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  

 

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.

Those Pictures

I wasn't ready again. Daddy needed the SD card so I copied and pasted those pictures on it in a safe place. But it was hard. I hadn't seen those pictures since you died. Actually I hadn't seen you like that since you died. I had never seen those pictures. I knew they existed, but I have not been able to bring myself to look at them. To remember you like that. It is so hard.

Five months today.

There is not a lot to say, except that my heart hurts so bad. I never imagined this would ever happen to me. Growing up I did not know babies could die - that's how ridiculously naive I was. Ridiculously carefree...

I want to be that little girl again that loves children, longs for babies, and envisions raising them; not wondering if I will ever get to bring a baby home from the hospital.

I have a hard time convincing myself that I am not angry. Secret's out, I still am. I just miss you... Those pictures, they brought it all back. I wasn't ready. But once I got a glance I couldn't not look. You are beautiful, Jenna. Even in death.

I asked Daddy if it was wrong that I couldn't look at them. He said no. He understands. He really couldn't look for long either.

I remember getting to hold you for the first time, only for it to be the last time too. I felt like time was swallowing me up as the hour was approaching to switch you to that other breathing machine so I could hold you. I wanted to hold you, but I didn't want to let you go.

How does one prepare to say goodbye when you know its too soon? How did I not die of a broken heart that day or these past five months?? FIVE MONTHS! It hardly seems like that long ago.

I know that the God that gave you to me has also been faithful to not let my broken heart kill me. It broke a little extra today.

I wonder if there will ever be a time when I can look at these pictures and not cry because the missing hurts too much? Does that day really exist? I hear it does. I hear that one day I will be in a "healthier" place to confront those hard memories. That's what I hear. That is what I look forward to. I look forward to a place where your memory doesn't break me.

What If...

Saturday, our last minute getaway (which we rarely do) to the Kemah Boardwalk turned out to be a emotional event for me. I didn't let my emotions control my feelings to the point where it would ruin our time there, but the crowd of people and the overwhelming amount of activity was almost too much. I have grown comfortable with a quiet, low-key daily routine. Rarely going out other than church and work and of course errands. (I sound so boring now!)

I cannot get over how much Jenna affects my everyday life. I literally began to tear up as we approached the rides and games. I guess in a way I felt torn between guilt of having a good time (or wanting to) and accepting that I could not bring my baby along... Or would we have even gone to Kemah if she had been here??? Endless questions, pretty much worthless. But they clog my brain nonetheless.

The frustration and anger of losing her has temporarily left me with a peace I cannot understand. I have embraced it as I know this phase will at any minute morph into one of the horrible stages of grief that I am all too familiar with. Something my husband told me the other day really helped me. I got to talking to him about missing her and all the things I feel like she missed out on and we missed out on.

He is so simple, I just love it sometimes. He said that maybe she wasn't meant to have those things. Now, in the past that would have brought a look of disgust as if to say Are you serious?! But I think this time it was coupled with my mind being a *little* more stable than before. It still hurts that I missed out on so much. And I will never be able to understand it all. I still HATE that she died. But I know that God has still been good. If she wasn't meant to live in this world for long, I like to think that she was not of this world. She was heavenly, unmarked by the sin of this world. I love that I can think of her as an angel. I don't know these things for sure, but it can't hurt to wonder...

What if?...

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

Happy Four Months, My Precious Jenna

It's hard to believe that she would have been four months today. They say time is your friend, but right now time feels like a thief. Taking me further and further away from the most precious moments of my life, spent with her. The doctors would tell us that she would have spent at least four months in the NICU. Something about this month made me think of that. I could have been bringing her home. Maybe.  

On her balloons, her daddy and me write messages to her. Who knows... Maybe God reads them to her? I think it's quite possible she enjoys these balloons in ways we cannot even imagine.

I got to tell her how much I love her...

How much I miss her...

and that I am so thankful I got to meet her...

Heavenly Play-Do

Just when I think I've finished feeling alone and lost, I haven't. There is that ugly monster's head of complete and utter loneliness again. And while I know several strong Christian women who have broken this lonely path before, I can't find it in me to ask for help. When I think I want to, I try and think - What do I say???!? I don't know. Nothing they say isn't something I haven't already heard. So I keep it inside until my facial expressions tell on me. My loving husband (who is handling this with an amazing strenth) then asks me, "Are you ok?"

"No. Not really."

He already knows what its all about. Jenna. Sooo not fair.

But who says it has to be fair? Certainly not God. His plan is greater, I have to remind myself. I have to believe this otherwise I will lose it. He also makes NO mistake. He let it happen. He allowed this. Not me, not anybody else. He did.

But in the midst of all these ups and downs my heart is breaking. Breaking like I never dreamed possible. I look up a lot. I like the clouds. A lot. Its like the clouds are the footstool of heaven. Sometimes I look up and well you might think I am crazy after you read this. But sometimes I look up and I make out shapes of different things like we do when we're kids. Well, I like to think that every now and then God lets Jenna play with the clouds from heaven, sort of like play-do or shaving cream on the table, only on a large scale. My imagination really helps me these days.

It's possible.