No words of my own....

could say what I want to say tonight, better then Joe Purdy's beautiful lyrics!

I'm not what you need

I just want something beautiful
I wanna look in your eyes
I wanna listen to you sing my favorite song and cry
I wanna reach into your oceans
I wanna calm your sea and your storms
I wanna let you take a hold of this sinking ship and lead me home

But I am not what you need
But only so much stronger
But you are such a pleasant fiction to me
So I guess that I'll dream of you a little longer

I wanna pack up and move with you
And never look behind
I wanna take your hand as we chase down the skyline
I wanna tell you my stories
And wake you up in the middle of the night
I want you to tell me I'm wrong
And I just want you to smile at me when I'm right
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com

But I am not what you need
But only so much stronger
But you are such a pleasant fiction to me
So I guess that I'll dream of you a little longer
A little longer

Don't wanna take the light from your eyes
It would be nice if I could hold you tight
While we lay in the sand
You could love what's left of this lonely excuse of a (wo)man

But I am not what you need
But only so much stronger
But you are such a pleasant fiction to me
So I guess I'll dream of you a little longer

And I am not what you need
And only so much more
But you are such a pleasant fiction to me
I guess I'll dream that you're here to keep me warm
Keep me warm

I'm totally humbled these days, and that's a good thing. I've not been perfect in any capacity, in any area of my life, I'm just not. Anyone who's going to really love anyone, is going to have to make the choice to love imperfection, because we're all so imperfect and flawed. I'm not what anyone needs, not entirely, I can't be all anyone really needs, because no human is meant to satisfy 100% of someone elses needs, we all have a need that only faith and hope and trust in God can satisfy. People cannot make you whole, or make you happy, not entirely. I am NOT what my husband needs, but I want to be what he wants. I want to be a part of what makes him happy and satisfied and whole, but I can't be it all, and if I'm expected to be everything, then I will continue to disappoint him.

Hopefully, time, as well as intervention from God, will help make a way for me back into my husbands heart, hopefully he'll see that though I am not what he needs, I'd be a great contributor to his life and his happiness, and we could find what we both need, together.

I can't decide tonight if I'm filled with hope or fear, I'm filled with some sort of strong and powerful emotion, and I'm praying that the path I'm on is revealed to me soon, so I can stop feeling so lost.

Katie

What else can I do?

A million times a day I think I must be crazy. Absolutely insane. No woman in her right mind would do what I am doing, actively pursuing a man who says he wants he wants out. What sane person opens herself up repeatedly to rejection, an experience that humans collectively try to avoid at all costs? I'm either crazy, or stupid, or both, right? Most people think that way. When they imagine themselves in my shoes, they think "there's no way I'd be so nice", or "I'd move on and find someone new". People urge me to gather up some self respect, some self worth, and look for new love, "better" love. But I don't. I can't.

I can't walk away from us. From him.

He's everywhere, we're everywhere.

I fell in love with him in an instant. Feelings bigger and stronger then I had ever known before. I never wanted to be anywhere but by his side. Apathy and tragedy have put some distance between us, but he's always been my center, and I have always felt that pull toward him. I may have been less focused on being actively by his side, but I never wanted to be by another. And now he's trying to walk away from me, and I can't just sit back and watch him go. I can't.

I've had a long standing history of pursuing Elvis, its second nature. In the beginning I lead and he happily followed me into our relationship, and then he took the lead. And now I think he's lost, and he's going another direction, and I feel like I need to take the lead again, and pray like crazy that he wants to follow me once more. Unlike our beginning, I'm not confidant that he'll follow my lead, I don't know that he wants to be back on the same path as me. I'm shaking in my boots over here, stepping out on to this risky road, full of lots of opportunity for rejection and disappointment. This could go so terribly bad for me. I could end up more hurt and damaged then I already am. I could come out at the end still alone, and bedraggled from the journey. I could lose my husband, and my hope, but by the grace of God I'll keep my faith and know that I did all that I could.

What else can I do?

I promised forever.

I meant it.

Love is a choice. The initial flames of passion die down, the intensity lessens, the excitement wears off and new becomes old. But love is a choice. And where some choose to let it go and chase something new and exciting once more, I am choosing to continue to love. To cherish. To honor.

