Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Life Jackets

11:45am The Tsunami hits (Click here if you have no idea what I am talking about)

The aftermath:

12:30pm Friend post picture of her darling baby wrapped in an elephant blanket on Facebook. Every time I see an elephant I feel like Claudie is saying hi.

2:20pm  My new dear friend who has also lost her precious child and I are discussing her son's turning 10 months and Claudette turning 3 months this week. She is my rock and I can just pick up my phone and FB her anytime I need to vent and I hope she feels she can do the same for me.  As we are FB chatting the doorbell rings. UPS was dropping off the garden stake we ordered weeks ago for her grave until we afford an actual headstone.
It's not perfect but it will have to do. After you loose a baby you find that everything out there is either super cheesy or super expensive. I have yet to find the perfect memorial to her and not sure I ever will. My dad read her this prayer as he held her for the first and last time and it means so much to me now.

4:00pm ON THE DOT The snow starts hitting as predicted. Round two of snowmageddon 2013. I was starting to get anxious for Dustin to get home, less b/c of the storm (he has 4WD) and more because I need a big ole bear hug from him.

5:42pm Dustin arrives home mail in hand. After said bear hug he hands me the mail. The newest copy of New Horizons was in the pile. I am immediately was struck by the title of issue:

 1743 (Ok I am guessing on the time, but it within seconds later) I open the book to check out the article and instead turn to this:
It is the story of Emily Sarah Tracey. A daughter of an Orthodox Presbyterian minister that was born stillborn many years ago. It was articulate and profound and insightful. Honestly, a bit surprising coming from a minister on what is considered a "woman's subject". But it is not a woman's subject. He had been profoundly hurt and moved by his' daughter's life and death, such that even though it happened in 1987 he was grieving and will for the rest of his days.

The last paragraph of the article stands out to me:

"Above all else, I have learned there is grace to help in the time of need. In childlessness, miscarriage, stillbirth, living with children's with disability, or anything else in life or in death, God's grace is sufficient," Stephen J. Tracey

6:15pm Dustin and I eat dinner and can't stop talking about how unusual it was for New Horizons a magazine for issues affecting the Orthodox Presbyterian Church to have an issue on infertility, let alone on article on a STILLBORN DAUGHTER!

7:20pm Start putting kids to bed.

7:45pm Still putting kids to bed.

8:20pm One of said kids fake a need for a bathroom visit.

8:30pm Look for movie on the TV. Can't find anything great so settle on The Words. All I know is it has Bradley Cooper in it, so I am game. Dustin is less thrilled. Movie starts.

8:41pm One of other said kids fake the need for a drink.

Around 9pm Upstairs is quiet and we are watching the movie. Basically, it is about a man who steals a story and writes it as his own. The man whom he steals the story from had a baby daughter that dies.Dustin and I are of course touched by his grief and start thinking what are we watching.

A few moments later The movie shows the book the man writes about loosing his daughter...Claudette shivers...Claudette cries. THOSE WERE THE WORDS ON THE PAGE!! Was his daughter's name Claudette?? I am not completely sure to be honest. The movie was poorly written (which is ironic since it is about a literary genius), but there is no denying the book he writes has the name Claudette all over it. Dustin and I are speechless. What is going on? What is someone trying to tell us? What lesson are we supposed to learn her? I mean first the elephant picture. Okay, I get it elephants are a common baby theme. Then the plaque came in good timing. I needed that after the horrible morning I had. Then the magazine. Things were starting to get weird. Even Dustin admitted it was odd timing. But the movie too?? I mean a movie about a baby girl dying possibly with the name Claudette?? I mean the name Claudette isn't exactly as common as Katie. I only know of four of them...one of which is a celebrity.

Tonight 9:04pm  (Now) I still don't get it. I don't really know what all those little or big things meant or mean. But I am pretty sure they mean something. Perhaps, the something is that God keeps throwing me life jackets in the midst of the tsunami.

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