Incoherently Yours

Dear Parker,                 I miss you, Parker Marie! I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. I think you are a pretty cool little kid. I miss seeing your dance routines and your funny faces. I miss hearing your jokes and your giggles and laughter. I even kinda miss watching you put your parents through the ringer with your super amazing temper tantrums. I’m still waiting for you to turn green and go all “The Hulk” on everyone. Unfortunately, one day you’ll learn you are only allowed to do those sort of things in your head, and it’s not nearly as fun.                 I love your smiles and hugs and how we can tell you we only love you a little bit and you’ll say, “Noooo! This much!” and spread your arms as wide as they can go. I love how whenever you have a sleepover at my house we read the cookie pop-up book and before we turn...

Many of you won’t get this. In fact, most of you won’t. That’s a good thing. Because if you truly understand everything I’m writing, it means you have been here, and here is a place no one should ever be. And maybe there will be some you say “I get this!” and then I’ll write another post that completely contradicts everything I’ve said in this post and you’ll want to have me institutionalized. So. You’ve been warned. I think I try in my writing to end off even the most melancholy post with a hint of hope at the end. What people may not realize is that this is mostly due to the fact I am terrified people will show up to my door ready to stage an intervention if I say completely what I’m feeling in the moment. Often I write after the storm has passed. After I’ve wiped my eyes, got a drink of water, had a nap, and groped around blindly for some perspective. I’m afraid of writing in the storm. Sometimes what I write in the aftermath is depressing enough. But the purpose of me writi...

Dear 2011, As with everything these days, I have mixed emotions about you. Perhaps my New Years Resolution should be to try and feel only one emotion at a time – but I think I’ll just stick with “surviving”, as that’s taking up all of my energy and then some. You were a year of excitement and newness. After 2 ½ years of waiting, with extensive doctor/specialist appointments, medication and drugs, I got pregnant. Finally, Sheldon and I were expecting our own little bundle of joy. You were the year I gave birth to my daughter in an ambulance. You were the year Sheldon and I got to name our baby Rory Rose. You were the year I became an NICU mommy. You were the year I held my baby in my arms, skin to skin, and heart to heart. You were the year of hopes and dreams, of fear and faith. You were the year of devastation and despair. You were a year of grief, mourning, sadness, and strength. You were the year my baby daughter was born. You were the year she died. You, 2011, were the wors...

Christmas is coming. Usually that is said with more excitement and joy and less tears and foreboding.  I remember hanging the decorations as we were setting up our Christmas tree last year and telling Sheldon, “Maybe next year we’ll have a baby!” I became pregnant mere months after that hopeful statement. And now Christmas is here. And I have a baby. A tiny baby girl with long fingers, big feet, dark brown eyes and a nose like mine. But she’s not here. My baby is a Heaven Dweller. She didn’t get a first Christmas. Sheldon and I have to figure out how to celebrate without her. We made it through the Christmas shopping. We bravely made our way through stores that seemed to be filled with things specifically for little girls. We decorated. We bought an ornament for Rory. It doesn’t say Baby’s First Christmas. It says her name and it hangs on our tree. I did Christmas baking. Auntie Chelsey made a tiny cookie and dubbed it a Rory cookie. I kept it. It’s in my ...

I was going to write a Pity Party Post about my newly discovered hiatal hernia and all the infininte joy it is bringing to my life, but I stumbled across a document I wrote at least a couple years ago whilst trying to organize the chaos that is "My Documents". Here it is. FAITH  I’ve been thinking a lot about faith lately. It seems to be popping up everywhere. The old hymn Trust and Obey is one that I haven’t heard sung in over a decade, yet that song is constantly running through my head. “Trust and Obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to Trust and Obey.” My Bible study is going through the life of Job. He was a man of faith. His life that was once full and amazing was turned to a desolate waste. His children were killed, his wealth disintegrated. His health rapidly deteriorated, and his wife turned against him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t acknowledge his life sucked. He knew it. He felt it. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. He never prete...

I may be known for being a tad bit stubborn. But I think being stubborn is helping me through this. The day Rory died was not the hardest day of my life. Living without her, day after day after empty day, is the hardest part. That day in the hospital, as we held her and loved on her and released her from the pain forever, was a strange day. A day full of love, stubborn hope, fear, sadness, and strangely, peace. My stubborness could not keep Rory alive and well. But my stubborness is helping me cling to all I know to be true. There is a song by Selah called "I Will Carry You". The song is written by a family who also went through infant loss. When they told the mother her daughter would not live outside the womb, she said, “I think that my Jesus is the same as He was before I walked into this room.” There is another song called "No Matter What" by Kerrie Roberts. This song pierced me to the core and before we had even concieved Rory, it became my anthem. An ant...

This God stuff is a pain in the butt to work through. I have noticed over the years that my theology has changed. I don’t think that is a bad thing. I think as we learn, we grow. As we mature, we realize that what we once thought was a cornerstone of salvation may just be a sidenote. Things we may have once been pretty much willing to fight to the death for become things you’re willing to just wait and find out once you’re in heaven with the person you disagree with. (Doesn’t stop you from imagining saying, “Haha! Told ya!” though does it?) Anyway. The devastating event of losing Rory has forced me to once again contemplate my theology. What do I believe? What can I still believe? What is still true? There are things that are concrete for me. God is God. God is love. God loves me. I am saved. The Trinity. Heaven. These things are black and white for me. Other things may be a grey area, and heck, some areas are flippin’ rainbows, but I am grounded enough to know t...