In sickness and in health.

For better or for worse.

This is most certainly for the worse.

I don't know how this story ends. All I can do is take it day by day. Each morning I wake up and think about how I'm going to love Elvis today. How will I show him love? How will I make sure I don't crowd him? How will I make myself vulnerable without making myself a door mat? How will I keep my self respect while loving a man who walked away from me? How will I honor God's plan for marriage and my own when my husband doesn't share my home anymore?

What else can I do.

Many people wonder, why not just cut your losses and save yourself the pain?

But the only thing that hurts more then loving Elvis with nothing in return, is imagining not loving him at all.

Onward I go.

Katie

Need some comfort....

For this tortured heart of mine tonight.

I'm feeling absolutely tortured tonight, by loss, and loneliness, and hurt and confusion and despair and guilt and shame..............the list goes on.

Every nerve ending is irritated and my thoughts and random and rapid.

I'm screaming in my head.

I need some comfort for my weary soul tonight, something to say "hush now" and set it to rest a while. These struggles will still be here tomorrow, no sense in going completely crazy today.

How much can one mind handle?

How much can one heart take?

I keep waiting for this life to break me into tiny little shards, but for some reason I stay whole. Then I wonder, if I would just break, if I would just shatter and get it over with already, I wouldn't have to wonder anymore when the breaking point would come, and I wouldn't have to endure another hit, unless life intends to not only break me but grind me in to dust as well.

I feel like I'm watching my life like some dramatic prime time TV show, and I'm that character that everyone loves to think "I'm so glad my life's not like hers!" I'm the scene with the melancholy, sorrowful musical overlay, the tragic heroine who's life is a mess but who keeps getting up for the next knock down. I can practically hear my soundtrack in my head as I walk through my day. I keep waiting for my big break, for the surprise happy ending to today's episode. The knock on the door. The love interest standing there with flowers or some romantic gesture, the long over due embrace and the implied happy future, of course to be continued in the next episode. I keep waiting. That's why I am tortured!

I need to just go to bed.

I need to shut of my brain and forbid it to dream tonight.

No nightmares tonight please brain.

My heart can't take it.

I can't stand to see my worst fears played out in my brain like it were the big screen.

Not tonight.

Tonight I need some rest. For my ragged heart and wounded soul.

We need a soft spot to land.

Some warmth, some security.

A little reprieve before life finds me again.

Katie

Something Wicked This Way Comes...

And by wicked, I mean awesome. Divine even. Heavenly.

I can feel it coming. There's a change in the air. A stillness. A calm. I can feel a spark of something new and exciting. A charge in the atmosphere, God at work. To those who are unsure about their feelings regarding God, it may sound strange, but I can literally feel his work, I can feel his presence in my life right now, and he brought hope with him.

I've been praying a lot lately. For guidance, for direction, and for comfort. It pleases God for us to admit that we need Him, and oh how I need Him. I invited him into my problems, and asked him to take care of them, in His way, in His time, I surrendered my sadness, confusion and grief and trust him to take care of me.

This feeling of serenity, of peace and calm, like the stillness before a storm, feels like His RSVP, he's coming. Change is in the air, I can see the clouds stirring, and something wicked this way comes....

Change often comes in a storm, sometimes violent and frightening, sometimes chaotic and messy, blowing through in a flurry and when its done, nothing is quite the same. God's change is the same. Its not a magic wand, no *poof* and everything is better, his change can be scary, or difficult, or painful, but in the end we're better for it. So I am getting ready for a storm, for I can see it coming, and I am excited for it. I can't wait to see what I can do with what God has planned for me. What will he do with my determination? What will he do with my newly fortified faith? He's given me incredible capability to love and to forgive and persevere, what will he do with them? Its all been set in motion, and there isn't any going back now, so its time to sit back and watch the storm from the safety of my faith in God's love for me.

The air is electric, and I feel energized and alive, full of hope and ready to weather this storm, be it a thunderstorm, tornado, hurricane or tsunami, I'll be watching for the rainbow at the end, God's reward for trusting in Him.

