An Interlude of Pictures

We just got back from the beach with Bryan's family, and it's time for some happy pictures.  We had a great time with Kathy (Bryan's step-mom), Erik and Jen (Bryan's brother and our sister-in-law), their boys, Charlie and Grady, and Marta and Adam (Bryan's sister and our brother-in-law).  One morning Bryan did pancakes for the kids, so I will post those as well as some I have neglected to post recently.  We didn't have internet while we were away, and I was surprised at how shocking it was to be unconnected, but in many ways it was nice to be unplugged for awhile.

Ashoka from Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Kit Fisto

Elmo

Diego

Obi-Wan Kenobi 

I love, love, love this picture of four cousins.  I wish Samuel had been with us and in this photo too.  The boys are 5, 4, 3, and 2.  Samuel would have been 11 months old had he lived.

Me and the J-Bear

Four grandsons with their Grammie

Four buddies

At the beach

Bryan and Joel jumping waves

Sandy-hands Caleb

All of us making crazy faces, obviously.  :)

Apinis siblings (By the way, in case you don't know us personally and wonder how to pronounce our last name, it's "Ap-" as in apple, "-in-" like "in and out," and "-is" like kiss.)

The Apinis ladies.  We're out numbered.

I love this sweet picture of brother love.  Makes my heart happy.

The men with Kathy

And because I'm way behind on posting pictures, here is Caleb's Chewbacca birthday cake that Bryan decorated for his birthday party.  We had 16 little kids over for the party, and it was madness -- but oh, so fun!

Phew!  That's a lot of pictures.  Thanks for humoring me and letting me post a slew of photos.  I love to have a record of our life alongside our grief on this blog.  It helps me remember all the joyful moments in the midst of really hard and heartbreaking ones.  I'm so grateful for a week with the Apinis family, whom I love so very, very much!

Grief in Everyday Life

We were at our neighborhood pool recently, and I saw a very pregnant woman there with her family.  It occurred to me, "I was that woman last year!"  As I thought back to a year ago, I remembered how big I was in the summer.  I know all pregnant women claim they were huge when they were pregnant, but in my case, it was true.  I can back it up with facts: when I was 36 weeks pregnant, I was measuring 43 weeks pregnant!  A full term pregnancy is 40 weeks.  I was 4 weeks before my due date and measuring 3 weeks past my due date.  Mostly this was because I had polyhydramnios -- or too much amniotic fluid.  Pictures of me from last summer look downright uncomfortable.  I don't recall feeling uncomfortable, but I sure looked it.  As I thought about my pregnancy with Samuel and how, because of my enormous belly, my close friends would just laugh at me when they'd see me, it hit me: Samuel's first birthday is a mere 5 1/2 weeks away.  How is that possible?  I don't feel at all ready for his birthday.  How are we almost a year away from when he first came into the world?  It leaves me a little shaky when I think about how quickly this anniversary is approaching.


Last week I "visited" Samuel's grave for the second time.  Other than the burial, I had been there only one other time, and that was in September.  (On a side note, I think I hate the word visit in reference to a cemetary.  I'm not visiting Samuel.  And visit has such lighthearted, nonchalant connotation.  It feels all wrong for going to my baby's grave.)  I didn't really want to go, but we had an errand to run a mere three mintues from the gravesite.  I am never up that way, and it felt wrong to be around the corner and not go.  As we set out on our errands, Joel asked, "What errands do we have to do?"  I told him the list and then said, "And we might go see where Samuel is buried."  Joel immediately asked with joy in his voice, "We're going to Heaven?!"  I felt so bad that he was confused and tried to explain that we were going to his grave -- a place where we can go to remember Samuel.  We talked about the white box, and mostly I felt at a total loss about how to explain it so Joel could understand.  Caleb seemed to track with me from the beginning, and he tried to chime in and explain it to his little brother.

When we got out of the car, I was holding Joel in my arms and immediately started crying.  It was a sniffing kind of cry, and Joel asked without looking at me and recognizing my tears, "Mommy, what are you smelling?"  I choked out, "I'm sad, honey," and he said, "Sad about Samuel?"  We walked over to Samuel's grave and looked at the temporary marker.  I read it to the boys, and we stood there for awhile, me crying continually.  Joel squatted down and put his finger into the earth: "Samuel is in here under this dirt?"  I told him, "Joel, Samuel's body that didn't work is buried under this dirt.  His heart that didn't work and his lungs that didn't work and all of his body -- which wasn't healthy -- is in the white box under here.  But the part of Samuel that loved people or would have laughed or smiled or been sad or happy, that part is Samuel's soul.  And Samuel's soul is in Heaven with God and Jesus, and he's very happy there.  This is just a place where we can come to remember Samuel."  Joel looked pretty perplexed, but I didn't really know how else to explain it, so I hugged him close, and we stayed a little longer before heading out.  It was hard to go to the grave -- really hard, but it wasn't horrible, and it makes me think I could go back without so much dread and trembling beforehand.  And we're finally working on his headstone, so soon it will be a relief to know his permanent marker is there.  Maybe someday it will be a place I go to feel connected to my baby and to joyfully remember our time together. 

