Four Quartets

What we call the beginning
is often the end.
And to make our ends
is to make a beginning
The end is where we start from.
~ T. S. Eliot

We're planning a party to commemorate the anniversary of the day Liam was born. His birthday. I've pulled out a book, Still to be Born which has an order form in the back for birth announcements for subsequent children, as well as invitations to a first birthday party. I'll admit it, I'm using their text as a guide for the invitation we're designing. Might be out and out plagiarism, but somehow I think the authors would understand. They're not out to make money, they just want to give people someplace to go to order these sorts of things. Cause I'll tell you, the internet has a lot of things, but I haven't found anything for this (yet). As I was flipping through the book, I found this T.S. Eliot quote and remembered how much I enjoyed Four Quartets. I'm going to have to find it somewhere and re-read it. Mr. Eliot quotes Julian of Norwich in the same poem:

All shall be well 
and all manner of thing shall be well.

Julian's version was a bit longer.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

And she said that God told her that. What comforting words! Even the rhythm is soothing. To think that God gave her such amazing revelation... I think that those are words every bereft parent needs to hear. Maybe not in the first week, or the first month. But with almost a year under my belt, I can hear those words and the truth rings through. 

The Waiting is the Hardest Part Two

I realized today that yesterday's post was somewhat incomplete, and I sort of stopped mid-thought. So, where was I?

The rain falls on the just and the unjust. The truth is, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with my plan, how I'd like my life to work out. It's just that God's plan is better. He sees my whole life, and to Him there are good and probably manifold reasons why it was not in His plan for us to have a baby this past January. Someday, when I get to heaven, I'll get my answers, and all of the pain and frustration will be gone. Does that make me feel better today? A little. Do I spend my days skipping around like a little ray of sunshine? Uh, no. But I haven't lost hope. Even when it feels like it will be forever until I get the answers I seek, I know that the answers exist and that whatever God holds for the Rooster and me is infinitely better than what I can imagine. In the mean time, I hope that I can find a way to reach others who have been through the pain I've been through, ways to do good in honor of Liam. Every good deed I do because of him is a brick in what I hope will be the grand castle of his legacy. It's a way to take all of my frustrated energy, all the effort I ought to be putting into motherhood, and giving it another outlet.

Life is not always simple, easy, or clear, but God is always there to catch me when it feels like everything is falling apart.

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

I'm dealing with a couple of situations in my life right now where I just have to wait and see what happens. Waiting is not my strong suit. If I have to wait for something, I distract myself. When I wait in line, I play Angry Birds on my phone or check Facebook. When I wait for a doctor, I read or knit. When I wait for documents to print at work, I do other work. Waiting at traffic lights makes me crazy. I rarely just sit and wait for anything. So when the timing of an event is out of my control, I don't know what to do.

Losing Liam has taught me that pretty much everything is out of my control, and that's not a fun realization to make. I used to think that I knew how my life would go. I did well in high school and participated in plenty of activities so I could get into a good college with a scholarship. I studied hard (and had lots of fun) and graduated college with honors. I met a wonderful man and after an appropriate length of time we got engaged. We got married, we bought a house, we got a dog. And after a reasonable amount of time, we decided to have a baby. For me, through all of that, I knew I wanted to be a mom. It was in the back of my mind all through college: what kind of job can I get so that I can be at home with my kids as much as possible? When I married my Rooster, I thought the right thing to do would be to wait several years to enjoy being young and somewhat free before we started having kids, even though I didn't want to wait that long. It was the right thing to do. I am so sick of doing the right thing.
 All of my life leading up to that horrifying moment in the hospital was planned. It all worked the way I expected it to work. I was a good person, I loved God, and I lived my life the right way, so God would bless me. I never had to work that hard for anything, and I didn't see why that should change. It's not as if I didn't work hard in school. I did, it just wasn't difficult for me. Being good wasn't difficult either. I don't know why, I'm just wired that way. I'm not saying I'm perfect, far from it. I'm just saying the most rebellious thing I've ever done is get my belly button pierced, and when I called my mom to tell her I was going, she said she thought it would be really cute (I was a bit disappointed). I've totally run off on a tangent, but the point is that my life has been pretty easy. This is the most difficult thing that has ever happened to me, and I pray it's the most difficult thing that ever will happen to me. I can't imagine anything much worse than burying your child.
Now I know how true the saying is, "Man plans, God laughs." I know what the plan would be if I was in charge. I can't see any flaws in the plan, even when I'm at my most objective. The things I want are good things, but there's nothing I can do to make those things happen in my timing. I used to believe that God would give me good things because I was a good person. Now I know that the rain falls on the just and the unjust.

caterpillars

A week or two ago my mom brought me a bouquet of queen ann's lace for my cubicle at work. They were gorgeous (thanks Mom!), but little did I know they harbored stowaways. After it had been there a few days, I noticed something on the flowers out of the corner of my eye. A caterpillar! Upon closer inspection, there were two. One yellow, black and green striped, the other black and orange. I brought them home, someone gave me a big (empty) pickle jar to keep them in, and I started feeding them. It was a little difficult to figure out what kind of butterfly they'll be, but it turns out they're both Black Swallowtail caterpillars (visit this website for photos of each life stage)

They were well taken care of while we were on vacation (thank you Neighbors!), and just this morning I noticed that one of them is in pre-pupa stage. Soon he'll create a cocoon and take a little rest, and when he's ready he'll come out as a beautiful butterfly. I was hoping that the whole process would take long enough that we could release the butterflies on Liam's birthday, but according to the information I've read, it won't take that long. Either way, I'm excited to see this miracle unfold before my eyes.

