Sting of Death and the grave

I found out that the sting is not gone. I stared at the one picture of her that we have displayed and my mind drifted. To my hopeless abyss.

I told God my heart hurts because of how sick she was.

The sting is not gone.

I cried and I felt guilty. How can I let myself experience joy when my feet are failing me in this slippery slope to that pit?

I don't want to go back there. The pit where hatred, anger, massive amounts of guilt, and confusion were my miserable comforters.

I don't want to go back there.

I heard her whisper you don't have to cry for me to know how much you love me.

But isn't crying my way of displaying my brokenness? Isn't crying my only outlet sometimes? Isn't crying a sign of how much I really loved and love her?

Is crying the only way to let her know I will never be okay and complete? Will she know regardless that she took a literal piece of my heart and that it's emptiness cries out when my eyes are dried up?

???

But today six months she has been gone. I felt her so strong today. I hope that doesn't sound ridiculous, corny or superficial. I believe more than ever that she is alive. She is alive to me. Of course, not in the way we see things. The Bible says "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." I was reminded of that verse as I thought about how I truly feel about her presence. She is dead in body, but very much alive in spirit.

I went to see her today, we both did and I think today was the first time I really believed that she isn't there. I used to feel guilty leaving the grave. Horrible, unadulterated guilt, even just driving by the cemetery. I think it will continue to be a battle of reality and illusion. Her body is dead but her spirit and soul are soaring. Soaring through the clouds, through the sunshine, through Heaven, making little visits daily to our world. She isn't there.

She isn't there. She is right here with me as I long for her, make myself crazy thinking about her, often taking steps backwards in this healing process. I know she is here. I don't know if I have explained this as keen as I feel it. Probably not. But what if it's just me and some limitation on my part that I can't see her.

We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.

2 Corinthians 5:8  

 

Where Were You?

I woke up this morning with this weight on my brain, on my heart, on my soul.

Where were You, God? When we found out she hadn't been growing like the other babies?

Where were You? Were You helping someone else?

Crying with me?

Gone?

Where were You God? When each visit after five months offered no consolation? No hope?

Where were You? Holding my hand?

Knowing there'd be a brighter day?

Letting my world decay right before my eyes?

Where were You, God? When April came and they put me in the hospital? Bedrest, thinking at least we still have hope?

Where were You? Giving up on us?

Teaching us a lesson?

Crying too, because You knew my heart was about to be shattered?

Where were You, God? When two weeks in bedrest failed our attempt to help her grow?

Where were You? Singing sweet songs to my Jenna?

Sending angels to be by our side?

Holding the shaky ground we were on together?

Where were You, God? When the doctor told me that Jenna might die during delivery?

Where were You? That room was cold and lifeless...

Were you waiting for the inevitable?

I want to know You.

Where were You, God? When the doctors kept throwing hopelessness into our ears?

Where were You? I longed for the miracle that never came.

Were You looking at the big picture?

Whispering sweet comfort to my Jenna in her isolette?

Where were You, God? When they told us there was no more that could be done?

Where were You? The medications were maxed out and still life was escaping her body.

Were You telling her it wouldn't be long before she'd be whole?

Were Your angels singing to her as she entered Heaven?

Where were You, God? I had to hold my daughter's lifeless body.

Where were You? The reality of Heaven was suddenly so bleak.

Were You there and I just couldn't feel it?

Carrying my crushed spirit and holding my empty hands?

Where were You, God? When I left the place she was born?

Where were You? I had nothing to show for, all those months I'd worked so hard for her life.

Crying for the fallen world that we live in?

Were you broken-hearted, too?

Where were You, God? It's been a long road.

Have You kept Your promises and not left my side?

Have You cried with me each time that I do?

Have You seen all my tears?

Tomorrow she would have been six months, but I am filled with these rhetorical questions. Six months seems like a lifetime ago. Six months has never gone by faster in my life. Six months...

Unmasked

Before I write this post that weighs so heavily on my heart, I feel like a disclaimer or some type of warning is necessary. First and foremost, if you find yourself offended at its contents, you must know I started this blog for only a couple of reasons...

1. To be honest with myself and God about this grief as a means to find some kind of healing

2. To let other babylost mamas know they are not alone in this grief of losing a child by sharing my Jenna Belle

So now for my heart.

There were seven to eight of us expecting babies back-to-back in my world IRL. And God looked down as we were all planning or not planning these families and knew one would be required in Heaven far sooner than his/her time. That's how I look at it anyway.

He picked Jenna. My Jenna. I can't even imagine wishing this pain on anyone else. That's not what this is about. But I have asked God probably a thousand times, why me? That question is so childish and its significance is fleeting but the reality is that I feel like I have been picked on. Like I have been reprimanded for wanting a family which I thought would come so easily.

