July 25ths
July 25th, 2017. I took pictures with Eli, excited to wear our new Boston Redsox gear I’d bought for us (to Daddy’s chagrin) after my trip to Boston. I kissed Eli goodbye. It was Thursday, Grammy and Grampie’s day. I had a full day of work ahead of me, and I was eager to do it. And as my one child blew me a kiss and waved “goodbye Mommy. See you waiter,” treading out the door with his backwards Boston cap and his puppydog suitcase, another child rested inside me, growing, safe and sound, ready to spend the day with me. Life was joyful. I expected only more joy to come.
With my first pregnancy, I feared miscarriage obsessively. I didn’t even like telling my family. When my sister hugged me, I said, verbatim “It’s still very early, only 7 weeks, so it probably won’t even take.” I literally expected to miscarry, daily. Another symptom of my on-going struggle with PTSD. But this second time around, with Aden, I wasn’t worried. The timing of it all had been so unexpected yet perfect… and there were so many other details that literally just seemed to point to it being directly from God…. So I didn’t fear miscarriage at all. Even when I was spotting more than my first pregnancy, I wasn’t that concerned. I saw what God was doing, and I was excited.
Unfortunately, I misread what He was doing. I do believe it was all from Him, every second, even down to me being able to go to the doctor SUPER early and get a sonogram picture of him at 5 weeks old, before he passed. Normally, pictures wouldn’t come until 8 or 9 weeks. Aden wouldn’t make it that long. God gave me a picture though at an age pictures are typically taken. I never miscarried naturally, on my own, but the extra spotting led my doctor to want to see me earlier. So she saw me at 5 weeks, and all was fine. Baby measured perfectly. Spotting considered normal. We couldn’t hear the heartbeat (it was too early), but we saw it strong on the screen, and I got my first picture. I cherish that picture, and since Aden passed, I have only shown it to one person. It feels mine, the one piece no one can take away or sully. Aden died somewhere between 6 and 7 weeks… He was gone at 8.5. I had no idea, and like I said, I never passed naturally. They had to remove him so I didn’t get sick.
July 25th, 2018. I’ve seen a year of grief, of loss after loss. I think it’s aged me. This is how I feel most mornings- this picture says it all. Makeup? What for? Live? Okay, I will do my best. Cry at least a little? Oh for sure, at some point. Hat, sunglasses, that’s all- and I’ll sit at the park with Eli. Or skip the hat and glasses, and I can just stay inside and build towers in his tent and crash rocketships into his blocks and get lost in episodes of Doc McStuffins.
Or if I have to go out and work or meet someone for lunch or dinner, I can set aside the 2 hours it will take me to get up the energy to get myself together and the courage to put my foot out the door, and I will do my best to be some version of myself that I used to be as to not make too many people uncomfortable because, let’s face it, confronting reality and grief makes most people uncomfortable….uncomfortable enough to pass judgment and tell me what it should look like for me to move on…. and that? Well that I just can’t take anymore. I’d rather fake it. They’ve taught me how to fake it well. I just do what they do.
July 25th, 2018. 20 minutes later. I will do it for you son…and for you son. Not for others. But for you God. Not even for me. Maybe someday for me. But I will move in obedience. I will do the things I know I would do if I was filled with joy and laughter like July 25th, 2017. I’ll look to the past to remember when I have been filled up, and I’ll use that as my palette. But I’ll add to it. I’ll add the fact that I don’t hold you, Aden, and I’ll add all that has done to me, taught me, broken me, and changed me. I’ll add the year, the grief, and the losses. I’ll add the age that shows in my face. I’ll add the mementos I collect to give you physical representation on this earth. I don’t feel as beautiful. I don’t feel as strong. I don’t feel as good. But I won’t dishonor you by giving up. I won’t dishonor your brother by teaching him that pain is stronger than faith or perseverance. Instead, I will tell the whole world that you can suffer and survive. You can survive, without always enjoying it, and God can still be sensed here and there. And as you, people of the world, are torn apart and break yet hold on, you’ll be growing, just like me. I’m growing right now. I just can’t tell it. I can feel it though, because growing hurts. Don’t you remember your parents telling you about growing pains? That one wasn’t a myth. So I look to you Aden and say I’m not giving up. I haven’t hit it out of the ballpark this year, not by a long shot. But the Redsox went a very long time without winning the ring either. I want to make you proud, and I feel like your mind is so much more like Christ’s that you take mercy on me even though I am the mother.
I am here God, and I won’t give in. I won’t numb my pain. I’ll feel it. I’ll endure it. I’ll hate it. And I’ll fill up that which is left behind in the sufferings of Christ. And I’ll be honest. And today, I’ll add to that old palette and do the things in front of me to do. And I will wait. “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.” Ps. 27:13, 14
God, I don’t know if the land of the living will come soon or even in this life, but I will wait upon the Lord, for who else has the words of life? To whom else could I go? So here I am, July 25, 2018.
Originally published at http://meginlea.blogspot.com on July 25, 2018.
