Just Another Mother’s Day

Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels

I thought I could avoid it. Really, I did. I don’t know why, but I did. Turns out, I was wrong. I thought that maybe, just maybe, if I didn’t post anything, or do what we usually do, or make a big deal, I could trick my heart into thinking that it wouldn’t feel as much pain this year. And honestly, I thought I had pulled it off. Mother’s Day came and went. We did enough. Went to church, bought lunch so I didn’t have to make it, Blake and the kids surprised me with gifts, grilled out for dinner, and I even got to plant my flower bed.It was a nice day! I went the whole day feeling like I didn’t really feel a lot, which I thought was a good thing.

In case you need caught up, because of the loss of our three baby boys, Mother’s Day is one of the hardest days of the year for me. Every. Single. Year. It’s always a mixed bag of emotions. Joy and grief simultaneous. And so, this year I decided that the pain was too much and I just didn’t want to feel it. Every time I felt the pain creeping in, I would push it back down and ignore it. Every time I was tempted to feel sad, I would shake my head “no” and distract myself with something else. It was all a big charade, this fooling myself. All over facebook and instagram I saw people making posts about how Mother’s Day can be so hard and how nobody is alone and they’re sending out love and prayers. It’s something I usually do too. I thought about doing it yesterday, but something inside me just said, “Nope, not this year. I don’t want to open myself up this time. It hurts too bad. Nobody will miss it anyway.”

Yet, here I am. Only one day after Mother’s Day. Because guess what? I took one look at my blooming hydrangea plant and it all caught up to me. The pain from Judah’s birthday. The burden of the twins’ upcoming due date. And Mother’s Day. It all hit me smack in the face and there was no denying it anymore. I stood out there in my yard, watering my freshly planted flowers, Fletcher on my hip, weeping. I. Could not. Escape. My grief. This side of glory, I’m coming to terms with the fact that I never will. And I’m trying to accept that that’s not necessarily a bad thing. My grief is what makes me relatable. It’s what helps me see the pain in others. It’s what makes me a better, more grateful mom. It’s what gets me running full force into the arms of Jesus. It’s also what helps to make me look more like Him.

Oh dear friends, this road is anything but easy. In fact, it’s hard as hell. It’s brutal, and soul crushing,and heart wrenching. It’s painful, it’s unfair. And just. Plain. Hard. But can I tell you one thing it’s not? It isn’t hopeless. Of course there are moments, even days that it feels that way. But that feeling never stays. No. Jesus doesn’t let it. And even on the nights when I’m afraid of a new day, it still comes. And with it, new promises, fresh hope, and the ever-loving arms of Jesus. I still cry, and feel sad, and ache so badly to hold those boys in my arms. And that’s ok, good even. That’s the way God intended it to be. But I don’t ever have to lose hope.

Are you hurting today, dear one? Is the weight of death, or grief, or even life, hanging over your head? Me too. All of it. I feel it hard. Even now, as I sit here at this desk typing these words, I have tears falling down my face. I. Feel. It. Hard. And as much as I was trying to avoid it this year, I’m ok with it now. It doesn’t feel good, allowing my heart to actually feel the pain I’m trying to hide, but it’s necessary. It’s part of the healing. I’m trying to embrace it and let the walls I’ve built up around myself fall. I have so far to go on this journey of healing. I don’t know what it all will look like. It’s unsettling for me to not be in control. But I know that I’m going to be ok, because I know that my God is Good. I’m not alone. I never will be. And while I will never have a Mother’s Day that isn’t shrouded in pain, I have much to be grateful for.

I guess I need to get used to this whole “joy and grief” simultaneous thing, because it goes far beyond Mother’s Day, and into every single day of my life. I invite you to join me on my journey, because even though our circumstances may be different, we need each other. We need someone beside us to breathelife into us when we feel like we’re suffocating. We need someone to help us stand when we feel too broken to hold ourselves up. We need someone to help us see when our eyes are too blurred by tears. We need someone to take our hand when we seem to have forgotten our way. We need each other. And I’m so glad God intended it that way.

Our Twin Story: Continued

My oldest daughter, Lane drew this picture for us after we lost the twins. She said it was to help remember them. Her sweet heart never ceases to amaze me. We are so blessed.

