Never Too Busy

So I haven't posted in awhile, because well I have been too busy.
So many people have expressed the need for me to stay busy. They say it will help to "get my mind off stuff."

Well, I am here to say that if a twelve hour shift at the hospital wherein I can't so much as have time to pee or first-aiding forty plus kids at my side job as a school nurse is NOT enough to get my mind off stuff, NOTHING IS!

We had a welcome break of a family visits, which are so wonderful. But still NOT enough. Even seven grand kids under the age of eight and nine adults around a dinner table as loud as it is, is still not enough to stifle the sounds of sadness.

The void of your 6 month old cries and giggles makes it too quiet wherever I turn. I long to nurse you. To hold you. To squeeze your toes and kiss your nose.  I saw a little girl that was your age the other day. Dark hair and chubs. She was precious. You are precious. The older you get the harder this is.

I will never be busy enough to drown out the silence of your absence, but that also means I will never be too busy to forget you! 


Love ya more than words!

See ya soon,
Mommy

Dare I say It? "It was a good day!"

Technically there as still 3 hours and 5 minutes left in today so things could still go south, but today was a good day. Nothing spectacular happened (unless you ask my husband who would claim the installation of Google fiber as just that).

Grief has such big shifts from happy to sad. Angry to loving. Good to bad. The roller coaster ride of it all is enough to break even the strongest of minds. It is all too much for weak me.

Perhaps it that the 3 weeks of anti-depressants are kicking in or perhaps it is the "me date" I treated my self to, but for whatever reason today was good. I honestly doubt it had to do with either of the above, because for anyone who has buried a child you know you could be laying in paradise yet still overcome with sadness.

I think it has more to do with God's grace in the storm. I will take it whenever it came from because it has been way too long since I have had just an average good, ole day.

...and don't worry. I am well aware of the dark days that sure to lie ahead. I am just thankful for the moment that I am happy.

Participants in my "me date": In Style Magazine and OPI nail polish

Left Too Soon

Oh sweet little girl. I miss you so.

Oh why, oh why did you have to go?

Your face is forever ingrained on my eyes

As is your large for gestational size.

We had nine plus months to bond,

But that is not near enough long.

Your sweet little toes,

Your button nose,

Why can't I watch your life as it grows?

I will wait for our time when we will re-united

I try to not grow inpatient or short-sighted.

It is harder than harder and sadder than sad

And often truth be told, I am madder than mad.

You lived you life in only one afternoon,

Oh sweet baby girl you left us too soon.

You're So Strong

As I walked in the door today I was visibly upset, my husband asked what was wrong. I said "I'm missing our dead daughter." Words I never thought I would have to utter. His response, "Is that all?"
Before you get all huffy and how dare he be so callous remember our reality has been altered 180 degrees and it could be a plethora of other things too: dead mom, dead twins, inability to bare more child, adopt woes, health woes.

He was right. It really is all of the above. I was driving home from church alone (a rarity) and realizing that my reality is so strange now. It first hit when I saw in print these words:

In case you can't make it out in the small print it says,

 Elliott's mother and daughter both named Claudette died last year.

 

SURREAL RIGHT?

 

Never would I think my story would encompass losing my mom, my daughter, and my twins. After Come Into My Kitchen article ran, I have received a lot of:

 

"You are so strong!"

 

Trust me when I say, I am NOT! I have numerous data to back up that statement, not the least of which is an emotional breakdown in the parking lot of my work which resulted in an ER visit with now a regimen of anti-anxiety pills. Can someone say EMBARRASSING?

But after hearing that phase and the other one that usually goes right only with it,

 "God never gives you more than you can handle!"

 or

"God reserves the biggest battles for his strongest soldiers" (a newer one I am hearing more and more) it came to me that this logic is not only incorrect it is also NOT biblical.

 

If you told me even a year ago that I would be sitting here with a daughter and mother buried next to each, I would tell you I would be locked up in a loony bin and frankly I have teetered on the edge more than once. But why am I still standing? Truth be told, it has little to nothing to do with me, but rather God's grace in me! Anxiety creeps in when I falter to believe in God. 

 

According to 2 Corinthians 8: 1-3 we know that grace gives us joy in the midst of suffering and overflows in the a wealth of supernatural generosity.

 

Pretty cool when you sit and think about that for a moment.

 

 GRACE GIVES US JOY IN THE MIDST OF SUFFERING!

 

I can tell you Dustin and I have witness that one firsthand. But God never promises we will not suffer horrible afflictions, so the why me questions can stop (and the Joel Osteen quotes getting all your earthly dreams). 

God actually promises us something far greater. He promises:

 

 "my grace was made sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness,"

2 Corinthians 12: 7-9.

 

So even if my story next year is even worse than my story this year, while I won't be strong enough to handle it, I will have a Savior who is! So perhaps the saying should be,

 

"HE is so strong!"