Silence

It has been about a week since I have last posted anything. It is because the dark has been too black and the hurt has been too acute. I don't know how to express my emotions when life becomes this way. I cry. I stay hidden under the covers. But mainly, I am silent. For those of you who know me, I am not a silent person. I am quite the Chatty Cathy. I have been given the gift of gab.

When I am silent, usually for a few days in a row, my husband isn't quite sure what to do, how to read me. It frustrates him.

I sense it but I don't know how to reassure him that I am fine or to let him know that in about an hour, I will be okay.


I don't know when I will be fine. I am not even sure that exists anymore for me.

So, on top of everything else I am feeling, I feel like I have failed as a wife and as a mother.

Simply put, I don't know how to be truly present anymore.

I have so many questions. So many questions that no one can give me the answers to. So, instead of asking them, I remain quiet. It will anger me if I ask the questions and no one can answer me. Silence is best. I don't want to deal with anger on top of the raw pain I am feeling.

I don't have desires any more and I lack energy. It is scary but I don't know how else to be.

I am lost.

I want to know why God allowed this to happen. I want to know if I will ever be the person I was before all of this. I want to know if the pain will always be intense. I want to know if my daughter will ever know the mother I was to her before I became who I am now.

What was the sense in two lives being lost before they ever got the chance to live? How do I make sense of this? What was all of this for?

For the rest of my life, I am left to wonder what their giggles would have sounded like, what foods they would have liked, how their smiles would have soothed my soul, when they would have gotten married and what their sweet babies would have looked like.

Instead of imagining all of this, I so desperately wish I would have been given the gift to experience it. Every single drop of it.

I am silent. I don't know how to express all of this. I don't know what to say when some one ask how I am doing.

I am silent because I hope the One who knows it all will answer me. I hope He fills in the gaps of the silences and He whispers the answers to all of my questions and wonderings.

Stephanie

Picture of Peace

In my grief, I have felt so alone.

In sharing my story, more and more people are coming out of the wood work, sharing their stories with me. I realize that I am not alone. I am among many (unfortunately) who have buried children.

I still feel all alone.

Grief is definitely a lonely road to navigate and travel. It is a crowded road yet a lonely one.

Grief is ugly. It is an awful, scary storm. I never know how hard the rain will fall, which direction the winds will blow, what darkness the clouds will bring. Some days I feel like there are rays of sun sneaking through the dark clouds and I am able to catch a glimpse of how life will go on.

 It will go on never the same, but it will go on.

Just as I am feeling some of the warmth that the sun brings, the dark clouds engulf me. My vision becomes blurred and then goes completely black.  I cannot see how I will go on. I have lost all desire to do so.

On paper, grief seems manageable and predictable.

There are five stages of grief. They are: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.

I feel like there should be an astrisks at the bottom of the manual of grief. No one can really tell you how it is going to look when it rudely taps you on the shoulder. There are stages you may never approach and there are stages you will revisit. You can experience some of the stages simultaneously. Some of them you may only live through for a day or two and others that may last weeks or months.

It looks different for everyone. It affects each person differently.

Just when I think I have caught my breath, something comes up and knocks the wind out of me.

The more I view the world, the more heartache I see surrounding me.

Someone has just lost a parent, sibling, spouse, child.

Someone has just been faced with their own mortality as they are told they have terminal cancer.

Someone is caring for a loved one who no longer recognizes them.

And yet, the world continues to spin. The sun continues to rise each morning and set each night.

Life goes on.

We all will be faced with troubles and heartache in our lives.

In John 16:33, we are told by Jesus that In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

There is no if that precedes the word trouble. There is no promise that if you take a certain job, marry a certain person, have a certain number of children, or even when you decide to follow Christ, that you will be exempt from it.

It is almost like a guarantee. You WILL have trouble.

You learn a lot about yourself when things do not go according to your plan. When your life turns upside down on you.

In the book, Stories for the Heart, there is a story written by Catherine Marshall. It is a story of a king who offered a prize to the one who painted the best picture of peace. Many people submitted their pictures of what they thought peace looked like. The king narrowed it down to two pictures.

One picture was of a calm lake that reflected the mountains and a blue sky in the still waters.

The other picture was one of a storm complete with lightening and rocky mountains. A waterfall fell with anger down the side of one of the mountains. Behind the waterfall, a bush grew out of a crack in the rock. In the rock, a mother bird had built a nest. That mother bird rested in her nest as the storm raged on.

The king chose the second picture because "peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart."

Grief does not lend itself to "peaceful" times.

My desire is to still be at peace with the God who created me.

Joy is not the absence of pain but the presence of Christ.

from the book I Will Carry You by Angie Smith

 Lord, may I be at joy and peace in the midst of all this heartache.

Stephanie

Flowing of Questions

The flowing of questions are limitless.

Why? If I would have done this or that, would it have made any difference?

