Just stick around

I have gone to church all my life, and have heard pastors, preachers, leaders - people in general - tell me the importance of "loving the lost." Love the sinner, hate the sin; love them even if you don't agree with them; love them to Jesus. Let's be honest, the cliches are endless. And yet, I've noticed that that same "love" is rarely extended from one believer to another, especially inside the walls of the church. Think about it? How often do we criticize people who leave the church because "they didn't leave the right way"? How often do we roll our eyes or avoid people because they might say something about the church we go to or our pastor or whatever, and we just don't want to "be around that"? It's very easy to criticize believers who don't live, act, pray, read, love, talk the way that we do. It's much easier to love the unbeliever than the believer who let us down.

That is, until tragedy strikes.

Once life gets hard and someone goes through something that we can't possibly imagine, it's so easy to pop back up with an "I'm so sorry. I can't imagine what you're going through, but I'm here."

This sentiment puzzles me. It puzzles me because it is just that: a sentiment. It's not that I don't believe that the sympathy is real and heartfelt. It's not that I don't believe the genuine desire to "be there." It's that I don't trust the sentiment. I don't trust the emotion to last longer than the moment they heard the news and sent the email or made the phone call.

Over the last month, I've learned a very important lesson about these kinds of relationships. That lesson is this: the relationships that matter are not the ones that form around a tragedy. It's easy to grieve with people; it's hard to live life with them. It's easy to shed a tear over an episode that is truly tragic; it's hard to be happy for someone when he/she has everything that you've begged God to give you. It's hard to smile say "Congratulations! I'm so happy for you!" and really mean it. It's even harder to say that truthfully when you know that your drive home will fill with tears the moment the door shuts and the engine roars. And yet, the friends who are real are the ones who stick with it, not just when the hard times come around and sympathy pulls at heart strings, but when life is wonderful and heaven couldn't seem any more real than it does in that moment.

Even in saying this, I know that there are exceptions to this rule. There are times when the best thing you can do is pull away for a time and let God work on healing you. I don't begrudge this need at all because I, myself have felt it more often than not over the last weeks. There are other times when the smile is fake and saying "Congratulations!" is about all you can muster. The emotion behind that "Congratulations!" may take a lot longer, but at least you get credit for trying, right?

The truth of the matter is this: no relationship is perfect and there's no way anyone can be a perfect friend/wife/husband/sister/brother/daughter/son all the time. But if there was any advice I could give to someone attempting to build relationships it would be this: be there. Be there when life is good. Be there when life sucks. If you haven't been there, apologize. Believe me: that apology will be enough. And then, start being there again. Be there even when you don't know what to say. Be there silently, if you have to. Be there when it costs everything to smile and when you truly couldn't be more happy for the person.

Just do your best to get there and stay there because, when the shit hits the fan (sorry, Mom), the ones who matter are the ones who are already there, not the ones who run to show up.

Held

I've been trying to track my emotions over the last few weeks, and to be honest, I don't entirely know how to do it. I've faced so many bizarre extremes and a plethora of unexpected twists that have backed me into strange corners. So, I decided that I would simply list my thoughts and emotions, and see where that takes me.

But when I started, I realized that my thoughts and feelings are so confused that I don't know where to start.

On Tuesday at exactly 4:50 am, it will have been 4 weeks since I delivered my babies, and I've never even seen their faces. I don't know what they look like, what color their eyes were, if they had my ears like Joseph always hoped they would, and if they had his eyes like I prayed they would. I don't know my sons, and I've felt weirdly guilty about that. You see, my mom was always so good at holding me when something went wrong, and when I think about being a good mom, I think about that. I think about holding my babies when something goes wrong, but I didn't do that.

I'm sure that, at this point, I probably know what you're thinking: it was better that we didn't hold them. They were so small. Their bodies didn't look the way they should have looked. Even the doctor said that seeing their footprints would have been harder on us than not seeing. I know all of that, but it's still really hard.

I really love those boys, and I really miss holding them. I miss being a mom, and I miss the feeling of growing babies inside. Part of me wants to get pregnant as soon as possible, and part of my is afraid of what could happen if I do. I guess we will just let whatever happens, happen. We get the autopsy results on August 27th, and I those before we make any decisions.

Until then, I suppose all I can do is continue to process and grieve everything that has happened, and trust that we do have a future somehow and that my sons, Isaac and John, know how much I love and miss them.

Thanks

After we returned from our honeymoon in 2007, I loved spending time with my family and friends, specifically to hear all the wedding stories that I was too oblivious to notice. One story, in particular, stands out in my memory.

