"Everyday holds the possibility of a Miracle."

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Out of the darkness....Grace

I find myself contemplating a lot lately the depth of the darkness I have traveled over the past years.  The deepest struggles have been in faith and belief - my faith and belief in God, in our life as a couple and as a family, and in purpose.  I have been shattered, bitterly angry, jealous to the point of frustration, weary, and torn, and yet I live - out of the darkness....grace.   Prior to the beginning of our struggle to bring a healthy baby into the world three years ago - our lives were full - full to the point of not being able to fit anything else it - there was not an inch of wiggle room for anyone or anything else.  The pace was frantic, exhausting, and highly stressful - it felt like we were caught in a whirlpool of madness with no way out.  When I was pregnant with Ethan life continued the crazy spin, but the direction seemed clear until he passed from our arms, then life came to a screeching halt.  The thing is nothing else around us stopped spinning, just we did - people still demanded much from us, the bills still needed to be paid, we still had obligations, but we were stuck seemingly helpless watching the spin.  None of those things that we had kept spinning before - those things that we felt were so vitally important to life - those things that sucked so much life from us were important anymore.  Then came the darkness.  Joy was sucked from every moment, hope was a word of our past not our future, and helplessness caved in.   Nothing we could do could change where we were or what was happening to us - we did not choose it, but we had to walk it - out of darkness....grace.   There were many moments of total darkness over the past year, and I still daily live with an ache where my heart should be, but I also see the grace.  Each and everyday, though they have been painful since the day Ethan left us, have been gifts.  Everyday the sun shone, we breathed and lived and were held by grace.  Every day things and people poured through my life as raindrops of grace - whether it was a yard full of golden dragonflies all summer, the sweet love and laughter of two precious boys, the tears of a friend, or the compassion of a neighbor all raindrops caught within my outstretched hands quenching a thirst I knew I had but did not know how to express.  In the moments of feeling completely misunderstood a hand reaches out and I reach back and from the darkness comes grace.....  As I continue on the path of living after loss I find myself carried by grace - I now know with all of me that my God never left me - He does not forsake me - I walk and live and breath today by His hands of grace.  I stand breathless in the waiting - knowing that though the storms come so too does grace. 

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Missing...

I find myself this week with the feeling of incredibly empty arms...  I know that I have two wonderful boys to cuddle and hold (when they will sit still long enough for a brief moment of mommy time), but I find myself yearning this week for my baby.  I miss Ethan with a depth that I haven't felt since the first weeks after his passing.  Maybe it is because of our recent miscarriage, maybe because his first birthday in heaven is approaching, maybe it is because of the conversations we have been having about placing a stepping stone made by his brothers and a plant at his burial site this spring, or maybe it is a combination of all things...  I find myself missing his soft baby skin, and the way his long fingers curled themselves around mine and hung on, and how he would fuss when I tried to slip my finger out of his small hand.  I miss his beautiful straight black hair - so soft and so unlike his older brothers.  I miss the way he curled into me the first time I held him, after he was born, and sighed.  I miss his deep chocolate brown eyes, and how wide they were and how wise they were as they stared into my own.  I miss how he would turn his head to follow me around his bassinet in the NICU, and how he responded to his Baba's voice for the first time.  I miss the smell of his baby skin, and the sound of his soft breathing.  I miss that I never got to cuddle him on my chest.  I miss that I never got to feed him.  I miss that he met his brothers once when he was out in this world, and looked at them and they him - the only time they connected as brothers.  I miss that I never got to change his dirty diaper.  I miss that the only bath I gave him was after he was still and gone from us.  I miss that his cry never woke me up in the night.  I so desperately miss all those things that we will miss with Ethan - knowing his favorite foods, hearing his first word, teaching him how to crawl and walk, discovering what it is that he is passionate about, helping him develop his interests and abilities, and watching him be a brother and son.  Ethan was briefly a part of our lives, and some days it is hard to believe that he was even here, but then my heart breaks open and pours sorrow and I know that all that he gave to us and left us with is more profound then anyone else has ever given me.  And I know that though I miss him now, someday I will see him face to face and I will hold my baby, cuddle my son, and the heartbreak of today will be no more.