The silence that trails behind the whys is deafening.

The ifs just eat the soul alive.

Questions are natural.

They help gain understanding, knowledge, what is appropriate and what is not.

And sometimes, no one can really give an answer to the question.

Those questions are the ones that most desire an answer.

Why does cancer exist? Why do murders occur? Why is there chronic illness of the mind and body? Why do babies die?

I remember when I was a little girl, I asked a slew of questions. I wanted to know the whys and hows to everything! I'm sure my parents were driven crazy.

Why is the sky blue? The grass green? Why do cats meow and dogs bark? Why do most animals have four legs? Why is blood red and not neon pink?

Most of the time, their reply was, because it just is.


I'm sure there is a long, complicated, scientific answer to those questions. I was not given the answer because I would not have understood it.

Gods silence to my questions why, may just be because I will not understand His reply.

I have to stop with the ifs because they eat at me. It is hard for a control freak like myself to think there was nothing I could have done differently. The experts tell me so. My husband whispered it in my ear when I sobbed with each contraction and continues to whisper it in my ear when my body shakes with cries in the night.

My God whispers it to me as well.

It was not anything you did, my child. This has always been a part of My plan.

The other side to if is not for us to know.

If I would have gone to this school...

If I would have taken this job...

If I would have said yes... Said no...

If I would have arrived earlier... Arrived later...

To trust the road that was taken, that is what we need to know.

To trust that whatever path we chose or whatever has occurred in our lives, God is there. He will take care of it. Take care of us.

God is on the other side of the if. He is in the silence after the why.

That is what needs to be the focus. What needs to be trusted.

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb,

so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 

Stephanie

Bitterness

It is a dagger to the heart whenever I see a newborn baby or a woman who looks to be as far along as I would be right now.

It is so hard to explain to those who have never had to walk in my shoes.

A pregnant lady and a newborn baby is nothing but joy. Right?

Try explaining it to someone who has been told they will never be able to have a child or to someone who has just lost her identical twins.

It is so hard.

It sucks the breath right out of you.

It is so hard to explain because you simply cannot explain the ache. The hurt. The desperation.

When you see a baby or a pregnant lady, you see happiness, hope, a future.

When I see a pregnant lady or a baby, I feel an unexplainable ache. I feel a hurt I have never experienced before. I feel the void in my heart.

I feel lost and alone.

Bitterness and Resentment come up along side me. They try to take my hand in theirs. I resist them. Not because I don't feel welcomed by them but because I know the destruction they can bring.

They are like sugar. They are so sweet at first, but the more they linger, the more they rot. The more they poison.

I know because I have walked with them before.

Seven years ago, my husband and I were labeled as infertile.

I was the first one who was diagnosed as infertile. It frightened me and broke me.

I had always wanted to be a mother, now I was told that the most natural way to have a child was closed to me.

What frightened me was that my husband would eventually blame me. I feared he would leave me because, after all, he was not the problem. He could fulfill his dreams of being a father with someone else.

A few weeks later, my husband was also diagnosed as infertile. I sighed a selfish sigh of relief.

We both contributed to the problem. I thought it was a blessing we were both to blame. I know some marriages can't and don't make it through the battlefield of infertility.

Our marriage would stay intact, we were blessed, because we were both to blame.

Over the course of a few more years, through procedures and medications, our marriage frayed.

My husband clung to the hope of God.

I grabbed the hands of Bitterness and Resentment.

At first they were so beautiful and understanding. They seemed to hold so much promise. It was so natural to welcome them as friends.

When I walked with them, the questions came. Why? Why me? Why us? Why can't it be them? What did we do to deserve this?

Every joy I had in life started to darken. Bitterness and Resentment stepped out of the little place I allowed them, and started to infect every area of my life.

They are not good.

They do look welcoming and it seems so natural for me to want to join them now.

But I know the destruction they can create.

So I turn to them both, look them in the eye and say, "No, thanks. Not this time."

I need to feel my hurt.

I need to feel every aspect of it. Even the areas that others do not understand and frown upon.

I need to walk this road.

It is going to hurt me deeply to see a pregnant woman or a baby. They do hold so much joy and hope of a future.

It hurts because the hope I had envisioned for my babies had changed. It is not gone. It has not ended. It has just changed.

That change hurts.

Ignoring the hands of Bitterness and Resentment, I look to God, grab His caring hands and start to walk. I need to walk this road so I can accept that change.

Stephanie

Praise Worthy

My heart sits heavy. Its beats are unpredictable. Sometimes it feels like it will pound out of my chest and other times it beats slow and steady.

Sorrow overcomes me like a dark cloud. I think of all that I have lost. All that I miss. All that I will never have and all that will never be mine.

I am searching. Searching for answers. Searching for a way to turn back the clock and change the outcome. Searching for a way to bring them back.

I scream. I yell. I cry.

I search for someone to blame.

