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  

 

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

Just What I Needed

Today I was having a day that started ok but quickly spiraled downward. When I checked the mail, I found this in the mailbox and it made me cry more, but it was just what I needed. Thank you, Deborah.
In case you don't know, Deborah sends babylost mamas these beautiful handkerchiefs from her blog For Your Tears.

Aside from this gift being the consolation I needed, it was also perfect. When Jenna died, we dressed her in a white dress with lavender embroidery at the top. I will always associate the color lavender with her death. The night she was born and put in the NICU, the nurse put a bright red bow with polkadots on her sweet baby curls. But I wanted to keep that bow as a precious precious memory. So to match her dress, we put a white bow on her. Anyway, I just wanted to openly thank Deborah and share this bittersweet moment. God really does care about us.

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

A More Perfect Love

I see your tears

When noone else does

I know how you miss me

And the emptiness you feel

I wish sometimes I could tell you

How I really am ok

How Heaven is far sweeter than words can tell

How precious the Lord is and I'm at home

Where all is well

I know that doesn't soften the blow

I know that doesn't dry your eyes

But if I could tell you just one thing

It would be that in Heaven there's just a more perfect love

A love that dries tears

A love that stands still

A love that doesn't know time

A love that forgets the woes of this life

And while you miss me being in your arms

I miss you too

But time hasn't torn a hole in my heart yet,

It's not been but a few moments

that I have been gone

The place where we one day will meet

Is closer than it feels

And me, your precious Angel

Am closer than you think

The life that I lived reached our Father's will

Far sooner than you would have chosen

But from Heaven the big picture is clear

And there's no doubt behind it there is perfection

The love that fills your heart for me

Does not go unseen

The tears you cry because I'm not there

Will be dried in Heaven

The longing that haunts you with emptiness

Will one day be restored

But Mother, in my new home

There is just a more perfect love

-written August 16, 2009

First Dream

I wish I could dream about you
like before
Before the fifth, before the NICU, before the nightmare.
Only it wasn't a nightmare.

We lived it didn't we?
You made it out alright
I'm not sure I did
Lots of rain, even when its sunny
And there are storm clouds even on a "good" day

Weak smiles, guilty laughter
Just know I always miss you
Life demands I keep on going
Even when I want to stop
I have to keep surviving

My sweet precious Jenna Belle
Your days will always be remembered
Your death I won't let ruin me
So when I seem like I'm alright
Struggling to show the deep corners of my heart

It sinks everyday,
but for you, because of Christ
It will be ok
Just know I always miss you
You will always be our firstborn
And not forgotten

The house you never lived in feels empty
And that chokes me to tears
My heart cries when my eyes can't
Loneliness in a crowd is such a paradox
But it's real.

Part of the sorrow is comforting
The part of you that lives in me
How I wish it could be you kicking me inside instead!
Useless wishing
I better just be thankful

You held on
You fought
No, I haven't forgotten
You saw us and you loved us.

A lifetime ago
But not really
I hate that time steals the tenderness of it all
The world is forgetting, but not me
My heart stands still as the world around me spins

My dear child, my first dream
First hopes, first steps
First words
First haircut
They would have been our firsts.

Someday I might wake up in a better place
Far from heartache
Tears
Broken smiles
Lost joy and bittersweet memories

But if that's what it takes to remember you
You're worth it
Life is precious
Heaven is sweeter,
My precious daughter.