stay down. Every once in a while, He'll send you a rose. Thank God for the roses.

Thank you, Mrs. Carol for sitting with me.

"Thou, which hast shown me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth."
- Psalm 71:20

8.08.2009

Texas Knows My Angel

I don't even know what to say really...
I got it today. Her birth certificate. I was instantly happy since we'd gone through a lot to get it.
But it made it real all over again.

I think the Lord in His mercy gave me a good day where I wasn't falling apart until I checked the mail this evening. I kept wondering, Why am I ok? I mean I missed her, but the pain was not consuming me today.

And then I thought it must have been orchestrated from Heaven. Just giving me a glimpse of relief before I would have to look at it. It made me happy I said, but it also made me sad.

I know these details won't mean much to most people. But it will mean something to a baby lost mother someday and hopefullly give her the assurance that she's not crazy and definitely not alone. These days are the days we'd rather not live. And they are big days. Sad days that no one on the planet (except for those who have buried a baby) understands.

It has been over three months and the state finally knows about her...


It's just a document, but it constitutes her existence on this earth for even a short while.

It is proof that my angel was not just a dream... There are times that it seems like it all happened so fast, it feels as though I dreamed the whole thing up. That is the worst worst WORST feeling. The whisper of her life and the fear of forgetting.

Jenna's Name Slideshow

Thank you so much for emailing me pictures of my Jenna's name. It means so much that you took time to remember my Jenna with me. XO