I had always had a relatively complicated relationship with my younger sister, known in the family to be a world traveler and a fiercely loyal friend. The demise was in no way her fault; let's just say that I was a bit stupid in my youth and didn't understand the full repercussions of my actions, namely how they would effect my family. That said, it turns out that she wept -- and I mean, bawled -- all the way through my entire wedding. And, as she told me about this through spits of laughter, we agreed that neither of us knew that she even liked me that much.

We still chuckle about that to this day.

Yet, the joke has rung even more true over the last few weeks, not only in regard to my family, but also in consideration of the friends I didn't even know that I had. I have received notes and texts and love from friends I've known and loved since childhood, yet haven't seen in 10+ years. I have gotten emails from pastors of churches I don't attend. I have received meals from colleagues I haven't even met. People whom I don't work with on a regular basis have bought gifts, cried tears, and extended friendship that has, as cliche' as it sounds, meant the world to me over the last weeks.

And I didn't even know they liked me that much.

I've never thought of myself as a particularly "likable" person. I am far too blunt, too straightforward. I talk too much and often, I say strangely awkward things. I am passionate about literature and philosophy. No one thinks about literature and philosophy this much. And yet, when the shit hits the fan as it has over the last weeks, people come out of the wood work - some because they have to, but most because they actually seem to care.

I feel...blessed. I feel empty sometimes. As thankful as I am for friends, I want my sons. But, I have to be realistic: that is not an option. It was never an option for my sons. And yet, seeing as I cannot hold my children, I will hold onto the friendships I've found, even in the most unlikely places.

The "Normal" Life...

I've spent this week working from home. My fabulous boss has been quite flexible and understanding - a true gift from God. Next week, I've determined that I should probably be back in the office full time. I have to be honest: I'm dreading it.

It's not my co-workers, my boss, or even the work. It's the normalcy. Even as I type I feel strange. Every fiber of my being is aching to get back to some kind of normal life. Yet at the same time, every fiber of my being feels that doing so would somehow betray my children. Is it right to move on? Do my sons watch from somewhere up above and wonder why this doesn't take me out of the loop for longer? Will they feel like I don't miss them -- like I don't care?

I know, I know...this is silly. It's right to begin moving on. It's good to pick up the pieces of my life and continue on. This is good -- isn't it?

The truth is this: I don't know what normal life is supposed to look like. It's not like I can go back to the time before I was pregnant. I'm not that person I was. I'm a mother now. At least, I think I am a mother now.

I'm a mother without children. I'm a mother who has to live as if she is not a mother. I feel like the rest of my life will be a giant stage, and as Shakespearean as I know that sounds, I don't like the script I've been given. No bedtimes. No nursing. No storybooks. No nursery. No blankets or burp rags, baths or bottles. No cries or ear infections, laughs or runny noses. My stage has not changed, and while I'm grateful for the characters who play opposite me - an amazing husband, a wonderful family, and constant friends - I feel like my stage is strangely empty.

So, how do I go back to normal life? Does anyone know? Can life be "normal," or will it be as I fear: forever lacking the babies I never held.

That is not this rain

On Tuesday, June 29th, I delivered my two precious sons whom we have named Isaac and John, names that represent a fulfilled promise and a hope for the future. Both of my sons are with Jesus, and I have spent the rest of this week at home with my husband, recovering, crying, thinking, writing, talking, praying, reading, and questioning.

It has been the most difficult week of my life.

There is no human love like the love of a parent for his/her child, and no grief more profound than when that love is asked to say goodbye rather than to embrace. I miss my boys, and yet the gratefulness I feel for the mercy that God has shown far outweighs anything else. I have faced tragedy before; I am sure I will face it again, yet the question, for me, has never been "why did this happen?"

I am pretty sure I already know the answer to that: it rains on the just and the unjust alike.

Sometimes, I think that the sky simply does not know what else to do, and so it rains. Even when the sun is aching to shine and all of humanity cries for the warmth of summer, the sky knows to rain. And so it does. Life releases the torrential downpour of unexplained pain and unfeeling circumstances. In those moments, thunder cracks and lightning splits the sky, a seeming feeling of utter alone-ness follows as the fear of what could be - what could have been - creeps into the very fiber of your being. The rain pounds, flooding those below with emotions that never seem to end.

But that is not this rain.

There are times when the sky simpy pulls the clouded blanket around, hiding itself from view, and releasing a gentle outpouring. This rain, for some reason, does not bring the same fear as did the storm, neither does it seem to never end. Though it is cold and causes those below to grab a blanket of their own, it seems to bring hope - as if we know that, without this cold, wet, gray season, we would never see the life that only grows with rain.

And that is this rain.

