Does He Know?

I was sixteen when that boy-man became a close, trusted friend.

I was eighteen when I started to fall.

I was twenty-one when I promised forever.

Twelve years later and we are still holding on to each other. Still loving one another.

Somedays its the overwhelming emotion of love that we ride and others . . . well, others it's a choice.

Nothing in life is always a hundred percent easy.

Does he know? Do I let him know it enough, all the small ways that I love him?

Does he know?

All those years ago, when we became fast friends, I respected him immensely. Trust and respect were established on that mile long walk of friendship.

My heart always felt like it was going to explode in those early days of falling whenever I heard his voice or saw him with that blue baseball cap on.

I can still feel the crisp winter nights air and hear those fireworks from the night he asked me to be his wife.

I feel blessed because I get to see him when he is sweetly asleep with those dark lashes of his laying still on his face.

My heart melts when I see with my memories eye him holding our three girls shortly after birth. Do they know how lucky they are to have a daddy like him?

Does he know how I hope and earnestly pray, each time he leaves us for the sky, that he is returned home safely to us?

Does he know that I call him when he's on a trip not because I have anything to tell him but just because I want to talk to him? That I need to hear his voice?

Does he realize how much more I panic when I can't get ahold of him now then I did 14 months ago?

The course of our lives have changed. It has changed him. It has changed me. I know this. We are still holding on. Still choosing to love each other with each unexpected, hard blow.

Does he know that he even now, I would still choose him? I would do it all over again . . . with him?








Stephanie

He Matters Too

I saw it. I heard it.

All those hushed questions, how is she doing? is she doing any better?

It hurt me. Why wasn't anyone asking him how he was doing?

Why was everyone so concerned about my mental and emotional state but few were concerned about him?

It hurt me. But I was so consumed by grief and sadness that I never spoke up.

They mattered not only to me but to him as well. He matters too.

Very few people asked him about . . . him. Very few people took the time to spend time with him. Very few people took the time to listen to him.

A lot of people asked him about me.

The day after they were born and then died, before I was even discharged, he was on the phone attempting to make funeral arrangements.

He was fielding many phone calls.

He got out of bed every morning (the same bed I would spend days on end in) and would take care of our daughter, prepare meals, go to the grocery store, do the laundry, all the things that I not only lacked the desire to do but forgot how to do.

He went back to work.

He loved me through it all. All the while juggling his own heartache.

Silently. And alone. 

He held us together. He held me together. He became so incredibly stronger than he ever thought he could become. He became stronger than he realizes. He was my glue.

Carrying his own grief, his own sadness, his own loss of dreams and love, he still pushed forward, living each day, carrying me through hoping I would make it through.

Living each day where his wife had become a zombie and he was left wondering if she would ever get out of that bed and resemble a person again.

He pushed forward and still no one asked him about him. I don't know if that hurt him, all those people asking him about his wife but never once concerning themselves with how he was coping.

Did he ever want to scream, they mattered to me too! I love them too!

I sat one night, sobbing, voicing all those dreams and all that love gone, so consumed with my own sadness that I couldn't think outside of self. I looked up and he was crying . . . sobbing really . . . and that's when I realized that his pain ran just as deep.

He put voice to his lost dreams . . . his lost loves. He would never get to take them on a Daddy-Daughter date. He would never get to walk them down the aisle and give them away. He would never get to dance that Father-Daughter dance at their wedding.

He loves them like only a father can love his little girls. He had dreams for them. He wanted them. They were not only my daughters but his as well.

They mattered to him so he matters too.






Stephanie

Rainbows

I never knew there was a name for a baby that was conceived after the loss or death of the baby that came before them.

There were a lot of things I never knew before my sweet Emmerson and Vivienne lived and died.

A baby after the loss or death of an older sibling is referred to as a Rainbow Baby.

I didn't like it at first. I have rarely referred to Little Man as my Rainbow Baby.

Rainbows. Are they not a beautiful display of creativity that the storm is over? Something beautiful left after the pounding rain and raging winds?

And while I know that this baby is something wonderful and beautiful, I have a hard time believing the storm is over. I ache everyday. I miss them every minute. Every second, I wish things had turned out differently. Rainbows are beautiful. This baby is beautiful. Even though the rain doesn't pound me down everyday, those dark clouds are always looming in the distance.

But there is a rainbow. There is beauty.

Rainbow Baby

A rainbow baby is a miracle baby conceived after the loss of another child. "Rainbow Babies" are the understanding that the beauty of a rainbow does not negate the ravages of the storm. When a rainbow appears, it does not mean that the storm never happened or that the family is not still dealing with its aftermath. What it means is that something beautiful and full of light has appeared in the midst of the darkness and the clouds. Storm clouds may still loom over but the rainbow provides a counterbalance of color, energy, and much needed hope.

~ Unknown ~

Stephanie

When Reality Becomes Real

This whole pregnancy I have been guarded. I have been reserved. I have been slow to move forward with any planning or preparation for this baby.

That is so unlike me.

Others have shown and expressed more excitement than I have. It is so strange to be in that place where others are beaming at your news and you are the one sitting in the corner, not displaying really any emotion.

I don't know if this is normal after what I have been through. I have questioned it and criticized myself for feeling and being this way.

I have no idea if this is normal.

My husband and I had started to shop for Little Man's bedding and items to decorate his room. It was done more out of not wanting to have to do it after his arrival than any force driven by excitement alone. As we were marking things off of our list, a part of me wanted to let out a sigh because things were getting done. The other part of me had to hold back the overwhelming urge to scream. I wanted to scream as things were getting marked off because what if, in the end, we are left with another room fully ready to welcome our baby but it too, sits empty?

I wanted to scream with fear.

