This post is about when I lost Miriam but it's in honor of all the babies I have in Heaven.
Alexandria Joy - February 1995
Jeremiah Michael - September 2012
Hope Isabella - October 2014
Miriam Grace - July 2016
The flowers they brought sit on the counter. Untouched. They're beautiful, and I'm grateful, but they're not for pleasure they're for the dead. To touch them somehow means to accept that she's...dead.
For two days they sit. Finally, one by one the stems are arranged and into that corner of my darkness they bring the beauty I needed.
I know tomorrow is the day - so I curl into the cushion as if it's a mothers embrace. Lap heaped with a mess of cream and I weave a blanket for our baby to be wrapped in.
Buried in.
With each stitch my heart is torn right through. The loss of dreams. Nights I'll never have to hold her close. No tickles. No laughter. No kisses or prayers or bedtime stories. No unruly hair to brush in the morning. No tea parties or baby dolls to play. No sister close in age for Chaela. Nothing. But the ache of losing her.
The next day we cradle her within the dirt and with the last shovel heaped upon her everything in me breaks. I want to scream - claw my baby from earth's grasp. I sit. Still. Say words just between her and I. Wipe the tears and order my steps. Beg God to just help me through...today. I do the dishes, make the bed, scrub toilets, laundry, dinner. I carry on the dance of life. What else can I do? I walk among the living.
When all goes black the house sits still and the earth drinks. My thoughts arrest me - Is the blanket I made going to keep her warm? Crazy thoughts! I know she's not here - yet she is.
Heaven seems too far.
Weeks go by. Those blooming stems dried up and faded - still they sit in the vase. Throw them out? They're the only tangible evidence that she was ever here.
The souls within these walls sleep as I rock my sweet Michaela Shalom.
Shalom.
Peace.
He's given me peace. Acceptance of His choice.
Yet I feel her absence and the emptiness remains.
She should be rocking with us but she's gone.
She lies under the changing maple and I too am forever changed.
The next day I open the screen and it's blinking back at me. As the message unfolds, my eyes blink back tears of joy. For the first time since our baby was carried away I feel joy. Pure. Deep. Joy. I smile. Genuinely. Through tears of thankfulness I get a glimpse of God's redeeming work. And the heaviness of heart feels a bit lighter. Losing her is still not how I would have scripted the story but perhaps that was the only way for a long awaited answer to prayer.
Until then...
Jessie
Alexandria Joy - February 1995
Jeremiah Michael - September 2012
Hope Isabella - October 2014
Miriam Grace - July 2016
The flowers they brought sit on the counter. Untouched. They're beautiful, and I'm grateful, but they're not for pleasure they're for the dead. To touch them somehow means to accept that she's...dead.
For two days they sit. Finally, one by one the stems are arranged and into that corner of my darkness they bring the beauty I needed.
I know tomorrow is the day - so I curl into the cushion as if it's a mothers embrace. Lap heaped with a mess of cream and I weave a blanket for our baby to be wrapped in.
Buried in.
With each stitch my heart is torn right through. The loss of dreams. Nights I'll never have to hold her close. No tickles. No laughter. No kisses or prayers or bedtime stories. No unruly hair to brush in the morning. No tea parties or baby dolls to play. No sister close in age for Chaela. Nothing. But the ache of losing her.
The next day we cradle her within the dirt and with the last shovel heaped upon her everything in me breaks. I want to scream - claw my baby from earth's grasp. I sit. Still. Say words just between her and I. Wipe the tears and order my steps. Beg God to just help me through...today. I do the dishes, make the bed, scrub toilets, laundry, dinner. I carry on the dance of life. What else can I do? I walk among the living.
When all goes black the house sits still and the earth drinks. My thoughts arrest me - Is the blanket I made going to keep her warm? Crazy thoughts! I know she's not here - yet she is.
Heaven seems too far.
Weeks go by. Those blooming stems dried up and faded - still they sit in the vase. Throw them out? They're the only tangible evidence that she was ever here.
The souls within these walls sleep as I rock my sweet Michaela Shalom.
Shalom.
Peace.
He's given me peace. Acceptance of His choice.
Yet I feel her absence and the emptiness remains.
She should be rocking with us but she's gone.
She lies under the changing maple and I too am forever changed.
The next day I open the screen and it's blinking back at me. As the message unfolds, my eyes blink back tears of joy. For the first time since our baby was carried away I feel joy. Pure. Deep. Joy. I smile. Genuinely. Through tears of thankfulness I get a glimpse of God's redeeming work. And the heaviness of heart feels a bit lighter. Losing her is still not how I would have scripted the story but perhaps that was the only way for a long awaited answer to prayer.
Until then...
Jessie
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