Phew! Last week. Man, last week’s post was…it was really just so hard. I literally cried through the whole thing. And then I went upstairs and cried some more. And then I stopped. And then cried again some more. And then stopped…I think you get the picture. This was on and off again for most of the rest of the night. Then I felt it for the next few days. I usually read and re-read and then re-read my posts before publishing them. But I couldn’t do that with last week’s. I was too empty by the end of it. I had used up too much of myself to worry about if anything flowed or made any sense. Some of it doesn’t, by the way. There’s a lot of disjointed things in there. I thought about going back and editing it. But then that’s not real. There’s so much real, raw emotion in that post that I simply cannot fabricate. I know so many of you feel that real, raw pain in your lives. I think I would be shortchanging somebody if I went back and “fixed” it. And so, disjointed and imperfect I’ll leave it. Parts of it may make me crazy, but I honestly think it’s for the best.

I’ve received such an outpouring of love and support since last week. I just want to say thanks to you all for that. I honestly couldn’t walk this road without the people we have surrounding us. God has been so good to us. He has provided such amazing friends and relationships. Thank the Lord we serve such a kind and loving God!

But anyway, back to last week’s post. I could barely even finish it. It jolted my soul for sure. Not in a bad way, but definitely in a hurting kind of way. But also in a healing kind of way. I’ve had brief moments of grief come up out of nowhere this week. Things that I haven’t dealt with all the way yet. I think last week’s post sort of opened up the floodgates for that to happen. I’m certainly glad for that, but it has made for some real, hard moments. Moments in the kitchen where I’m getting some tea after the kids are in bed and I have a memory literally out of nowhere, and start to cry. It’s not like me, but I think it’s really good for me. I’ve only made it so far on this road to healing. I’ve come a long way, but I still have a long way to go. In some ways, I know I will never heal fully, but I am so glad that the Lord is not done with me yet.

Friends, I miss my babies. I miss them every single day. There is never a day that goes by where I don’t think of them. Sometimes it’s hard for me to grasp that I have s-e-v-e-n babies. Seven. That’s a lot of babies. I often wonder what our lives would look like if all seven of them were here. I’m overwhelmingly grateful for my four babies that are earth-side, but I can’t ever help but wonder about all the what-ifs.

That being said, I never let myself wonder long about those what-ifs. That isn’t useful for me. Instead I try to redirect myself to the here and now. How can I use their short little lives to make an impact? How can I use what pain I’ve experienced and turn it into something beautiful? I have to remind myself over and over again that God has a purpose for their lives. There was a reason that they were created. Honestly, and I really hope that I’m not offending anybody when I say this: honestly, sometimes I get really, really angry that I got pregnant with those sweet babies at all. I hate admitting that. I am grateful, only in a different sort of a way. See, it would have been much easier to not have ever been pregnant with them than to have been pregnant with them and lose them the way I did. And so, I have to remind myself that I did get pregnant with them. And there is a reason for that. I carried them in my belly for so long for a purpose. It is not all for naught. There’s a distinctly difficult beauty about that truth. And I’m sitting here still trying to figure out what that is all about. I’m still trying to fight and struggle through it.

So welcome! You get to be my audience through this process. Hopefully I can shed some light for some of you. Hopefully I can let you know that you are not alone. Hopefully I can inspire you to share your own stories. Whether they be baby loss, infertility, or something else entirely. I know I sound like a broken record here, but we cannot do this thing called life alone. We just can’t! We were not created for that. We were created for relationships. We were created to bear one another’s burdens. To rejoice with one another and to weep with one another. I’ve had to learn to live in that kind of a way. It doesn’t always come naturally to me. Sometimes it feels uncomfortable. It certainly felt uncomfortable last week. I kid you not, last week was one of the most vulnerable moments of my life. Maybe that didn’t come across the screen, but, boy oh boy, I sure did feel it sitting here at my desk. I felt it hard. Last week wrecked me. And yet, last week brought me healing that I have long been waiting for.

This journey is long and hard. It’s exhausting. But there are parts of it that are simply inexplicably beautiful. There are things that make it all “worth it.” Thank you so much for sharing in my journey. Thank you for seeing me, and for hearing me. Thank you for not letting me walk alone. I pray mightily that I can do the same for you.