Paradox Day

par·a·dox

 noun \ˈper-ə-ˌdäks, ˈpa-rə-\

: something (such as a situation) that is made up of two opposite things and that seems impossible but is actually true or possible

December 4 is that for me. This day is filled with emotions and memories so entirely opposite yet so delicately woven together. 

Six years ago today, we welcomed our sweet Caleb into this world. Six years ago, I sacrificed sleep to attend to the crying and needs of our precious, new, fully-living son. He is a beautiful little boy who has brought laughter and wisdom with a twist of quirky to our family. Those eyes, those eyebrows, those expressions, and that laugh! Precious, and priceless you are our Turkey boy! 

I felt a little out of practice with newborn care as I diapered and dressed and nursed him, However, I was confident that it would all come back to me and we would make it beautifully through the awkward newborn stage.

Three years ago today, was the due date of what we expected to be one baby. A baby that was possibly going to be a 'birthday twin' for our Caleb. Instead it marks the day we brought twin daughters, our precious Gracelyn and Finn's bodies home to prepare for burial the next day. We had a birthday to celebrate: cupcakes to make and eat, candles to blow out, presents to open, {did I even get a present???}, pictures to take and...a funeral to prepare for. It marks the last time I physically held them in this life. It marks the day I held on so tightly to the children who were here. It marks the most difficult day of wondering if there was anything more I could do and what I had to let go. Were there any more memories I needed to make to be able to endure this separation? How was i going to face the morning, the finality, the people, our family, friends and neighbors who mourned with us feeling totally unprepared for something I'd never done before: finding our new normal, trying to sing our children's lullaby, laying our babies to rest for the last time, closing the casket and crying myself to sleep.

This year as I write this, my arms are full of a sleeping baby. It still catches me off guard how much this little one can bring joy and make the missing more tangible in the same moment. Paradox-and-a half, I tell you, but it is mine for the having. I wouldn't trade it, for it is good to know the pain so that I may experience joy. Sometimes, sometimes my cup runneth over in both directions. 

Life is interesting isn't it? It still continues to amaze me the wonderful complexities that can fill my human heart on one date on the calendar. Today, Caleb's 6th birthday,  I choose to celebrate life  in all of its beautiful, eternal forms and find it appropriate on this day of celebration that the skies are touched with rain. 

Always,
Jamie

Four

Has it really been?

Four years?

How can I still remember every detail of that day?

Well, days like that have a way of making themselves remembered. I was getting past the point of feeling overwhelmed and feeling ready to love you, to welcome you, to look forward to you, to you growing and becoming, and your precious new life. October 10: the day I saw your perfect little body in black and white ultrasound. The only time. Your heart was still, you were gone, but so perfectly beautiful.

Indeed, I had plans for you, for your life and sometimes I resent having to trust that there are other plans, Higher than my own. My plans were good, full of love and dreams, and they will have their time. I feel the gap of where you would have been every day, yet I cannot bring myself to say it is where you 'should have been'. It is called  'Loss', and indeed it feels that way much of the times that I think on it, yet it is more than that. With time, your brief life has become a blessing. There are many who will never understand that. You were the beginning of a teaching time for me. A time where I learned a deeper level of love and a deeper level of what this test we call life is about. A deeper connection to those around me and an empathy I never before felt so necessary. If I love you like this knowing a few things about you, how infinitely does my Heavenly Father love me, knowing everything about me? It makes more sense to me now. Call it a Loss, call it a Miscarriage, call it what it is, but to me it is a Wait. A difficult wait sometimes, a longing for the things that this world cannot satisfy. A reason to be better, to become more. A  Hope that  what I feel I am  missing will pale in the light of what is ahead of me. Just hold on, be faithful, and all will be made right.

I know there are those who do not understand how I could love my child I never met, but that is just it...you were my child, our child and nothing will ever, ever change that. I will forever be your Mama and you will forever be my Hope. There will always be days of Hope in our year and there will always be your place in our family.