The last two Sundays at church, there has been a new lighting effect on the walls during worship.  The production crew uses some sort of screen to project what looks like branches of a tree with lots of extending twigs on the wall.  Bryan leaned over and told me, "I like that new effect," and I vigorously shook my head in disagreement.  When he asked why, I tearfully told him, "It reminds me of what the vasculature of Samuel's lungs should have looked like."  It still surprises me sometimes what sends me lurching back into grief and commences the onset of waves of sorrow.  I spent the rest of our singing time in tears.  There are painful reminders everywhere, and there is just no way to predict when they will assault me and when they will sit passively by and let me pass unaccosted. 

I have always thought that I would continue to record this journey of grief until the first year has passed, and grief has faded a little, and life resumes a more normal rhythm, but I am realizing again how I keep imposing a time table on myself.  I keep expecting grief to operate on some sort of calendar where predictable markers come into play.  But as we approach Samuel's first birthday, I am almost dumbfounded by how real and hard grief still is.  I feel like the last three or four months of grief have been fairly similar -- a steady sorrow in the midst of continuing and mostly joyful life.  It's an undercurrent most of the time, but it's always there, and it's very, very real.  There are no signs of it fading anymore than it already has anytime soon.  I am realizing how foolish I was to think a year of grief would mark any significant ability to leave this blog behind and quit documenting what I'm feeling and experiencing.  It continues to be a healing and truly helpful part of my grief journey, and so I think I'm going to ditch my pre-set plan of blogging for one year.  Whenever it seems right to stop, I will.  But until then, this place will continue to be where I come to emote and to find a little peace after I finally jot down my emotions and the latest parts of my journey.  So, I guess I will blog on. 

And on that note, I will call this entry done because I haven't the slightest idea how else to end it.  :)

Fear, Faith, and Folly

For a few months now, I have had this image in my mind of a road stretching between two deep ditches.  On one side, there is a ditch called folly.  It is where the impatient fall, the impetuous tumble, and the prideful slide.  It where the person who disregards counsel slips and where the fool flops.  On the other side is a ditch called fear.  It is where the anxious squat, the trepidatious topple, and the mistrusting stumble.  It where the person huddles who amplifies cautious counsel until everything is off-limits and nothing is safe.  Running steadily between these two disastrous pitfalls is a thin, delicately balanced yet well grounded path called faith.  It is where the trusting, wise, obedient, and humble journey.  It is where I want to be.

In these months of missing and grieving Samuel and of meeting with repeated disappointment in our attempts and desires for another child, I have found myself tottering on the edge of each these ditches at various times.  When we have hit roadblocks with my thyroid levels and been told to wait to conceive again, I have peered down into folly and wanted to jump.  I have wanted to do it my own way and force my own path instead of waiting patiently on God's perfect and good timing.  I have wanted to wave off the doctors' advice and direction and tell God I was being brave and jumping in regardless of wise and knowledgable counsel.  I pretended it would be faith for me to take the reins and assume control, but it wouldn't have been.  It would have been folly, and I would have found myself floundering in a pit I had deceived myself into calling something pretty and virtuous despite its rank odor and clear signs of rot.  It would have been foolish, but I was sorely tempted.

And now I find myself peering down into fear and wondering if I am going to go roly poly, pell mell into it.  We got the official go-ahead from the most conservative of my doctors yesterday, but I find myself anxious and fearful, timid and uneasy.  Some of my numbers are still not where we want them to be.  In fact, my TPO antibodies, which are most associated with miscarriage, are still seven times higher than the normal range.  But this is the best combination of levels we can achieve at this point since the medicine that regulates my thyroid is the same medicine that reduces antibodies, and I am now at the bottom of the normal range for my thyroid.  We cannot increase my dosage and stay in the acceptable range for TSH, so this is as good as it gets.  Part of me wants to say "No risks!  I can't possibly survive another miscarriage.  We can't take any chances.  We'll have to keep waiting and pray things eventually even out and everything is perfect and no chance of heartbreak remains."  But then we'd be waiting forever, and I'd be heartbroken anyway.  But I see fear just over the side of the road, and a part of me wants to be curled up down there, holding tightly to my dreams and sheltering them from danger. 

But where I really want to plant my feet is on the path of faith.  It's a precarious journey, staying firmly grounded in God and not giving in to my desire for control or my desire for safety, but it is the only road that will be truly rewarding.  I want to heed the wise counsel I receive but ultimately filter it through God's Word and God's character and lay my hopes, dreams, fears, and prayers at His feet.  I want to move forward with courage and honor and humility.  And I want to be willing to accept whatever Christ gives me -- be that a healthy baby, another miscarriage, months of failed attempts to get pregnant, or even -- and I shudder when I think of it -- another Samuel.  I know I can indeed face whatever comes because I know God is with me, and I know nothing is too big for His mighty love, grace, strength, and sufficiency.  He will carry me through whatever fires lie ahead, and I can trust Him to be enough.  I can walk in faith because He is gracious to lead me on His path. 

