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.

You Kept All My Tears

The day Jenna died and I walked away from the hospital with empty arms

I cried so many tears my face hurt and my soul felt dead

Life was changed

Death was real

And I wondered if

anybody knew about my tears.

The day of the funeral came

And I wondered why I had to go through all this,

I cried on the way there and all through the service

I cried and we couldn't even drive ourselves to the gravesite

I began convincing myself

that nobody knew about my tears.

Slowly the world began to shift and my ground became unstable

Unable to keep pace with the rest of the world

I fell behind

And I was convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

I hide behind closed doors and rush out of crowds

Tears build up

Behind sore eyes and a shattered spirit

Forced into this secret society of broken hearts

And I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

I grieve my loss of motherhood

The need to hold her makes me sore

The feeling that I have been robbed

Every time a mother holds her living baby closely

I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

Driving home my mind starts to wander

What she would have been like?

How she should be in the backseat

Snuggled safely in that 4-door sedan I picked over a year ago because we wanted her...

I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

The scar that my body wears replays that night she was born

How it happened, and why

The scar that means she happened

Too quickly...

I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

I sit alone most days

Avoiding the inevitable and meaningless conversations

That I just cannot care about

I feel I am losing myself in this grief

I am convinced

that nobody knows about my tears.

But someday when I die, Lord,

You tell me that you knew

You didn't let my tears dry up on the ground,

You kept them close to you.

In that bottle where our tears our stored

To show us just how much you cared

You saw me cry every time I convinced myself

that nobody knew...

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?  

Psalms 56:8

Something to Live For: Hope

I have been missing my little baby girl so.... MUCH. I just want to hold her, see her, smell her again. (sigh) Lots of moments I hadn't thought about in a while came to my memory this past week. Painful memories. But we shared them with her and for that they are precious. The more I go into this the less I appreciate it and the less I understand why. There's a question for eternity. Why. But it just is the way it is. I miss her. I am glad I got to know her. I just feel cheated, so very cheated on motherhood. I know I serve a GOOD God. He has definitely been there for me. Even when I didn't feel it, and sometimes I don't, He is undoubtedly there. He sustains me, keeps me going and gives me something to live for everyday. I cling to the hope He has given. Sometimes I just have to take Him for His word when all else fails, because He said so.

"My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer."

-Psalm 45:1

Birthday Wishes

Birthday Wishes



The day that should have marked her birth

And the day that we should have welcomed her home

Is nothing more than a whisper right now

That echoes today you're alone.



Instead of holding her gently

And giving her my first kiss

Instead of smelling her sweet baby scent

Today its those things that I miss



By looking at me one would never know

That I worked hard to carry a baby into this world

That today I should have given birth

That two months ago I buried my baby girl



But I know that this world cannot compare

To the welcome the angels gave

When Heaven opened its white pearly gates

As my sweet precious Jenna flew

To a home without tears, suffering and pain.



But as I feel that her candles burned out too soon

And her birthday wishes never came true

I know that her cake topped with sweet vanilla cream

Is much better in Heaven in the presence of the King.

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.