Forgiveness

Since Ethan's death I have felt bathed in pain - mostly from grief but it has often been compounded by the well meant comments of others or the comments from others that they did not think about before they made.  I have taken these hurtful comments or actions personally and allowed them to compound my pain with anger and disbelief at the other persons inability to think about how that might have just affected me!  "What audacity! - How could they?! - How dare they?! - Do they not think?!" - all of these thoughts have floated through my mind after an unfortunate encounter with the cluelessly thoughtless.  The thing is - in my disbelief at their unfeeling words and actions I held on to the pain they caused me.  I held on and let it fester - taking me deeper into the quicksand of focusing my pain and frustrations at where I currently find myself in life on others.  I have been reading a devotional book by an amazing woman - she has 7 children - three on earth and four in heaven.  She is an inspiration to me as she has found a way through her pain to reach out and hold on to God - a feat I have yet to accomplish.  I just finished a section on Forgiveness.  She talked about forgiving yourself for whatever guilt and what ifs you may carry.  She also talked about forgiving others in the words of Jesus, " Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing..."  That really struck me - forgive them for they do not know... they do NOT know!  I stopped to think about all the pain I had held on to because of the unfortunate things said or done since Ethan's death and realized that not a one of those who had committed these seemingly horrific acts knew - they have never been here - they have never lost a child - they have never buried a son - they have never faced an uncertain future like this - fraught with anxiety over whether or not another pregnancy will ever happen and if it does if that baby will survive or if we will be faced with the burial of another part of our hearts.   I found myself in that moment able to let go of the anger and pain and forgave them - each of them...I suddenly felt lighter...then she asked if I had also forgiven God.  I sucked in a breath...much harder...God knew...God knows and yet he allowed it anyway.  I still can't wrap my head around that and see a loving Father who wants for me a hope and a future.  I do not deny that He is and is here in this journey - we occasionally see His fingerprints even if we don't hear His voice.  But, forgiveness is another step..one I am not sure I can yet take.

Help for the soul

Since Ethan's unexpected death, and the crushing of our future dreams of loving pregnancy and experiencing a growing family I have tried many things to help me cope.  It stems from my social work and psychology education - the desire to give help only now it is to myself.  I have read scores of books ranging from heavy topics to mindless novels.  I have tried the occasional glass of wine or cocktail (which only gave me headaches).  I tried hiding everything that reminded me - only to realize that it is extremely difficult to hide my own mind and constant broken heart.  I have tried organizing and reorganizing every nook and cranny of my house - and anyone who knows me can tell you finding something in need of organizing is difficult in my home.  I set up a strict pattern of chores and things to be done every day and tried to focus on and live from one task to the other.  We took an infant loss grief class.  I tried listening to inspirational music.  We tried spending more time in church, only to realize that being in the building where we introduced so many to Ethan and said good-bye at the same time was not helping.  All of a sudden a few weeks ago, I realized something - none of those things were helping me.  I was existing yes, but I was not healing.  I was pretending that all was fine within myself and I was trying to live without dealing with my hurt and pain.  Numbing the pain or finding ways to live with the pain was not healing with the pain.  So I did something about it.  I closed the basement door, put my Bon Jovi mix CD on and selected repeat on the song "You Give Love a Bad Name.", I cranked it up a high as it could go and then proceeded to empty out  and sort through all of the baby items I had shoved into storage along with my dreams and cried my eyes out.   But, I did more than that I let go at God.  Bon Jovi's song yelled out what my heart and mouth couldn't put together...my extreme disappointment towards the God of love who I asked to be there for us; whom I have begged for the lives of two of my children from and I let my anger out.  By the end I had accomplished a lot of organizing and a lot of soul care.  Letting go and letting it out...important and yet this was just a start... I sense a lot of Bon Jovi therapy to come. 

Failure

It happened again this week... someone else I know just told me that she is pregnant; and later on that same day my heart stopped for a split second was ripped out and stomped on when a child innocently proclaimed to my youngest son, "That is my baby, you don't have a baby!"  It isn't that I am not happy for people who are pregnant or having children, my two sons are the greatest blessing of my life and I can't stand how quiet our house gets when they are visiting Grandpa and Grandma.  But every time I see another pregnant woman or see a family with three children in tow or have the daily conversation with my boys that they want to have about when mommy will have another baby in her tummy, I feel like a complete and utter failure.  Like all of the neon lights with big blinking arrows have just turned on and are pointing at me in all of their illuminating glory screaming out "She isn't capable!", "Her body kills her babies!", "She failed to give her boys a sibling!", "She failed to have a daughter for her husband to adore!", "She failed, she failed she failed!"  Why?, why do I allow myself it get sucked into this huge hole of icy muck that just pulls me under.  I was having a good weekend, feeling positive and slightly hopeful for the future - something I haven't felt for a long time, and then someone else tells me they can get pregnant and don't possess with every indrawn breath the fear of their baby dieing.  Being a mother had become how I defined myself, it was the role I was in at this point in life and I was happy and content in it, and now that God has told me that I can't just add to my family as we desire too - I feel like I am a boat out on the vast ocean with out its rudder.  I suddenly don't know who I am supposed to be or what I am supposed to do, and I long for an answer.  But, that is the hardest part, finding a new definition for me, when everything around me is screaming failure at what I was.  It is hard to pull myself out from under the weight of that.  God made me strong enough to live past the death of my child, and I just pray that I am strong enough to get out from under the chest crushing mound of failure that has poured itself down over me.