So as I look forward and see a plethora of possibilities and mountains of uncertainty, I firmly plant my feet on the road of faith.  Whatever is around that bend ahead, I will walk it.  Whatever lies just beyond the shadows, I will travel there too -- with my good God who is faithful to provide what I need to honor Him, trust Him, and ultimately follow Him no matter where He leads.

Merciful Pruning

I've avoided saying this directly for many months now, but I have finally decided to just disclose it.  I guess I was holding it close out of a myriad of reasons: self-protection, fear, a sense of privacy, habit, and who knows what else.  Probably this will come as no surprise as I've alluded to it enough, but Bryan and I have been trying to get pregnant again since November.  Well, that's not exactly accurate.  We were trying to get pregnant again until my thyroid news forced us to put our plans on hold.  In fact, the only reason I know about my thyroid is because 3 months went by without us getting pregnant, and that was unusual.  With Caleb, Joel, my two miscarriages, and Samuel we got pregnant immediately.  Three months without a pregnancy was strange, and I had noticed that something in my cycles had changed, so I went to my OB to do some bloodwork.  That's when my hypothyroidism showed up -- something very influential in fertility. 

Since learning about my thyroid, I have been very, very anxious to get everything in order so we could get pregnant again.  Every bump in the road (and there have been several) has felt like an enormous hurdle and a huge disappointment.  There is a correlation between untreated thyroid issues and miscarriage as well as high thyroid levels and poor fetal brain development, so obviously it's something we need to get under control.  But it has taken much longer than I anticipated. 

At first I was told that I would need to wait two cycles, and that sounded like an eternity.  I prayed and prayed for my numbers to come down, and numerous things suggested my levels would be good at the end of those two months.  But they weren't.  I had to wait another cycle.  I was deeply disappointed and had some hard days, but I surrendered another month.  Then I had to wait another month.  More disappointment and frustration. 

As the waiting has dragged on, I have had to surrender over and over again my hopes for the future.  And I have had to learn a lot about trust, about my heart, about my reluctance to let God work in His own timing -- or in His own way.  I have felt like God was asking so much of me.  Not only did I have to surrender Samuel, I had to lay down my picture of our family.  Each month I have felt the grief of our family not growing on top of my grief for Samuel.  For two years now, we have been trying to grow our family.  Right about two years ago we got pregnant with the first baby we miscarried.  And now, two years later, I still have only two children in this house to raise and love.  It has felt like a grief upon a grief.  Of course I grieve Samuel and the baby boy I sat by, sang to, prayed over, and read to.  I miss him all day, every day.  But I also grieve the family we aren't, the children we don't have and aren't expecting.  They feel like two related but separate griefs.  And some times it feels like too much.

Ask my friends, and they will tell you how challenging this road of not getting pregnant has been for me, how much it's on my mind, how desperately I long for it, and how frequently I talk about it.  It has been the theme of my journal entries and a focus of my prayer times.  It feels like so many more than 7 months have passed since we began to meet with disappointment in this arena.  I have struggled and struggled with this season of infertility.  I have wrestled and wrestled with God.  I have wanted to buck the doctors and take things into my own hands and throw caution to the wind.  I have wanted to take back the reins and blaze my own trail and do it my way.  I have not wanted to wait.

A couple of weeks ago, Bryan came home from work, saw that I had had a hard day, and sent me to Starbucks for an hour to be alone and recover a bit.  While I was there, I pulled out my Bible and started reading John 15, a very familiar passage.  Though it's a chapter I am well acquainted with, I had never thought about it in terms of Samuel or this road of waiting to get pregnant.  But that evening, it struck me afresh, and it was a pivotal paradigm shift for me.  I read the first few verses and then got out of my seat to ask the barista if he had a pen I could borrow so I could mark the passage: "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.  He cuts off every branch that doesn't produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.  You have already been pruned for greater fruitfulness..."  For the first time, I saw this road of suffering as God pruning me.  I thought of Samuel and how through Samuel God has already pruned me for greater fruitfulness.  And then I thought of this constant struggle in wanting more children and being denied again and again, and I thought that He is pruning my "branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more."  For the first time, I saw this road we've been on as merciful.  This suffering is God's mercy in my life.  It is Him pruning me so that I can bear more fruit.  It is His loving gardener's hand wanting what is best for the sprig that is my life.  It is Him giving me more life, richer life, fruitful life, deeper life, abundant life.  It is His mercy.  And for the first time I felt grateful for this fire we're walking through, this period of infertility.  I am grateful that He loves me enough to prune me.

