Posts tagged transformation
Beauty From Ashes

Six months. Today, we celebrate six months of life. It’s your little brother’s half birthday. As I type this, he’s cuddled close to me, sucking on his pacifier, while his softie is nestled into his neck and lullabies lull him to sleep.  It’s beautiful. But it stings. It’s bittersweet...  I’m overcome with love for him and the joy he brings me to the point that I’m overwhelmed and brought to tears.  His breaths fall heavily on my arm, while you remained so still.  His little life, in my arms, because your life slipped through my hands.  Death literally passed through me, so a new life could be planted. Could grow. Could resurrect from the darkness and bring to fruition a redemption I had not thought possible.  There’s so much guilt.  But there’s so much love.  And grief, it still remains.

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Transformed

Who am I now?  How has this experience changed me?  I hesitate to even call it an experience. It was and is so much more than that.  It was stillbirth.  It was losing a child. It is loss.  And it is grief.  But nonetheless, I am different.

Transformed, however, makes it seem as though I have come to the end of this difficult road. I am ever evolving. Ever changing. In each day, each moment, in each breath...I am transforming.

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Finding You

I shut my eyes in hopes of dreaming of you. Of finding you. Of you finding me.

I see you in my mind’s eye, and I speak your name on my heart. It rests on my tongue in a quiet sigh. No sound comes out. It’s stifled. Unreleased.

I wrap my arms around my shoulders, clenching myself tightly. I envision the weight of your small body against mine. Leaning into me. Pressing against me. Delicate arms wrapped tightly around me with your tiny jaw embedded into the nape of my neck.

In the bed. Holding you. Holding me. I need you to hold me.

I miss you so much.

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Your Month Arrived

May is here. And May hurts.  Because May means you will be gone...forever...until we are reunited in heaven.

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Learning to Surrender

Last night while nursing him, he gave a slight resemblance to you, and I remembered staring down at your face in the hospital room in such disbelief.  No matter how much I willed you to breathe or to move, no matter how much I begged God to change the outcome, I couldn’t change a thing.  I was completely powerless.

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Postpartum Days

Being home with your little brother, I’m so very much reminded of those early days at home without   you.   I sit on the sofa, nursing him, holding him tight, gazing at his small frame and features, and I listen to the birds sing outside and dive and dance in and out of our yard.  And I see you, colorless and empty of life, in a cold, dark hospital room.  And I remember how I came home and slept all night, stayed in bed until the afternoon, didn’t eat, and cried every waking hour and in between.  I’m reminded of how my body continued to move on without you...

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11 Months (Revisiting)

I’m a day late, my love. Yesterday, it was 11 months. How have we happened upon one month shy of a full year? 

I know I haven’t written in a while, but so much has been moving and churning within the depths of my heart. It’s almost been too much to articulate admidst the exhaustion of daily life, grief, and pregnancy after loss.  However, I think you know. You’ve witnessed it all.

Eleven months ago, my world came crashing down when I received the most unimaginable news of my life...your heart had stopped beating just two weeks shy of your expected due date.

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Dreaming

Sometimes I like to sit and dream.  I like to dream that I’m living in an alternate reality. I allow my imagination to run wild and replay events of everyday life, which have you in them.

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Divided

That night, at mass, the message of surrender.  Giving it all to God.  Living with open hands.  Wanting God more than anything.  The story of Abraham, willing to sacrifice his son for love of God...I felt ashamed.  Because in the midst of all of this, if I had a choice, if I could go back in time, if I could write this story’s ending...I wouldn’t choose loss.  I wouldn’t choose your death.  I wouldn’t choose sacrifice, or this cross, or this grief.  I would choose to be your Mom this side of heaven.  The words of our pastor carved into me, and I thought I might bleed out, but I didn’t want to release my emotions. I swallowed them down hard and pretended to be unbothered.  I was convicted, but not convinced.  I was divided.

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Parallel Lines

My heart knows that if it is truly God’s will, then I may indeed lose again.  And I’m struggling to live in a state of acceptance with that truth.  Because right now, I want what I want to be what He wants.  And I want to understand.  To see the bigger picture.  And how this journey ends. 

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No Fear in Love

I am learning that your love is molding me and shaping me into someone new.  That the old me is a discarded shell, and that’s simply okay.  I’m learning that loving you came with a cost, but I would never change it. 

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Litany of Trust

From refusals and reluctances in accepting your will...

From anxiety about the future...

From resentment or excessive preoccupation with the past...

From restless self-seeking in the present moment...

From the fear of being asked to give more than I have...

From the fear of what Love demands...

Deliver me, Jesus.

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So Long 2017

As I end this year of 2017, which has undoubtedly been the hardest year of my life, let me remember that good also came from the pain I’ve endured.  You did in fact live.  Your life is the reason for my suffering.  And I have had the honor of being your mother, and bringing you into this world physically, so you could rest forever eternally in heaven.  And I wouldn’t change any of it, if it would mean that you never existed. 

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A Dwelling Place

I went to the chapel one night, in the throes of my grief.  Visceral memories of her delivery and remembering how I let God into the pain that day entered into my mind and heart.  I felt the pain again.  All of it.  Physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional. 

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Weeks

I’m in a strange space, my love.  Time is doing something to me, and I can’t quite figure it out.

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