You see, over the last 2 weeks, I have faced moments where the loss was so overwhelming that I wasn't sure I could keep breathing. And yet, in those moments, it was as if the clouds broke for just a second and God brought me hope. It wasn't that the rain stopped; it was that the hope of what was to come was - for just a moment - stronger than the drizzle. It is that hope that I cling to. I know that God is with me. I know that life will drizzle, but I also know that it will shine, lit with the wonder of his love and the promise of his continued faithfulness.

I know that I will never "be over" the events of the last 2 weeks, and to be perfectly honest, I never want to be over them. I love my boys, and as I've said already, I miss them. But in that, I know that I didn't lose them. They aren't lost. They are with God - happy, healed, whole - and as a mother, there is nothing more I could ask for than to know that my children are ok.

And so until the day that I get to hold my sons for the first time, I will simply leave it at this: Psalm 91:2 - "I will say of the Lord, You are my refuge and my fortress, my God; in him will I trust."

The story

She cried when the doctor told her that she might not bear children of her own. She cried again when the little stick turned blue, a sign that she was finally pregnant. She cried when the radiologist told her that she was carrying twins, and she cried again when she learned that one baby had died before she even knew that he existed. She cried when she saw pictures of the baby that was living, and cried again when they told her that he had no chance of survival – he had no stomach; his body and his mind were just too damaged. But she wept when the doctor told her that it was time to push, when she felt those precious bodies leave hers, and when she realized that she would never hold them, never bandage their scraped knees, never hold them while they got their shots, never laugh, never sing, never read and never teach.

These were her boys. Her sons. Flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone. They were her babies and no amount of tears would makeup for the loss she felt in that moment. But they named them Isaac and John, hoping that the names would bring some kind of closure to this tragedy, hoping that they would point her to the promise she knew existed but couldn’t feel, hoping that they would remind her that her sons lived, that they were ok now, that they would never be in pain.

It didn’t quite work that way.

The names did bring her comfort; they did remind her that her boys had existed. But they didn’t make it better. She couldn’t help but wonder what they looked like. Did they have his eyes like she had always hoped they would? Did they have her ears? He loved her ears; she could’ve lived without them. Would they have played baseball like he did? Would they have sang with her – maybe even let her teach them how to play the piano? Would they have loved Harry Potter, spending hours reading them as fast as they could? She had. She loved to read.

She loved her babies more. And she missed them.

But she made it through the delivery. She wept, sobbing her way from one push to the next. He held her hand the whole time, tears streaming down his own face as he wondered why God would put her through this. She had already been through so much. And when it was over, they simply held each other and cried. They cried for their babies; they cried for their pain; they cried for the hope that was disappointed and the hearts that had broken seemingly one too many times.

And then they grabbed hands, and he prayed. He told God that he was angry, that he didn’t understand. He told God, though, that even in his anger, he would choose to count him faithful; he would choose to count him good. Tears streaming down her face, she nodded in agreement, and chose to believe the same.

The next days seemed endless and quick all at the same time. It was strange to feel an empty belly, and wonder if she even wanted it to be full again. She couldn’t help but ask some questions: if God had not protected these babies, why would he protect the next? Was she still being punished for the sins of her youth, the sins that had almost taken away her chances of pregnancy altogether? Would she accidentally forget that June 29th was the date they were born? Would the doctors come back from examining her dead children and tell her that it was her fault, that something in her, something she had done, had caused her children to suffer and ultimately, to die?

They were questions she felt too ashamed to vocalize; questions she didn’t want to admit that she had. But she did. And the walls echoed her questions whenever anyone left the room. They echoed her questions. They echoed her babies’ names. Isaac: the child God had promised; John: the child God had granted. These were her sons. They had lived. They had died. They had changed her life, and she was positive that she would never be the same because of them.

Whether she would have more children, she wasn’t quite sure. She was still too afraid. Whether she would know how to process the days and weeks to come, she didn’t know. And whether she was ready to wake up again in the morning, knowing that her uterus was empty and that she would never see her babies. Well, that was easy. She wasn’t ready for that, and she was positive she never would be.

What she did know is that she loved her boys, and more than the ache she felt from never seeing them and telling them of her love, she felt grateful. Her babies never had to suffer. They never had to feel the pain of their own tortured bodies, never had to realize how much they would miss, never had to die in an incubator. Her babies were ok – they were healthy and whole. They could laugh and jump and run. And maybe they could see her. And maybe they knew how much she loved them, how she would give anything to meet them and kiss them and squeeze them just as tight as she could. For that possibility alone, she was grateful.

And it was for that possibility that she said their names…over and over again she said them. Perhaps, in time, they would bring comfort. Perhaps, in time, they would symbolize hope. Perhaps, in a few years, she would look back on the last weeks and remember God’s goodness. Perhaps. But until that time, the names symbolized her sons – their lives, their existence – and her sons were more than enough for now.