Cross Post.....

I just blogged in my other blog about grief and about Everett, which I realize would have been very fitting over here as well. Should you not happen to know about my other blog and want to check it out, here's the link to today's post:

Maturing Grief

Katie

It's almost too much to bear.....

Laying on my desk right now, is a composite of nine pictures I printed off last night. Nine little black and white pictures, three of each of my kids. And in the bottom left corner there's a picture of Everett, with his eyes open, watching the camera.

And its almost too much to bear.

The closest thing we'll ever have to looking into his eyes.

And he's perfect and precious and looks just like Landon, but the reality of him has become so faded.

I can barely remember what it was like to be physically near him, to have that proximity, and to look into his actual eyes and not just a photograph.

Its almost more then I can bear.

I witnessed last night how the sight of these very same pictures shut Elvis down from he inside out. He asked for them, new pictures of the kids for his new work binder. All three kids, because Elvis would never leave Everett out, and as they emerged from the printer, I could see his heart break. Maybe it was those eyes, looking right into his. Maybe he felt that pain of remembering what it was like to do that for real, and then he felt the pain of reality, that all we have are pictures and memories that cloud by the day.

And it was almost more then he could bear. He imploded, silently, and put himself to bed quicker and earlier then he normally would. His heart hurt, I could see his sadness in the slump of his shoulders and the glaze over his eyes.

It's mind blowing sometimes, how you can be perfectly functional for days or even weeks at a time, and then suddenly you stumble and get all tangled in your grief all over again. And I just can't believe he's dead. I can't believe one of my babies died. My beautiful identical twin babies, separated by death just 20 days after their birth and three weeks before they were even due to enter this world. Beautiful, loved, wanted, miraculous baby, gone. We didn't have time to enjoy him properly. He never came home. We barely got to hold him. I never got to try and nurse him. Or dress him. I can't even recall if I changed his diaper. And now he's gone.

And its almost too much to bear.

Katie

He's not there.............

Since the day we buried Everett, his grave site has been a place of great conflict for me. The moment he was settled in his body's final resting place, and it was certain to all of us that we had truly said goodbye, and that it wasn't some horrible nightmare we could wake from, I wanted to leave it. Its like magnetic attraction in reverse, that grave site repels me. It's the last place on earth I want to be.

Some days, like today, when I'm in my car with time to spare, I think to myself "maybe I'll stop in", but then I catch myself and ask why? Why stop in? What good would it do? Would it make me feel any better? No. Its just what people do when they lose loved ones, and they feel a need to visit them someplace, any place, to make that loss feel a little less concrete. But I guess my heart doesn't work that way. I feel no comfort at all standing at the place we buried my 20 day old son. It feels horrible to stand at his head stone and know that his body rests just six feet below my feet, but I can't see him or hold him ever again.

His grave site isn't him.

Today it is granite and snow and trinkets poking through, its cold and its lonely and its not him.

He's not there. He's not waiting there for me to come to him.

He's not there.

He's in Heaven, of that we can be assured, and he's not worried about us at all.

He doesn't feel more loved by me, or us, depending on how many times we visit his body. He's not keeping score at all. I can send my love up to him a million times a day and yet I suspect he's totally unconcerned by it at all, because he's in Heaven, and he's got the most amazing love around him at all times. I'm willing to bet that his focus is Jesus and not me anyway, until I can join him there, and that I have his permission to love him and grieve him in any way I like, whatever keeps me going until I can see him again.

So I drive by his grave and cast a sideways glance out the window as I pass him, I scan quickly for any changes, any new trinkets I can see from the road, and I keep going. I don't pull in the gate, I don't park by his row, I don't get out and trudge through two feet of snow to his beautiful granite head stone, and I DO NOT fall to my knees and fall to pieces. I don't shed tears to a stone and have conversation with a body that stopped hearing me over two years ago. I don't do it because its not natural for me, and I don't do it because he's not there and he doesn't need me to.

But here's what I do. I pray to God to pass my love onto him, though I don't think Everett needs me to, I need to. And I think about him every time I pass his picture in the hallway, or look at his brother, or see a new baby. I miss him every morning and every night and every minute in between. I blog about him, talk about him, and pray about him whenever the need strikes me. And I think about what it will take to see him again, and I think about how I'm going to make it happen. I puzzle over what our Heavenly reunion will be like and I sometimes cry from frustration because I'm confused about what to expect. But at the end of the day I sleep peaceably because though I don't know what out reunion will be like, I know it will be and that's good enough for me.