And yet, at the same time, I still hadn't fully acknowledged that we may be bringing a baby home. It goes with the territory of being guarded.

It's fight or flight and I guess, more times than not, I have chosen to take flight during this pregnancy.

Last week, at 32 weeks gestation, I went into preterm labor.

My body left the flight mode and instead chose to throw down all forms of barriers and fight.

I have wondered so often if I had fallen in love with Little Man. I have wondered so much if I have bonded with him.

Those questions were answered. The reality became real. I am going to have another baby! And I want to fight for him.

I am bored. I would love nothing more than to be able to enjoy this (finally) wonderfully beautiful weather. I would love to be able to clean my home and prepare for Little Man but I can't. I am now on bed rest. And while I sit and lay around I am going crazy because I can't do for myself, I remind myself that I am fighting for Little Man. Fighting for some more precious hours . . . days . . . weeks for him to stay where he is safest. Where, for now, he is meant to be.

I am fighting because I love.

I love this baby. I know without a shadow of a doubt that this little guy is loved. I would do anything for him.

When I feel the urge to complain about the boredom or not being able to do what I really want, I stop myself because I would have given anything to have been able to do this for Emmerson and Vivienne.

I wasn't given that opportunity and I would have given anything to have been able to do that for them.

I don't need to be reminded of a different outcome. I know how different it could be. How different it was.

So this? This is an honor.

And I am thankful.





Stephanie

Mending Is Never Ending

For five days, those five days between that fateful appointment and the day that held the confirmed diagnosis, were the longest five days of my life.

For five days, I prayed - demanded really - that He fix my daughters.

I didn't say please, I didn't even ask, I told him to just. fix. them.

I didn't plead for healing. I was too scared. I was too much of a coward to pray for that. I know He can heal one of two ways and one of those avenues for healing I didn't want because it would mean goodbye.

Two days after the consultation, one day after the surgery that was supposed to have fixed everything, goodbye was whispered . . . uttered . . . cried out in anguish.

Goodbye.

He healed my girls. He fixed my identical twins, Emmerson and Vivienne.

He didn't do it the way I wanted. The way I had pleaded endlessly that He would.

It hurts.

I am now broken. Shattered. Crushed. Hurting . . . everyday hurting. Heart left open to bleed.

Everyday.

I don't know why He didn't perform the miracle I had asked of Him. Somedays, that angers me.

I don't know why.

I still believe He is a healer. I still believe He restores, repairs, renews . . .

It is me . . . crevices of my life that I never knew existed . . . are being healed.

He is mending me.

It's only been 14 months so I am still in the mending process. And 14 years from now, I will still be in the process of being mended. More progress will have been made but it is still a process. 44 years from now, the mending will still be the present action.

I don't believe I will ever be completely healed this side of heaven. I don't believe my shattered, crushed, aching, bleeding heart will ever be completely mended while I am still trodding this earth.

Heaven is where the complete and whole lie.

However, 14 months later, with a different lens to look at life through, I can see how He has slowly started the mending process.

Because I ache, because I hurt, because I bleed, I ache for others . . . for complete strangers in a way that I never would have been able to before.

I have a passion . . . a fire burning within, to do for others, to make beauty from these ashes. It is slow moving, but it is moving. And I hope the moving causes change.

I can see that the moments I did get with Emmerson and Vivienne and the love that was given to them is far more than some ever receive in 80 years of a life lived. They were loved! I was blessed.

I am blessed.

There will always be this heart of mine that hurts and bleeds. I know this. I am accepting this. I don't want pity because of this. This . . . them . . . they are apart of me and I would never trade that for a sky that rained down diamonds. Because I got to carry them and hold them and love them, I am blessed. What mother would trade moments with their children for anything of this world?

And because of this forever ache, I can see more clearly the hurt in this world. I can see and feel and just be when another is hurting.

I can comfort another.

Is that part of the mending? That the thorn in your flesh or the cross you carry can cause you to extend comfort?

I am weeks away from welcoming our fourth child (our first boy) into this world. The whole pregnancy has been one of hope, fear, and trying so hard to trust The One who seemed to let me down 14 months ago. I feel like a lot of this pregnancy has been one where the wounds have reopened and new ones have appeared. Maybe that's just my perspective. Maybe it has all been apart of the mending process.

Some have told me that this Little Man will help me heal. Little Man will heal me in ways I never could have dreamed.

I don't know about that. I am not hoping for that. As much as I want to be healed, I don't want the weight of that responsibility to be my son's.

There was a Son already born who beared that weight.

I want my son to be born with love and dreams and hopes. I don't want him to be born with the job of fixing his mother.

That's not his job. He can't fix me. He can't heal me and I don't expect him to.

There is only one who can. There is only one who can be called the Mender.

This post was part of a link-up with Angie Smith and supporting the release of her third book, Mended. If you are interested in purchasing it you can do so here or here.

Stephanie

To Miss A Love . . .

Everyday, I think of you.

Even if I don't say your names aloud, the whisper of them lies in my heart.

There's no way anyone can possibly know how much I think of you. How often your names enter my mind and the love I have penetrates deep.

There's no way anyone can possibly know how much I think of you. How many times I wonder what you would being doing now. How many times I wonder what you would look like and how long your hair would be. Would it be long like your older sister's? How many times I wonder if your laughter would be the same or if I would be able to tell the difference between you two by your giggles. Would you even look the same to me? Or would you look completely different to me as you were different in personalities?

I miss you terribly.

There's no way anyone can possibly know just how much I miss you.

There's no way anyone can possibly know just how much my heart hurts because of the forever hole that now exists.

This ache is all too familiar and yet alien at the same time. Will it always be this way?

Will the hurt always surprise me in new ways? It is just so unnatural to lose a child. How do you ever live the same?





Stephanie