Out of the seven or eight of us, a couple of women were expecting rainbow babies. That was especially sweet. A few gracefully accepted the awkwardness after Jenna died and let me know that they still cared within weeks. A few others which had never buried a baby, kept their distance for safety I am sure, and meant no harm. But it complicated my world. Their sudden distance made me feel like I was a plague and I wanted to scream IT CAN HAPPEN TO ANYONE...

But I didn't. So I scream it here. IT CAN.

This grief is exhausting to say the least and it hardly suits a Christian I think at most times. Of course, my idea of the ideal Christian hardly battles anger, frustration, envy and strife, right? Well right or wrong that is what I am feeling. I have battled feelings that I wish I never knew. As a result, I have minimized my concerns to my heart with God, my husband and close family and a handful of true friends. I don't want to destroy any of these relationships because of my grief.

A lot of times I feel like anger toward God is sinful and tell myself to stop being angry. That hardly works. So I just started telling Him how angry I was. How much I hate that He took my Jenna and how it has complicated my world. I feel like when I started to do this, it was as if He was really listening. I can't even describe it. I really believe He heard that prayer. He wanted honesty, not a facade of "okayness". I have had a lot more peace accompany my sorrow since I told God how honestly angry I have become. I know He is working on me and helping me sort through these feelings of anger and the root of bitterness.

I am to the point where I need help so bad, I could care less what the world concludes about me. I am desperate. I need God's help and am very aware that I have been closer to Him than I am right now. I am very aware that I have probably contributed to the complicated relationships with other expectant mothers in my world. I am very aware that this grief has probably taken me to the lowest place yet - hell on earth. I am very aware that I am not the same person I was a year ago. Or even a few months ago. That girl had hope and a God that could only perform miracles. I am no longer than person. My God can heal but He doesn't always heal. This is my reality.

I cannot keep this bottled up for long and I can never predict where this grief will take me next. It is a roller coaster that fares into the darkest pit of human grief and sorrow.

"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." 

-Psalms 71:20

Name in the Ground

I never thought it would be this way
To see her name in the ground
To visit my firstborn in the heat of the day
and see her name like this
Beautiful
Morbid
Feelings of utter disgust


Something inside just can't see past
That part of me that let her down
Put she's ok today
I know she is
My heart weeps daily for the one that I love
She brought sunshine and love
Smiles and a whole bunch of hurt
When she left this earth.


It wasn't supposed to be like this
She should have buried me
Someday faraway
She should have picked my headstone
And the flowers and funeral arrange
But God had a bigger plan
Still not able to see it clearly


Maybe someday is not that far away
To see my precious one again
Each day feels like an eternity
Stretching my patience and sympathy
Trying my faith and peace of mind
Daily
Constant
Here I find His hand sufficient


When all inside me has failed
Failed myself
My firstborn
My dreams
My life


Here I find His grace
and love
The sweet comfort down inside
But there are days when I feel alone
Today I saw her name in the ground
Alone and beautiful all the same
It wasn't supposed to be like this


I should have been monogramming her name on pillows or sheets
Blankets or bags
Not on a headstone.
Not like this
Today the emptiness is drowning
This tide of sorrow blinds my sight
And I wait for tomorrow's hope.

Pierced & Comforted

Well, at church Sunday night, I was caught off guard. Completely.

Right before our pastor dismissed the service, he announced that there would be a couple dedicating their newborn to the Lord. He reminded us that this would not save the baby's soul but was a demonstration rather of the parents' willingness to give this baby to the Lord. The pastor went on to say, as he usually does, that we appreciate a healthy baby. Healthy baby. He said we don't take that for granted around here.

Boy, was he right.

Healthy baby. Just the idea seemed like an impossibility since our first and only baby wasn't. Then I remembered Jenna. Well actually from the moment he mentioned the dedication I was thinking about her. But when he said healthy baby for some reason I just could not take it.

I really thought I had reached the farthest level of pain, but I hadn't.

There are days that I feel numb, and that bothers me. But then I realize this is a randomized pattern of emotions I just go through. Normal? Not sure yet.

But that is just the way it is. Something like this beautiful dedication was in the past just another routine ceremony I got to witness once in a while. It was especially precious when it was my niece and nephew. But Sunday it hit real close to my heart. I think it actually pierced me that night. I wanted to dedicate my baby in front of the whole church. I wanted God and the whole world to know that we would raise her right. In the Word of God. In a good home. In the house of God. Guilt and a bit of confusion lingered over my mind for a few days that the dedication made me cry in a hurtful way. I woke up three days later breaking through all the emptiness that usually reminds me of my loss each morning. I laid in bed for a while and I was thinking about the dedication. Out of nowhere, I vividly remember something coming to my mind that must have been heavensent. I realized I don't have to dedicate her to the Lord, she is already with Him! Boy that did it for me. It hardly mattered that we did not get to dedicate her anymore.

Surely that was the goodness of God.