The stuff that counts

So I've been comparing a lot lately though I'm not really meaning to, and you know what, today I caught myself in the act and actually said out loud "Stop it!"  It's a nasty little trick of Satan's to get us to waste time and energy on not feeling like we are enough. I had to figuratively sit myself down and give myself a little talking to. Some of the key points I got out of that personal conversation were:

* I am God's daughter, and as such I am divine. No matter where or why I feel like I fall short, I am His creation and ALL of God's creations are filled with eternal potential, so instead of feeling like I have let Him down, i need to look to where He is standing ready to help me rise.

* I only see snapshots of other peoples' lives while they are in the trenches of the reality-show version of their life. I am not in their moccasins. I have no idea, really.

* Others only see snapshots of me, for good or for bad. Those who really care will take time to see parts of the movie we call life and not judge based on the still-frames.

* Although I may still have the same struggle day after day, year after year, someone else may have theirs. Let's cheer each other on, not compare.

SO, that's my little insight for the day. Take it or leave it, it's all good.

dressing down?

Remember the days when i used to spend a little extra time assembling the cute outfit or two for going out? I don't either. Lest anyone thinks i have given up, i haven't. I have just strengthened some other habits which greatly outnumber this particular one. For example: I set my alarm to wake me in case the very content thumb-sucking, [and very wet] baby does not, so that i get up to nurse before i soak the sheets with milk. After the ritual, it is usually time to feed the rest of my little army, so yep, the shower gets pushed back yet again. I am often preparing lunch while still in my jammies and i HATE it! Although the functionality of a ponytail, t-shirt & jeans [or jammies] i cannot undermine, i get tired of it. I want to wear that cute outfit and look classy when i select produce at the farmer's market, but nope i am resigned to sweep the stray hairs back with a quick glance in the rear-view mirror and say to myself "that will have to do.'

Still...

I used to be so sure of myself. Now I question my decisions all the time. Should I cut my hair, should I purchase that item, should i attempt to fix that, will this end up blowing up in my face. I especially struggle with forming new friendships, meeting new people and standing my ground. It's not so much that I am seeking the approval of others, it's more that I am seeking the approval of myself. I find that there is still a level of blame or self-doubt that taints everything. I know I did all I had the power to do with all the knowledge I had at the time, and yet there is still something that lingers, compares, and judges and condemns. I can easily decide what meals to put on a 2 week menu, but what color to paint the walls in the bathroom, that's just overwhelming. Is it because it's long-term and I still struggle with long-term decisions? I don't want to sound like life has crippled me, I just notice that some days the rug still feels like it is pulled out from under me and I am still figuring out who I am again all over and then I mess up and I am afraid, yes, afraid to try again because I hate to fail. Yes, I look at that edge, that jump. I tiptoe toward it over and over and over wanting so desperately to have the courage to jump and the faith that I will either fly or land on solid ground and then I turn around and I just think, "Not today, I'm not ready..." and I look at the where  am and I yearn for the where I want to be although I don't even really know what that is yet. I know all the wishing in the world won't change a thing, yet most of the time i have no idea where to begin...

Mother's Day 2014

"Mother's Day is every day" someone close to me is known to say. I don't expect roses or a day spent in bed, I'll spend my moments with my treasures instead. While my work taken for-granted I sometimes resent, these are moments that are truly well spent. I am investing in something bigger than me: I nurture the sparks of eternity. For I know that time is sprinting on and I dare not blink for they soon will be gone. I'll know I've done well when the sweet day comes and they bring their own children to spend time with their Mom.

*Loving my children, my Mother, my Grandmas, and all who have mother-hearts this day and always.

Buried Treasures

A couple of weeks back I was having a conversation with my husband and somehow it turned to the topic of our parents. I found myself speaking aloud the truth: "Someday, we are going to have to bury our parents..." but I quickly pushed it aside and out of the conversation because it made me feel so uncomfortable. UNCOMFORTABLE, really, Jamie?!? You have buried three of your children and the thought of burying your Mom or Dad makes you uncomfortable? That isn't even the word for it.