Katie

How I know............

Many people struggle with the concept of God, I did myself, and who can wonder why? God is mind boggleing! How do we wrap our heads around a loving, father figure, all powerful God who breathed the world into existance and counted and named each star personally before placing it gingerly in the sky? How to we begin to understand how this same God breathed life into each of us and knew our names and life stories before we were ever even thought of by our parents on earth? How do we digest that He can forgive anything, ANYTHING, and that he loves us all the same as he did Jesus? Thats a lot to take in.

But I know its true.

I know He is very real, and is love and grace and mercy are absolute.

I know it because I'm living it.

I feel it each and every day when I wake up and when I go to bed.

Many people wonder how I can believe in and trust in God after losing Everett and after having so many prayers go unanswered. What I don't know is how to tell them that for those very reasons I believe in God. Because I lost Everett and had unanswered prayers, I believe in God. Because I felt pain so severe I thought it might kill me. Because I cried so many tears I thought I might dry up inside. Because I felt loneliness so deep I felt hollow inside, I believe in God.

Because he eased my pain.

Dried my tears.

And promised I am never alone.

He is faithful. And since opening my mind and my heart, and telling my brain that I don't need to understand it all, God has blessed me and my family time and time again with his love and mercy and kindness, and second chances, and love in abundance.

I miss my baby, deeply and constantly, and if I could have him back right now you can bet I would jump at the chance to do so.

But I can't.

But I have Elvis, and Avery and Landon.

I have my parents and sisters.

My precious nephew.

Grandmothers.

Cousins and their kids.

My inlaws, so many inlaws, sisters, brothers, parents, and nieces and nephews.

I have friends, online and in real life.

I have God.

I have comfort and love and faith and eventually I'll have Heaven.

How could I not believe.

Yesterday was the two year anniversary of Everett's passing. Being that we were in NYC and very busy, I didn't have time to fall to pieces. From time to time I wanted to. I felt the tears rise up behind my eyes and I felt my heart grow heavy. But I made it from sun up to sun down without falling to pieces and I feel okay about that. There was a time when I NEEDED to crumble and drown myself in tears, but now I have something to hold on to when the sadness comes, because I no longer wonder where Everett is, nor do I worry if I will see him again, because 1 Thessalonians 4:13 says

"And regarding the questions, friends, that has come up about those already dead and burried, we don't want you in the dark any longer. First off, you must not carry on over them like people who have nothing to look forward to [no hope], as if the grave were the last word."


The most precious thing God has given me, aside from comfort and salvation, is hope.

Something to look forward to, that non believers just don't have. I have the hope of a sweet reunion one day, which keeps me going each and every time my heart breaks again and I want to fall to pieces.

I know He is real, and I am so thankful for Him and the blessings he doles out, at not cost to me at all.

Katie

The unhappiest anniversary......

Its been two years since we said goodbye to Everett.

Two years since our world imploded.

Two years since our hearts broke into a million pieces.

And it feels like yesterday.

I can still remember how it felt to leave Sick Kids without Everett, to have to hand him back over to the nurse and leave him, and to know that the next time I saw him, it would be at his funeral.

I can still rememeber picking out what he would wear for his funeral, picking out what he would wear for the very first, and very last time. I can remember sitting across from the funeral director at his desk, with tears flowing so hard and fast I couldn't see through them, like right now.

I can't believe its been two years since I had both my boys together. Two years since my world felt right and made sense. Two years since I felt like I wasn't a statistic or the worst case scenario. Two years since my family was whole.

We're in NYC visiting family today, and I can't decide if the distraction is good or not. I can't decide if its good that I can't dive right into all the hurt and sadness and remembering, because I feel like I should, I feel like I need to. I feel like I need to devote this time to hurting and missing him, but I can't because we're staying with family and supposed to be having fun and making this time special.

I don't want to drag them down.

I don't want Elvis to hurt if he's not already hurting.

I don't want to confuse my kids.

But I want to crawl into a whole and just let it come. And then maybe be done for the day. rather then delay the inevitable and fall apart later.

Two years feels like two minutes.

I still want my baby back more then anything.

Katie

Nearly two years ago....

The day is fast approaching. This time two years ago, we knew we were in the midst of the fight for Everett's life, and we knew we were losing it. Whether we wanted to admit it or not, we knew any efforts made at this point were last ditch efforts. The writing was on the wall. And the butterfly was on the IV pole.