Honestly, reading that passage changed everything for me.  I am peaceful about this road, about the uncertainty of life ahead, about my longing for another child and having to wait who knows how long.  It is all His mercy, His kindness and love.  And though I still desire another child more than any other earthly thing, I am content to trust Him and let Him work how He wants to.  I don't need to usurp His authority in my life.  I can rest in Him, the perfect Gardener, who guides and feeds and prunes and loves this soul that is His handiwork.

The Comforts of John

A few weeks ago for his bedtime story, Caleb picked a children's Bible.  We have one children's Bible that we absolutely LOVE (The Jesus Storybook Bible) and one we really don't care for.  He picked the one we aren't too fond of.  Then he proceeded to pick a story that I wouldn't choose for my 3 and 5 year olds: Cain and Abel.  Talk about a hard story to explain and ideas I don't really want my two little boys to have.  :)  At the end of the story, Caleb asked a couple of questions.  He asked Bryan, "Daddy, why wasn't Cain's sacrifice pleasing to God?"  I had always grown up thinking it was because Cain didn't give God his "first fruits" -- the best of his vegetables, but apparently the Bible doesn't actually say why his sacrifice was displeasing.  Bryan knows this from his seminary classes, and he told Caleb, "You know, Caleb, we don't really know why.  The Bible doesn't tell us."  Bryan could see Caleb processing this information, and he could tell it was unsettling to him.  Bryan continued, "But Caleb, you don't have to worry about whether or not something pleases God because we have the Bible which Cain and Abel didn't have.  It tells us what makes God happy.  We know what honors God."

Something about that statement -- that we know what honors God -- scared me a little.  I started to think, "Do I know what honors God?  For all my desperate desire to honor him in my grief, do I really know what does please Him?  What if I have it all wrong, and I'm making assumptions about what honors Him?  What if I've just settled on something that feels comfortable to me?  I like the idea that God would be honored by my faith, by my longing to please Him, by declaring His goodness to me.  But what if that's not it?  What if it's something harder than that?  What if God is not so compassionate and loving as I think but something more stern and exacting?  What if my sacrifice is ugly to Him like Cain's was?"  I kind of panicked inside, fearing that I don't know my God as well as I thought I did.  I resolved to start reading the book of John to try and learn about Jesus, about God, about what truly honors the God I serve.

So I did.  Though I've been consistently reading my Bible since I was eight years old and have read the whole thing at least 5 times, John struck me anew this time.  Sometimes my habit of reading the Bible can be pretty rote.  I grew up with Christianity, with Bible stories, with church.  It's all so familiar and such a part of my entire life that sometimes I'm a bit impervious to the words of Scripture.  They don't really sink in if I'm not careful to truly pay attention while I'm reading.  This time through, the words sunk in.  John has quickly become one of my favorite books of the Bible.  Not only is Jesus the Savior I thought and hoped He was, He is more.  He is deeply compassionate, kind, loving, gentle, righteous, sacrificing, and full of grace.  He is steadfast, wise, generous, and the bearer of true hope.  I am so glad I had my moment of panic because I am so glad to learn anew who this amazing God is that I love and serve.

And something I wasn't expecting happened in my reading of John.  I saw for the first time just how much Jesus talks about eternal life.  I haven't really paid that much attention in the past because it wasn't particularly important to me, but after Samuel's death, eternity in Heaven matters a lot.  I want to spend eternity with my baby boy, and I want Samuel with Jesus now.  I want Samuel to be whole and full of ultimate joy.  John has comforted me immensely in this regard.  Jesus talks over and over about eternal life.  It's not just his disciples who talk about it; it's my Savior Himself.  In my journal I started writing down all the verses that talk about rebirth, eternal life, and Heaven.  So far I have three pages, and I'm only through chapter six.

I am so grateful for a God who allows us to know Him, who tells us what honors and pleases Him and doesn't leave us guessing, who saves us by His grace and not by our merit or our good works.  He is a God I want to serve, a God I long to honor, a God I delight in loving, and a God I seek to know more and more as He grows and refines me.  He is a GOOD GOD I follow.


"They replied, 'What does God want us to do?'  Jesus told them, 'This is what God wants you to do: Believe in the one he has sent.'" John 6:28-29

"There is no judgment awaiting those who trust him."  John 3:18

"I assure you, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.  They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life." John 5:24

"I am the bread of life.  No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again.  Those who believe in me will never thirst...And this is the will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given to me, but that I should raise them to eternal life at the last day.   For it is my Father's will that all who see his Son and believe in Him should have eternal life -- that I should raise them at the last day."  John 6:35, 39

"Jesus replied, 'If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water...but the water I give them takes away thirst altogether.  It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life." John 4:10

Picturing Samuel

Yesterday was nine months since Samuel died, and today Samuel would have been ten months old.  It's hard to believe that much time has passed since we were sitting by our son's side in the CICU. 