If You want me to

This morning we were heathens and didn't go to church. We decided instead to do one of the devotions from a book we're working through and it suggested listening to praise and worship music together. While I dug through my dusty pile of CCM cds I found "A Night in Rocketown". It's a collection of live music from a live concert, including Ginny Owens. When her single "If You want me to" came out, I loved it, but I haven't picked up the disc for years. After we had gone through some of the songs we both knew I pulled out "Rocketown" and played Ginny's story and the song for Mike, knowing he probably had never heard it before. Ginny is blind, and after graduating from college she tried to get a job as a high school choir director, but no one would hire her. As she worked through the disappointment, she wrote "If You want me to", and hopefully she'll forgive me posting her lyrics here.

The pathway is broken
And the signs are unclear
And I don't know the reason why You brought me here
But just because You love me the way that You do
I'm gonna walk through the valley
If You want me to

No, I'm not who I was
When I took my first step
And I'm clinging to the promise You're not through with me yet
So if all of these trials bring me closer to you
Then I will walk through the fire
If You want me to

It may not be the way I would have chosen
When you lead me through a world that's not my home
But You never said it would be easy
You only said I'd never go alone

So when the whole world turns against me
And I'm all by myself
And I can't hear You answer my cries for help
I'll remember the suffering Your love put You through
And I will go through the valley if You want me to

When I cross over Jordan
I'm gonna sing, gonna shout
I'm gonna look into Your eyes and see
You never let me down
So take me on the pathway that leads me home to you
And I will walk through the valley if You want me to

Yes, I will walk through the valley, if You want me to

It's as if God sent that message through her directly to us. Sometimes we can't understand why we have to go through such difficulties, but God is leading us all the time, and when we get to heaven, He will dry every tear, and we will understand. 

I’ve been avoiding posting since Mother’s Day.

I had a really nice Mother’s day at the Maryland Sheep and Wool festival with my mom. I’ll post pictures of the beautiful sheep soon. This hen would love to add some sheep to her personal farm (we’d never have to mow again!) but that’ll have to wait. I can barely keep up with the dogs, let alone animals who can’t be trained where to go to the bathroom.

Ever since Mother’s day, I’ve been in stormy seas. Grief is often described as coming in waves. For a while there I didn’t have a lot of waves, and they weren’t very strong. But the surf has been rough of late. I miss my Liam very much, and I’m struggling with the fact that so many people I know are pregnant. Fortunately none of my see-you-in-person friends are pregnant, but my Facebook wall is covered. Facebook is a huge pitfall for me. There are people I am “friends” with who I’ve blocked from my feed because I can’t stand to see the belly bumps, or the new baby pics anymore. It’s nothing personal, it’s just where I am right now.

I recently found out that an acquaintance had lost her baby 10 days before her due date. This isn’t someone I know well, but I instantly wanted to go to her. As I was learning about her situation, I discovered that we have a friend in common, someone I had mostly lost touch with. I thought that meant that God was doing something through me in this situation. I ordered books for her, I emailed her, I friended her on facebook. I only hope that I can giver her a small amount of comfort in this horrifying time of her life. The only way for me to keep Liam's memory alive is to help others in his name. 


I don't know what heaven will be like, but there is one thing I hope is true. I hope that the children who end up there too soon are together. I hope they know each other the way we (their mothers) know each other here on earth. I know there will be no more sorrow or tears, so they won't need to comfort each other, but even if you're not sad it is good to be with others who understand. For me, one of the hardest things is not being able to mother Liam in the traditional way, so a large part of my grief is feeling as if I should be taking care of him. I like to think that in heaven they take care of each other.

Physical and Emotional

Today a coworker brought her beautiful 8-month-old daughter to work to visit. She’s an adorable little girl, and for some reason she’s one of the few babies who doesn’t make me flinch in pain. She was born just after I got back to work, so by rights seeing her should rip my heart out. I honestly don’t know why she’s the exception. Another coworker heard the baby cooing and emailed to ask me if I was ok after they left. As I was talking with her, I said something that only struck me fully when I re-read my own words. Explaining about my new blog I said, “I find it really helpful to have a creative outlet for what I’m feeling. The gardening helps too. It gives me time to think, and it’s nice to do some physical labor and see a payout.”

I just meant that the physical labor was helpful, because somehow the physical work helps me work out my emotions, and it would be rewarding to have fresh produce. And then I realized that what I said was really much deeper. After having worked for 5 months at growing a baby, and then having gone through labor (completely unprepared, I might add), I have nothing* to show for it. No child to hold, no physical scars from delivery, no birth story to share with other moms. Instead I have a grave to visit, I have a hole in my life and in my heart, I have new emotional reactions that I can’t control. Working in my garden, planting seeds and watching them take root, seeing plants produce vegetables for us to eat; these acts of labor will hopefully provide me with the physical evidence of my work that my pregnancy did not.

Vegetables and flowers certainly can’t replace my child, but I think part of me wants to prove that everything I touch does not die. No matter what I know in my head, for a while I felt in my heart that I had to have something green and growing around me or I would lose my mind. That’s why I forced two planters worth of bulbs for Christmas/New Year’s. I had to prove I could grow something. Then I was much closer to my grief, and more aware of what I was doing. This spring my desire to start a garden wasn’t as transparent to me.

Sunday was Babylost Mother’s Day. To all of the moms who might be reading this with no child to hold, I pray that God grants you peace, understanding, and if it be in His perfect will, the amazing gift of children. I pray that this week and this weekend are gentle for you, and that you are gentle to yourself. Don’t expect too much, and don’t be shocked at what you feel. No one can tell you how your grief should look. No one can or should silence you. Even if you feel alone, know that there are others like you in the world who would listen to your hurt, look into your eyes, and say with all truth “I know exactly what you mean.”