I search and I find my God and express my great displeasure with Him.

I hear, "Praise Me."

What?! You want me to praise You?!

How do I praise a God who allowed this to happen?

How do I go about praising in a time of deep hurt?

I was and still am having a hard time grasping this concept so I looked up the definition of Praise. It means to express approval of; give honor to.


It didn't help me.

It actually frustrates me!

How does a Mother ever approve of the death of her babies?

I am a Mommy. Every fiber of my being wants them here. I wanted to care for them, teach them, hold them, love them.

Now I am unable to because the God I serve allowed them to be taken from me.

How do I approve of that?

The other part of the definition of Praise is, give honor to...

Can I still give honor to God?

Honor - outward respect; reverence

This one is a little easier for me to grasp.

Do I respect God is who He says He is? Do I trust it?

Do I trust and respect God is sovereign, just, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, compassionate?

He lets us know through His word that His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9).

He knows the whole picture. If He is the Alpha and the Omega then surely He knows the beginning and the end of the world and of course this story, my story. My life.

Before we were even conceived, He knew the moment we would be born, the number of breaths we will take, and the moment we will return to Him. (Jeremiah 1:5)

I trust that, not only does He know how my life will play out, but He also knows the life of my girls.

He holds the big beautiful mural of life. He holds the mural of my life and the life of my girls in His hands. He sees it. He knows it.

I do not.

I don't know what an hour from now will hold for me.

He does.

And just as He is with me right now, He will be waiting for me an hour from now.

I trust that. I believe that.

I also believe that Christ walked this earth, died on the cross, and was resurrected so that I may have eternal life with Him, in Heaven.

If He is there, and I believe He is, then so are Emmerson and Vivienne.

And one day, I will be there too.

I will see my gorgeous girls again! I will be able to hold them and kiss them once more!

And there will not be a time limit to our reunion.

I can praise God for that!

Stephanie

Rain Falls Beautifully

There is a plaque on display in my parents house. I have read it many times and have thought that it is such a beautiful saying. I never put much thought into until now.

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass...

 It's about learning to dance in the rain.

There is definitely a storm raging on within me right now. I haven't had much energy to get out of bed, let alone, dance. If I am dancing, its because the hurricane winds are blowing me around relentlessly.

But to dance purposefully right now? I don't think I could do that. Why would I choose to dance?

My heart aches.

The wind blows with force.

My arms sit empty.

The rain pounds hard.

Life hurts. Treasures become tarnished. Dreams die. People break.

It is so easy (it actually comes naturally) to sit alone with sorrow. To think of the things broken, everything that has gone wrong, dreams that died. 

The questions are hard and fast. 

The rain keeps pounding down. 

Pounding me down.

But can't storms be beautiful at times? Such ugliness can hold such beauty if you look hard enough. 

The way clouds can form never before seen shapes.

The way the rain will arrive at a slant.

The way the shadows dance together.

The way that glimmer of light ALWAYS finds a crack to crawl through and shine.

That light is reason to dance.

I have to look hard to see those glimmers of light. Glimmers of hope. But they are there.

When my daughter unexpectedly says, "I wuv you, Mommy."

When she smiles at me for no reason at all.

When my husband reaches for my hand.

When I get a good nights sleep.

My glimmers are so small yet so big.

Small gestures, glimmers, that put a smile on my face, that give me enough energy to perform a small step of a complicated dance.

Stephanie

The Darkness Swallows Whole

Its been looming near and around me for some time.

Its been dancing near me, tempting me to join in.

The other day, it just got to be too much.

The darkness entered without invitation but oh, how I welcomed it.

It fell on my shoulders like a heavy winter coat. I wrapped it around and zipped it up. It was warm. It was comfortable. It was the only thing that felt right.

When the darkness swallowed me up, I was not scared like I thought I would be. I wondered why I didn't let it swallow me whole sooner.

The darkness was the only thing that made sense to me.

I have been living in a world where the sun always shines and people move on with their lives. It feels as if I am the only one hurting. People still get up, go to work and worry about what's for dinner and what they will be doing when the weekend knocks on the door.

I don't worry about such things anymore. I worry about if I will be able to get out of bed in the morning, if I will be able to produce a smile for my daughter, if I will always feel empty.

So, when the darkness came, I sat with it wrapped around me. It seemed the only logical thing to do.

It told me to be still and to feel every ounce of agony that was in me. It told me to weep. It told me to cry out in frustration and despair. It told me to play out the dreams I had for Emmerson and Vivienne.

I exposed myself to the darkness.

It was extremely painful.

It was extremely lonely.

It was extremely necessary.

I opened the door that covers the void that was once my heart.

My God spoke to me and said, "Now, let me fill that space for you."

When the door opened, I invited My God to sit in that deep, dark void.

I will continue to be still and I will listen.

And I will leave everything else up to Him.

Be still and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10

Stephanie