This past weekend we went to see my grandparents in Arizona, and we had a lovely time.  On the flight back, we were on the tarmac with a woman who was clearly overladden with a baby, bags, and baby gear.  I asked her if I could help, and she said, "Yes!" with such enthusiasm and gratitude.  She clearly could use a hand or two.  I took one bag, Bryan took another, and she held her baby girl.  I asked her how old her daughter was, and she said "Nine months."  That's pretty close to Samuel's would-be age.  The boys were enamored with the baby as they usually are.  I kept thinking, "That baby looks familiar to me," but that felt like a bizarre thought.  How can a baby look familiar?  Hours later it hit me that her daughter reminded me of Samuel's first neighbor in the CICU.  He had been next to a bright-eyed baby girl who was adorable.  Her parents were seldom there.  In fact, we never saw a dad, and we may have only seen her mom once when she came and sat ten feet away from her and didn't even look at her.  I don't know what happened to that little girl though I'm fairly sure she moved to Step-Down a few days after we arrived at Egleston.  I wish I could remember her name so I could pray for her more personally. 

Seeing the baby on the airplane certainly made me wonder what Samuel would look like now and what he would be up to.  My niece who is 16 hours younger than Samuel is pulling up on things and trying to walk.  Would Samuel be doing the same?  Sometimes I get tripped up when I try to imagine Samuel if he had lived.  I don't know how to imagine him.  Do I think of him as the boy we never had -- totally healthy and a "normal" 10 month old, or do I think of him as the Samuel who would have survived all his defects but still been living with the reality of a weak heart, defective vasculature in his lungs, and consequences of longterm intubation and TPN feedings?  Do I picture a plump baby like Caleb and Joel were, or do I picture a baby who is underweight and possibly tube fed?  Do I imagine a busy, active boy, or do I imagine a boy who is developmentally delayed because of his rough start to life?  I don't know, and I get so confused that I can rarely picture anything at all.

Yesterday was Caleb's 5th birthday, and he declared at breakfast that no one was allowed to be sad on his birthday; we all had to be happy.  He got out of his seat and went to the fridge where he turned all our emotion faces to happy.  (Judy, our grief counselor, suggested we cut out sad and happy faces for each of us, so we can put up a face to let the family know how we're feeling that day or hour.)  Thankfully Caleb's birthday made it easy to be happy on one of my thirty-firsts. 

Here are a few pictures from our time in Arizona.  The boys LOVED seeing their great grandparents and especially loved our first family hike in the mountains. 

A Promise of Empty Graves

Sometimes I think I'm passed unexpected outbursts of tears and sorrow.  I think I'm in the stage of grief when I can tell sorrow is welling up inside me and will want an outlet, when there isn't a risk of me breaking down out of nowhere into uncontrollable sobs.  Apparently that's not true.  A few nights ago at dinner, Caleb started talking about Samuel.  It had been a couple of weeks since either of the boys had mentioned Samuel's name without me or Bryan mentioning it first.  On Wednesday, however, Caleb started talking about Samuel being in Heaven and how he first knew Samuel was in Heaven when he saw the "little white box he was in."  He was referring to the casket.  Then he proceeded to talk about the Pooh bear he picked to go in the casket with Samuel.  He asked why we put an animal in there with him when Samuel was in Heaven and not really in the box.  Caleb turned his big, brown eyes up at me and asked again, "Momma, why did we put Pooh in that white box with Samuel?"

It had been a long, long time since I had thought about Samuel's casket.  I hate thinking about it, and I have purposefully avoided going there in my mind.  Seeing it when we went to the graveside was one of those moments that will be forever etched in my mind, walking up to the plot and realizing my baby was in that tiny box.  Euh.  It turns my stomach even now.  And the thought of his body in there is almost unbearable for me.  For several months I felt haunted by the image of Samuel in varying degrees of decay.  In fact I had horrible, horrible nightmares about it for awhile -- ones that nearly made me throw-up in my waking hours and still physically bring on shudders.  Samuel's body in that box is just one of the things I don't think I will ever be ok with.  It's one of the reasons that visiting his gravesite is so unappealing to me.  I prefer to remember my baby boy as I knew and loved him in his best days -- or even in his worst and sickest days over thinking of him buried under the ground in that tiny coffin. 

A couple of months ago, after the nightmare that was probably the worst one of my life (and that's saying something), Bryan and I talked about Samuel's body on one of our walks.  When it was time to make arrangements for Samuel's funeral, Bryan and I were in such shock and so stunned, that we didn't really discuss burial or cremation at any depth.  In absence of time and energy to really talk and think about what to do, we went with what seemed the most traditional and least likely to come with regrets.  And Bryan made a good point at the time about how he wanted a place to go back to, a place we could visit to help us remember, a place the boys could see and have a more tangible understanding of.  But after my dreams, I started to really second guess our decision and to wish we had chosen differently.  Bryan, however, had some well-thought out reasons in the time since Samuel's death that reinforced his preference for a burial.  As we walked, he talked about the beauty of the resurrection and a resurrected body.  In his seminary studies, he has studied the resurrection, and though we believe Samuel's spirit is in Heaven already, the Bible talks about how one day our bodies will be resurrected, and though God can certainly resurrect ashes, Bryan loves the picture of an empty grave.  It was a helpful conversation for me and eased the fear and stomach-turning I was feeling about Samuel in his coffin.