Through the Eyes of a Child

I am always acutely aware of my oldest two boy's responses to Ethan's sudden departure from our lives.  They spent my pregnancy with him very excited - Simon more so than Reuben.  (At one point Reuben was determined that he could take the baby out and eat it so that the baby was all gone.)  He soon warmed up to the idea and was joining his big brother in feeling the baby kick and kissing the baby and yelling at the baby through my belly button.  Telling the boys that Ethan would never be coming home to the carefully prepared space that they had helped create was probably one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  They both cried, deep guttural cries of anguish like I have never heard before.  They both know the cemetery a block before we drive by it, and Reuben still asks on occasion when we can take Ethan out of the box in the ground so that he can play with him.  I wear a locket around my neck almost daily that contains a lock of Ethan's hair and his picture.  They will crawl up on my lap look at it and talk about their baby brother and say that they wish he could come back.  It breaks my heart.  But what breaks my heart even more are the prayers they pray faithfully every night for God to give mommy more babies, Simon would especially like a sister, but then they qualify their prayer, asking that God let the babies live this time.  Every time I hear that my heart breaks even more.  They have even begun asking when we will have a baby again, and I finally told them that it is hard for mommy to think about that right now.  That mommy is still very sad that Ethan is not with us, and that if mommy and baba have another baby mommy would have to go to the doctor a lot and that it would be scary for mommy.  But, I told them that it is good for them to continue to pray, and that God hears their prayers, and a secret part of me wishes and hopes with every once of me that He will hear the prayers of children even if right now my faith isn't strong enough to believe that He hears me.  After we had that discussion Simon started another prayer, asking God to give mommy more babies who live, but that if He does not want to do that if He could please give him a puppy to play with instead.  And just today, I realized how much my oldest has internalized and thinks about Ethan's death.  He was sitting next to me on the couch when he suddenly announced that he knows what it means to be really afraid.  I thought he was going to talk about shadows in the dark or monsters under the bed, but then he said, "I know that monsters and ghosts are not real, and that shadows and bad dreams are just things my mind makes up, but Ethan really died, and that makes me afraid."  He couldn't really explain to me in words why he had so much fear, but that it was because Ethan died.  All I could do was hold him and tell him that that is why we need to love each other and help other people so that the world is not such a scary place.  My heart aches for these two little boys who have lost some innocence from their childhood and had to grow up too fast this last year.  I feel guilty for putting it upon them, even though I would have done anything to protect them from this.  But, it also helps me to rise above my own fear, knowing their faith and their resilience to live life fully.  They make me a better person and for that I am grateful.   

Broken Heart

Writing has become difficult lately...Christmas, that was an experience, and the amount of time it is taking my heart to heal from it is astounding.  I wish that at the new year one could leave all the baggage you were carrying from the previous year at 11:59pm, just drop it with a resounding, thrilling, and satisfying thud on the floor behind you, and open the door to the new year, walk through it and shut it without looking back.  Imagine the lightness of that new year, able to walk again unburdened, head up, and whistling a happy tune with a lightness of heart looking no where but onward and upward.  Oh how I would love that possibility.  With a smack in your face reality I found something this Holiday season.  No one around me, who used to be my support system understands me.  Some of them are trying, some of them have walked away when I need them the most, and some have decided that it is time for me to move on already.  What a lot of people who have never been here do not understand is that loosing a child is not like loosing a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, or sibling - we have experienced all of those in some shape or form in our home, so we have comparative knowledge.  All of those others are part of your life and they make a impact upon it and when they depart this world they leave a hole within us.  But when you loose a child you have lost a part of yourself.  It rocks your world, your self worth, your dreams, your hopes, your worldview, and your relationship with God.  It is also something you can ever move on from - Ethan and his death and the impacts upon our family and our future are a part of us now and forever, we can't change that.  I desperately want people that understand something about me.  I don't ask for help, it is not within me.  For many reasons, I think it is faster and easier to do it on my own and that way I can make sure it is done right, or because I know that there are so many suffering around me, and how is what I am going through "good enough" to qualify for help.  Maybe that is the social worker in me, always have to justify to bosses and the government why a hurting individual qualifies for help.  I have to prove their hurt enough to make their humanity matter.  That seems so wrong to me.  We are all human first, we all have pain in our lives, and we should all be able to think about another person and how they are feeling and reach out.  Right now I feel awash in a sea of loneliness because two of the people I love the most in the world have seemingly stopped caring.  I asked for help with something before Christmas in as effort to ease the holiday experience and I was flatly ignored.  It wasn't something to spend any money on, it was just moving a piece of baby furniture from a room that I have to sleep in when visiting, and they couldn't do it for one night.  Then the astounding ridicule came when we wanted to leave early to spend a little time by Ethan's grave, and I was hurt beyond words.  I will never get a holiday with all of my family together and if we want to spend a few minutes by the stone of our son, sending him kisses then we should be allowed to do that with hugs and blessing not with hurt.  I was accused of ruining Christmas rather then met with understanding.  So, I tried in my hurt and pain and loneliness to reach out and I opened my mouth and I asked for help.  I made myself more vulnerable then I already feel and it was smashed in my face.  So it is with an even heavier heart that I start this new year, not filled with hope, or joy.  After loosing Ethan I prayed that the knife wouldn't be plunged in any deeper, I prayed that the pain would lessen and fade, unfortunately it is getting worse.  I can't insulate myself from the people around me, and I know that life is always filled with pain, but when do I get to stand up and cry "ENOUGH ALL READY!!!!!!"