The pretty, gauzy butterfly dangling from the IV pole. The unspoken signal that this baby wasn't going to make it. They didn't want to say that's what it was, and they didn't need to. "We know to sign the butterfly when we see it" says it all really. And then there was the lady who came to cast his foot, without a word to us from the nurses she was coming, we hadn't asked, but she was summoned none the less, to create a momento for us, because everyone knew his battle was nearly lost.

We knew it, but we couldn't accept it. We knew it was over, and we knew that as soon as we let go, he would go, but we could not face it. Instead we prayed, we retreated to quiet rooms and corridors and bathrooms at Sick Kids and prayed and pleaded that God would heal him, and that we wouldn't have to actually say goodbye. And we whispered in Everett's ear, encouraging words, and desperate words, and I begged him to stay with me, I begged him not to go.

The day before he died, we spent the day with Landon, clinging to the last little bit of hope we had, that he was having a day of rest after another proceedure, and when we returned, we'd have good news, and he will have turned a corner and all would be well.

The next day we sat at his bedside during a routine head ultrasound, and we read the look on the ultrasound technicians face, crystal clear. It was over. "I'll go talk to your Dr. he'll be over to see you". The Dr's face said it too, and he refered us to yet another Dr. who explained to us what we already knew, because we knew what they were looking for. He confirmed to us that Everett had a brain bleed, a side effect of his ECMO, which was saving his life and taking it all at once.

Later that day, we called family to his bedside, and had him baptized, and then we took him off his life support and we held our breath waiting to see if he would breath on his own, or if his heart could do the work itself, and then he died. The Dr's handed him to us as quickly as possible and the earth fell away from our feet. I've never known such pain and such crippling loss. The world stopped making any sort of sense.

Its been two years, but it feels like yesterday. And as this anniversary approaches, suddenly its on us, I have no idea what to do or how to cope. We'll be visiting family in New York City this year, so I'll be away from the familiar, his things, his grave, my bed. And I wonder how I'll cope without having a place to hide and withdraw and break into pieces if need be. I can only pray that God will be with us and give us comfort, and that our family will understand our need for space and sensitivity, and will cut us some slack when we seem like we've lost our heads.

We haven't, our heads are just fine...

We lost our son, and that won't ever be okay.

Katie
'

Seeking answers.....

The instant Everett died, and we held him in our arms, and marveled over his beautiful face and his incredible fight, we wondered why.

Why?

What sort of world do we live in, where seemingly perfect new born babies die from hidden birth defects? What sort of God allows such suffering and heart break? We wondered this intensely then. And when wondering and searching brought forth no answers, we were frustrated, and angry, and turned our backs on God, who we imagined could not, or would not help us and our baby.

When our grief lessened in intensity and our anger waned, a tiny opening was made for Christs love and His peace to enter our lives. And we were immediately comforted. Life was never been the same. We have been changed and for the better and we see our loss and our grief with new eyes.

At the time, we felt abandoned by God. We had made it up in our minds that God had either decided against helping Everett, or that he couldn't help him, and we were lost and angry and in the midst of despair so deep we couldn't see clearly.

And then one day it cleared. And, I can only speak for myself, but I felt driven to find our more about God and His love and comfort and mercy. And as soon as I was receptive to it, I had it. Comfort after months of agony.

We found a great church with a fabulous community and jumped in with both feet and open hearts and the blessings just kept coming.

The pain is still there, and it flares up from time to time, especially at this time of year, but His comfort quickly follows. Because we know this:

Lamentations 3:31-33

31 For men are not cast off
by the Lord forever.

32 Though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.

33 For he does not willingly bring affliction
or grief to the children of men.

He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.

He didn't do it.

He didn't want it.

He didn't allow it.

It happened.

And though we won't ever really and truly understand why, the Bible offers up this explanation...

John 9:2-3
2 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

THIS happened, so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.

In Everett's life.

Everett was born with a heart so afflicted it could not be healed by all of our amazing technology, so that God's work could be displayed through his life.

He died so that the good of God could be demonstrated through his life.

Everett's 20 day life, and our heart break, happened so that something God could be done or achieved in God's name.

So, does this then mean that grief is to be my ministry?

I'm living in a perpetual state of grief over Everett and what should have been. It waxes and wanes but the pain is always there. And it happened to him, and to us, so that we could demonstrate God's good works through our experience? If this is true, which I don't doubt it is, then I have a job to do. Everett has done all he can and the rest is up to us. To show the world that it has worked for our good, that comfort came with the pain and that good has followed the bad, and the God has been at work in this.

An interesting ministry indeed.

Katie