So when Caleb turned those beautiful eyes up at me and asked about Samuel's casket, I burst into tears.  I put my face in my hands and sobbed.  The boys haven't seen me do that since October, probably.  Though they've certainly seen their fair share of tears and crying, they haven't witnessed much full-out sobbing.  When I collected myself enough to look up, I saw that Caleb was absolutely on the verge of breaking down.  Bryan said, "Caleb, I can see you're feeling really sad.  It's ok to feel sad and to cry," and with that Caleb burst into deep sobs.  I pulled him into my lap and held him while he cried and cried.  After awhile I wiped away his tears, and we told him, "Caleb, honey, you didn't do anything wrong by asking about Samuel.  And it's ok to cry.  In fact, Mommy and Daddy love when you ask about Samuel and talk about him.  And we need to cry sometimes.  If our tears don't come out, then all the sad feelings come out a different way.  Sometimes they come out as frustration or maybe yelling or maybe being impatient, and those aren't what we want.  It's good to get our sad feelings out in tears."  Caleb said, "Miss Judy told me about that."  He remembered talking to our grief counselor about how important it is to cry, and he seemed comforted by us talking about it as a family.  In some ways, Bryan and I both felt grateful for the chance to be with Caleb in his grief and by the opportunity to show both boys ours.  We want them to know that we continue to miss their baby brother, and we want them to feel comfortable talking about him and missing him too.  It was a precious time as a family, even if our dinner was growing cold in front of us and even if it meant lots of tears.  I am grateful for the chances to be sad together as well as happy. 

This journey of grief in so many ways is a privilege.  I feel honored to walk this road and to learn more about my Savior and about my family.  I feel blessed to have loved Samuel so much that his absence is deeply painful.  And I feel so inexpressibly grateful for Samuel's life.  It is among the greatest gifts of my life.  And I think this road will be perpetually refining, and for that I am also truly thankful.

Time Away...Hooray!

As you may have deduced from the pictures in the last post, we spent last week at the beach.  (I never feel comfortable announcing on the world wide web that we're out of town while we're actually gone.)  Thanks to a friend of a friend whom I have never met, we got to have a week with the family enjoying the beautiful ocean right outside our 25th floor condo.  It was wonderful and much needed and so well-timed.  We had just come out of a crazy stretch where Bryan had the end of a seminary class (which is always a hectic time) and North Point's DRIVE Conference; plus it was a rough Mother's Day, so a week away was a true blessing.  We needed some time together to just refocus and breathe a little, so THANK YOU, THANK YOU Sharon and family!

A couple of days before we left for Florida, I spent an evening rereading our blog from August.  It had been months since I'd gone back and revisited those posts and all the kind, amazing comments people left us.  I cried nonstop for three hours or more.  There are still days when I can't believe this is our life, and Samuel really lived and really died, and we really endured that month of joy and agony, fear and peace, intimacy and isolation.  I look back and wonder how we survived it, but then I read about God's amazing presence in those days, and I am in awe all over again of how abundantly He cared for us and carried us and provided for us.  And I read all the comments people left us, and I am humbled anew at how people loved and served us, how people carried our burden with us, and at how people allowed themselves to experience our suffering out of love and compassion.  It is a time in my life that will always challenge me to love others with such abandon and such tenacity.  Thank you for loving us and serving us in ways we would never have thought to ask for.  I get choked up just thinking about it.  And our time in Florida last week has left me a bit speechless because neither Bryan not I have met the family who gave it to us, and they don't even own it.  They graciously gave us the week they had bought and planned to use themselves.  That kind of selflessness astounds me.

While we were gone, Bryan and I spent one evening out on the balcony, listening to the sound of the waves 25 floors below us and talking about Samuel and how we're doing.  We both miss him terribly, and we both feel like August was so long ago and like it gets farther and farther away from us with each passing day.  Samuel feels far away from us, and the time we spent with him feels surreal in many ways.  Neither of us like that.

But we also talked about how God has grown us and deepened us and taught us so much about Him.  He continues to grow us as He asks us to surrender new hopes and new dreams in the present.  I feel like it's been a loooooong season of intense growth for me, and even though I learned to surrender Samuel, I am still struggling to surrender the things I cling to each day.  Surrender has been a painful process so far, and though I've seen its benefits and its joys, I find it immensely difficult to lay down my dearest hopes.  But because I love God far more than I love my dreams, I am continually trying to unpry my fingers and to open up my hands, lift my palms to Heaven, and say, "They're Yours, Lord.  I give them to You.  I trust them to You.  And if You want to take them from me and never grant me the things I long for in life, then that is ok with me.  I want You most of all.  And I want what You want.  Help me to surrender all that I hold dear."  I hope that God will give me back what I lay down, like He did with Abraham and Isaac, but I can't lay it down just because I think God will then give it back to me.  I have to really, truly put it on the altar before God and really, truly be willing to give it up.  I'm working on this...intensely.  I still have a long way to go.  And I know God is not searching for ways to take things away from me.  He's not unkind or selfish or vengeful.  But He does want my heart -- all of it -- and sometimes the things I most want in life keep me from giving myself fully to Him.  Like I said, I still have a long way to go.