When we buried our Hope, I felt like we were burying hope itself. I felt as if we were burying information. How would his birth have gone? Why didn't he survive? What would this child be like, who would he look like, how would the other children love him? When we buried Gracelyn and Finn, it was like burying dreams. Dreams of daughters in little white dresses, the sound of their laughter, the warmth of their smiles. What would raising twins be like? Could I die of sleep deprivation times two? So many experiences I dreamed of, but they were not to be in this lifetime. Yes, it was painful, it remains painful, but still different. 

My thoughts are that when I have to bury my Mom or Dad or a sibling, I will have to bury the body of someone I have known and loved for my WHOLE life, their whole life. That is a lot of time, memories and moments embodied in the face, voice and touch of someone I love. It is not the end, I know, more the beginning of a separation, a longing. And since we know not how long life will be or how soon we will be reunited, the mystery of that timetable causes our souls to weep, to mourn. And that is normal. I do know this truth : Every life is exactly the right length for every soul.

Although I do at times, I try not to say "I lost my son"  or " I lost my daughters" because when something is 'lost' it implies it needs to be found, recovered, searched for. I know where my children are and I have  found peace with that knowledge. However, when I say farewell to my Mom or Dad or my sister or brother I think I will find myself using the word 'lost' because I know no other word for the feelings of having someone I hold so dear here in the present gone from here for a time. I cannot see their face, I cannot send a letter, I cannot make a call, I cannot hear their laughter, but it is only for a time. 

Try this: think of the sound the front door makes in the home you grew up in. You can hear it, can't you? You don't have to be there to experience that sound. It is etched so deeply into your memory that it would be hard to erase. Now, think of all that is held behind that door for good or for bad. It's there isn't it. And there are the images of those you shared that home with, the sounds, the smells, the memories, the emotions. All right there in your memory and in your heart. So if that home was gone, destroyed, burnt down, lost in a natural disaster, whatever, would it erase all of that? Would it be 'lost'? I don't believe so, and that is pretty much the same way I think about those who have gone on ahead. What we had with them is not over; they live on, both here and there. Although saying goodbye is so extremely hard, I know it is not forever and that truth can, in time, be enough to get me through the here and now.

The Sweetest Words

As I sit here reading the messages of encouragement from loved ones I am taken back by how wonderful the written word is. I love the way words look on a page or in a letter or a note from someone who cares about you. The greatest gift someone could give me would be my hand-written name and address situated slightly below and to the left of a postage stamp on an envelope containing a hand-written note intended just for me. The sweetest words to run across my mind today have so very many tender feelings tied to them: Spouse, Children, Mother, Daddy, Sister, Brother, Friend, Love, Family, Home, Savior. How sweet it feels to write them knowing I have them all.

Easter, again

This Easter was the first time we have been back to the cemetery since Christmastime and since our rainbow boy was born. I expected it to be a little tough, but what triggered the lump in my throat was not our children's graveside, but the one next to it. A new one, a fresh one. I found my thoughts turning to that little one's mother. Who is she? What is her story? Does she have support? What about that baby's Daddy? There at my feet were the resting place of 3 of our own, our rainbow baby full of life, and then this new grave site. We saw some other families there who came to visit their little ones as well and as we talked I saw something so beautiful: smiles. It reminded me that if we allow it, healing DOES come, with time, the Atonement, and a lot of grief-work on our own part. I haven't found the words to capture all I was feeling, but I had this distinct thought: Life goes on. Not that it moves on and there is a forgetting, but that there is so much of life worth living for and that no goodbyes are forever.

A Step in the Dark

After a few deep breaths and some encouraging words from some dear friends, I have decided to write my story. My life story, my grief story, my rainbow story and whatever comes next.