All I Want For Christmas

There are many popular Christmas songs sharing what the artist wants for Christmas, two front teeth, grown up Christmas gifts like good will toward mankind, etc.   My husband asked me a week ago what I want for Christmas, he like so many men is a procrastination Santa!  I had to think about it... hard... it isn't like there are not things that I would love to have that would ease a daily chore or would just be fun, but I don't really want any of that.  They are just things that will one day no longer be useful or will break, this Christmas I would love, with all of me, to get what can't be wrapped in a brightly colored package under my tree: 
I want joy: I want that feeling of lightness of my heart and a warmth in my soul that is constant pouring itself into all of me; I want to be able to smile and laugh and have it reach my eyes. 
I want peace: I want to be able to close my eyes at night and have no replays of May stream through my mind, I want to be able to watch my children play and not have a heavy heart creep in and take up residence for the ones I will never be able to watch play, and I want fear to no longer be my companion.  
I want hope:  I want to feel alive again instead of half dead, I want to be the optimist that I used to be, and dream a new dream. 
I want time: Whatever I need to heal and be okay with that, to be and do what I am to do next and the blessing of knowing what that is, and to live each day for what is in it.   
I know there are boxes for me from my wonderful husband and two precious boys under our tree, and I am sure that whatever they contain will delight, but they will not heal my heart and that is all I really want for Christmas.

Fear

Reuben was sick this past weekend.  My normally highly energetic, never say no, loud, and inquisitive little guy was running one minute and the next was suddenly really quiet.  He climbed into my lap and said "Mommy, I'm so tired."  I was stunned, Reuben, who would never admit that he was tired, even if you bribed him with all of the chocolate in the world - which is saying something since he lists chocolate as his favorite food, was lying limp in my lap and could barely keep his eyes open.  I was so suddenly overcome by fear when I realized that he was suddenly very warm, visions of sitting by a hospital bed flew through my mind, and the tears poured down my cheeks.  I was up all night with Reuben, even as he slept peacefully I kept checking his temp (which never got higher then 101 by the way) my heart in my throat.  I hovered over him the whole next day, even as he kept saying "Mommy I'm okay, I'm not sick anymore."  I know that I was being completely irrational, and often happens that something that would have never fazed me before now strikes terror into my heart and I can hardly breath.  Fear...such a small word but such a big part of my life.  Fear feels like a constant companion some days, like I am always waiting for the next shoe to drop.  Every time the phone rings I jump.  Every time I walk past the closet under the steps, where all our baby stuff is stored, I feel fear trying to take hold.  Every time I allow myself to start thinking and worrying about tomorrow it rears its ugly head yet again, and along with it comes its best friend panic.  I understand how fear can paralyze, how it can destroy.  I get its power, but I have also found a way to tell it to back off, so that it feels like it is hovering behind me rather staring me in the face.  It is simple really, well not really, but once I figured it out it felt simple. Here it is: Only think about today, and let tomorrow be there tomorrow!  Ha!  My great wisdom.  It seems that I always knew this truth, but never really had to practice it.  I have always functioned under the odd understanding that if I worry about what is to come enough I will be able to ensure the outcome, or something like that.  Now, in this moment, having to live in not knowing what is going to happen next and fearing the worst if I start to think about it I find it more comforting to focus on today.  To cherish the moment I am in right now before I move on to the next one.  I feel that it gets me up out of bed in the morning and keeps me going through the day.  I cherish every smile, every laugh, and even all the naughty things that my two little ones do.  I cherish them - I ponder them and I hold them in my heart.  This Christmas I feel a real connection to Mary - she loved her Son, lost Him, and was reunited with Him in Glory.  She knew fear before He was even born - she didn't know what was coming and yet she cherished everything within her.  What a lesson for all of us.  There is a popular Christmas song, "Breath of Heaven", that I used to love because of its haunting melody and the words of Mary.  Now, the song grips me and I have to stop, close my eyes, and let the tears fall in my heart as I cry out, "Breath of Heaven hold me together, be forever near me, breath of Heaven..."