When we got home from the beach, a gardenia plant someone gave us when Samuel was born had its first blossom.  The plant hasn't done so well in my care though I've tried to help it thrive, and I didn't think it would bloom.  Previously every bud it had grown would reach a certain size and then fall off, I assume because it got to be too heavy for the sickly branches to support.  But I walked in the door and almost immediately saw the fragile white blossom and smelled its amazing fragrance.  It made me think of Samuel right away.  During the stretch when Bryan and I slept at the hospital for 10 days straight, my mom brought us a ziplock baggy with 2 gardenia blossoms in it from the boys.  I think they were from a bush in our yard though I'm not sure.  I would open that bag and smell it over and over before I'd climb in the tiny cot for the abbreviated night's sleep next to Bryan.  The blossom made me think of how life is beautiful even when it's broken, of how life was going on at home even though we weren't there, of how smells could be lovely and full of life instead of sterile or foreshadowing death.  The blooms always broke my heart a little, but they also gave me a picture of life to come -- of beauty still ahead some day.  And so something in my spirit broke while something else soared when I saw our Samuel gardenia in bloom.

Ok, this is a disjointed entry, but here are some pictures of our time away.  Once again, thank you, friends, for loving us so well.

Mother's Day Missing a Son

Mother's Day was a whole lot harder for me than I anticipated.  Several people had told me ahead of time that they would be praying for me, and I thought to myself, "I think I'll be ok.  I don't think it will be too bad."  Turns out they were more right than I was.

I woke up sad.  Really sad.  And the morning was downright painful.  We had actually decided ahead of time to celebrate Mother's Day later in the week because a lot of family was in town for my cousin's college graduation from UGA, and Bryan was working on Sunday.  So, I woke up with Bryan already at work and feeling very blue.  I went to get the boys up, and Joel was a booger as he often is these days.  (The threes are a tricky age when kids try hard to declare their independence and therefore push boundaries at every turn.)  By breakfast Joel had had at least 3 timeouts.

I felt teary and fragile all morning.  By the time we got to church, I was on the brink of tears.  After delivering Caleb and Joel to their rooms, I sat down alone in the auditorium, way before the service was ready to start.  I started praying and thinking about Mother's Day and how it's hard for a lot of people.  I've heard stories of people who struggle with infertility and dread Mother's Day, who dread the "Will all the mothers take a moment to stand so we can applaud you" announcement at the start of church service.  I thought about moms who might be estranged from their children, of moms who have a child off at war, of would-be moms who have miscarried.  And then I thought about me.  And about other moms whose child has died.  It feels so wrong.  A day focused on me as a mother feels so painful, so broken, because the picture of me as a mom is so incomplete.

By the time Bryan got to church, sat down next to me, and put his arm around me, my tears were spilling over uncontrollably.  I wiped at my cheeks frantically in an effort to erase all evidence of my tears, but they just kept coming.  I couldn't stop them from brimming over.  It took a good way into the service before I finally felt peaceful inside and wasn't trying to master my emotions.

The rest of the day we spent with my extended family, and I kept telling myself, "it's not Mother's Day.  It's not Mother's Day."  I wanted to be able to enjoy my relatives and not spend the day in a funk, especially considering I don't get to see some of them more than a couple of times a year.  At the end of the day as we were heading home, my aunt Jeanne gave me a hug and told me that she was sure it had been a hard day, that I had been missing Samuel terribly, and that she was so sorry.  Those kind words of course made me cry again, but I was so grateful for her willingness to broach a difficult subject and for her compassion.  It was a bright moment in a hard day.

On Wednesday we celebrated Mother's Day as a family, and it was a blessed day.  I was able to enjoy my two sons here with me and to love our day together.  It wasn't so fraught with pain and heartbreak.  I missed Samuel when I came out to cards from Caleb and Joel, and I missed him when they gave me their presents, and I missed him as they said, "No, no, no, no!  You can't do any work today, Momma!" and I missed him as we went out to dinner, but mostly I felt gratitude in my heart for how God has blessed me with my children, for how I get to me called "Momma" everyday by two little boys, for how I get to kiss away booboos and cuddle away fears, for how God has made me a mother to three precious and amazing sons.  I have a lot to be thankful for.  And I continue to trust God with my story.  He has written it this way, and this, exactly this, is the story I want to be living.  Whatever chapters He pens ahead, I want to live those too -- even if they're not the way I envision them and hope they will be.  Again I pick up my sorrows and joys and say, "Lord, I am Yours.  I trust You.  I will follow where You lead.  After You, my King."  I pray He gives me the grace and faithfulness to do that afresh every day of my life yet ahead.  And for the chance to be a mother, I cannot begin to thank God enough.  It is the greatest privilege of my life.