Katie

Something to cry about....

I was watching a photography "webinar" tonight, about maternity portraits, and this particular instructor is involved with the charitable organization Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS), where professional photographers provide beautiful portraits to parents of stillborn babies, or babies who die shortly after birth. We never had a NILMDTS shoot with Everett, but it prompted me to go back to his photos and look them over once again, and the significance of his struggle, and of our loss hit me like a tidal wave. All over again. Seeing his life played out in sequence, in photographs we never knew would be our only photographs is unreal. If I had have known I was documenting the only days of his life, I would have done a better job, I would have taken more, I would have tried to capture every inch of his beautiful little body.

These pictures don't do him justice.

He looks big, but he was so little.

You can't tell just how much he looked like Landon.

But they're the only pictures I have, and they're haunting. They show his downward spiral, from healthy to incredibly and desperately ill. As each day passes more staff and more equiptment congregate around his bedside.

When I look at these, life seems to re-prioritize itself, what really matters becomes very apparent. When you realize there's so much we take for granted, including our children, it because very easy to see all the trivial things we take too seriously and get far too wound up about. Saucy kids? Drained bank account? A few extra pounds? A broken marriage? Insignificant. My baby died. My gorgeous, innocent, and much loved baby was born with a horrendous heart defect, lived 20 days of uphill struggle and then he died. That's something to cry about.
















But, his strength, his endurance, his breath taking beauty, the lives he touched, the love he evoked, the memories he's left, the passion he's inspired, the good that has been done in his name, are all reasons to be comforted, and to be grateful to have ever had him at all.

At the heart of it all, the love we have for one another is all that really matters. And nothing is more worthy of your tears then lost or wasted time with your life's most precious people.

Put down that book, that broom, those dishes, that laundry, and go love up your children, who are the most amazing blessing you'll ever know. When the act out, act up, act horrible, even on their worst days, they're still more then you'll ever deserve, little gifts from God to teach you about what life is all about, cherish them accordingly. Life is short, sometimes exaggeratedly short, celebrate each and every second, as cliche as it may sound, as though it were your last together.

If I had have known I was living our last days together, I would have done so much more with it. I would have insisted on holding him more, touching him more, mothering him more, and capturing more of him in pictures, enough images of his sweet face to last a life time.

Katie

The "Suppose to's"

I've got them bad today.

Blame it on sad country music, but my mind is wandering and my heart is hurting and I can't help but think about what is "supposed" to be.

I'm supposed to be 13 weeks pregnant right now.

I'm supposed to have two little boy tearing my house apart right now while their big sister is at school.

I'm supposed to be waking my husband up soon, and getting some time in with him before he goes into work again tonight.

I'm supposed to be arranging my basement to accommodate an extra bedroom, so I can prepare to give our bedroom to the new baby (who's not coming any longer but is supposed to be!)

I'm supposed to be planning a big family birthday party for the kids, which will now be half the size.

I'm supposed to be planning a family trip to Florida in the new year for our annual trip to Disney.

The "Supposed to's" suck.

Katie

If we had only done this instead of that....

then things would be so different.

If only.

Those words echo in my mind day and night.

If only.

If only I got two steroid shots instead of one before the boys were born.

If only I went a few weeks longer.

If only he was diagnosed sooner.

If only we delayed surgery until he was bigger.

If only we had the option of a heart transplant rather then fixing the badly broken heart he had.

If only that surgery had gone better, or didn't take so long.

If only he didn't need ECMO.

If only he didn't need it for so long.

If only he didn't get that brain bleed.

If only.

If only I could have read minds.

If only he spoke up sooner, or clearer.

If only he said what was really on his mind.

If only his faith was stronger.

If only he wanted to try.

If only I had the strength to wait him out.

If only.

If only I didn't let the stress get to me.

If only I stayed calm in spite of it all.

If only my blood pressure was stable.

If only I could have done something.

If only.

Haunting words, and always present, I can't help but wonder why my life would look like now, if only something had played out differently in the past. If Everett had lived, if Elvis had stayed, what would I be doing right now? What would be be different? Everything.

If only.

Katie