Beautiful Caleb

Ok, I just cannot resist posting these pictures.  Caleb's preschool brought in a professional photographer, and we could spend $20 to get our kid's picture taken.  Man, that was among the best spent $20 ever.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this boy and his tender heart, his kindness, his encouraging words, his sweet love for God, and his unselfishness.  Caleb is so much more unselfish than I am.  I have so much to learn from this kid.  How I love my oldest son!

Celebrating Joel's 3rd Birthday

Yesterday Joel turned 3.  It was a great day celebrating our middle son.  We played hard and laughed a lot.  We smiled until our cheeks hurt.  We jumped and climbed on indoor inflatables at Jump!Zone.  We ate cake and had a birthday dinner and watched a birthday movie.  We opened obscene amounts of presents.  We had a wonderful time.  But underneath it all, I felt a little bit sad.

I kept thinking about the morning Joel was born and my labor and delivery.  I was a little horrified that at first I couldn't remember any details; all I could recall was Samuel's birth day.  After probably ten minutes racking my brain for memories of May 1, 2007, I finally remembered our special day when Joel came into this world.  I smiled thinking about those glorious, breathtaking, purely joyful minutes of first holding our baby after a painful and surprisingly fast labor.  I smiled remembering the doctor saying, "It's a boy!" and thinking, "I knew it!"  I smiled thinking about those hours after Joel was born when we just held him and stared at him and deliberated about what we should name him, when I got to nurse him and cuddle him and proudly show him off to everyone who came to visit, when I got to introduce him to his big brother for the first time and place him gently into Caleb's little arms.  All those memories made me smile.  But they also made my heart cry a little.

 
I didn't get to do any of those things with Samuel.  There were no purely joyful moments after his birth.  They were fear-filled and quiet and oppressive in some ways.  I was so glad he was here, but I wanted to hold him.  I wanted the doctors to stop working on him in the corner, and I wanted someone, anyone, to tell me, "He's ok!  He's going to be great.  Just wait a minute, and we'll have him in your arms."  I wanted to hear him cry, and I wanted to see his face, and I desperately wanted to know if he had Down Syndrome.  I wanted to stop shaking all over my body, and I wanted Samuel in my arms.  They were difficult minutes followed by more difficult hours followed by horribly difficult days.  Yesterday, on Joel's birthday, I kept thinking, "It's been three years since we've had a totally joyful birth day.  I wonder if we'll ever have one again."

And throughout the day I missed Samuel.  I wanted him to be there with us.  I wanted to be passing Samuel back and forth between me and Bryan so one of us could go jump with Caleb and Joel while the other snuggled our 9 month old.  I wanted Samuel on my hip while talking to our friends and in my lap while singing "Happy Birthday."  It was hard to have Joel's birthday without his baby brother there.  I didn't dwell on it yesterday, but during all the celebrations, Samuel's absence was very noticeable.  I miss my third son.  I always will.

A couple of weeks ago during our bedtime routine, I was lying on my back on Caleb's bed while Bryan read a book to the boys.  Joel plopped down beside me on his tummy and propped his elbows on my stomach, resting his chin on his hands.  In that moment I was overwhelmed with love for Joel.  Sometimes the love I feel for one of my children comes in concentrated doses, and I feel washed in a flood of love and gratitude.  As I looked at Joel's blond little head resting on me, I also felt a wave of sorrow.  It was one of the moments when I knew what I was missing with Samuel.  I was missing the little joys, the daily surges of love in my heart, the getting to know my child day in and day out, the simple pleasure of reading a book together, the evident love between a mother and son.  In some ways having other children makes grief harder because I know what I'm missing with Samuel; I'm missing this amazing abundance of love and connection and joy in spending each day with my son.  I'm missing so much.

Though yesterday had an underlying sadness to it, it was a deeply joyous day.  And we're now inundated with Star Wars toys, books, coloring books, and even sheets!  In fact, my aunt and uncle even gave me a Star Wars cookbook: Wookie Cookies and Other Galactic Recipes.  It's hilarious, and this week we'll be dining on TIE Fighter Ties and Yoda Soda.  Look out Star Wars, here we come!

And because I simply must, here are some pictures from last week's pancakes and Joel's birthday:

 Chewbacca pancake

Han Solo pancake

The wonderful Thiels dressed in orange because it's Joel's very favorite color.

Joel requested a Han Solo birthday cake.  Bryan decided to add a Tauntaun to surprise the birthday boy.  These are based on the Star Wars lego figurines.  For the record and the Star Wars aficiondos out there, we know this is not Hans's correct outfit for riding the Tauntaun, but Bry decided to go with the more recognizable Han outfit.  Isn't Bryan something?  I keep telling him it's too bad all his artwork is edible.  We need something we can frame!