It's Not Just a Number

I recently realized that I had been struggling with an aspect of where Eveyn fits into my daily life. One of the most difficult areas to navigate in losing a child is the question of how many children I have. It seems simple. Why would that be a complicated issue? It's complicated for several reasons. It's complicated because I am a people-pleaser that doesn't want to make others uncomfortable, because the rest of the world gets weirded out when you talk about your dead child, because my heart is constantly telling me one kid is missing but the rest of the world sees me with "my hands full", because I don't want to have a dead child, but I don't want to deny her either.

How many kids do you have? What were your pregnancies like? Do I talk about all four pregnancies and babies, or just the three that are the most comfortable? I feel like I am in a constant battle with myself of living life on the outside like my heart feels on the inside and keeping my second child, my first daughter a secret in an attempt to make sure others feel comfortable. I started to feel that Eveyn was being left out of my life. I felt like I was putting her on a shelf in a closet because it was just too complicated. The worst part is that I wasn't even doing it for my own needs through some stage of grief, but I was hiding her life for the sake of other people and my assumptions about their ability to handle it. I realized that my new feelings of sadness and anger when I thought of Eveyn were based on the fact that I felt like she was being pushed out of my life, and I was to blame.

After realizing I had allowed myself to become very isolated in this struggle, I posted a question on one of the groups I am a part of on Facebook. I asked other mothers if this has been a struggle for them. I asked them how they respond and how they include or exclude their missing child in conversation with others. Through my question and the many, many responses I received, I rediscovered the power of community. I have had 80 responses to my question. As I write this, I am still receiving more comments, encouragement, inspiration, and wisdom from fellow moms who are living each day without their children. I am so thankful for this community. As easy as it is to isolate myself and believe the lie that I am on my own, I know the truth - we are many. We do not know each other, but we are connected and know each other's pain.

God is gracious in his provision, and it comes in all forms. One of the gifts he gives is community. I've told other moms who have lost children, that it is never a community we would choose to be a part of, but it is one that we are thankful to have by our side in the dark times. Through that gift of community, we receive further gifts of encouragement, wisdom, comfort, friendship, love, and guidance. He is gracious even in our times of pain.

So today I have received these gifts of encouragement, wisdom and care from other moms who share this journey. If someone else is uneasy or weirded out by the fact that I talk about my sweet baby, it is of no concern of mine. I cannot deny this child that I knew for 10 months. I cannot deny the baby I held in my arms for 6 short hours. I will not pretend that I didn't bury her little body or that I regularly visit her gravesite. She existed and I live each day with her.

I have four children. Eveyn is my second child. I have had two natural labors and two c-sections. She would be 7 years old if she were here with me. Eveyn is a part of our every day life in our home, and I will not exclude her from that when I step out of my front door. She is my daughter, she always will be, and I am just as proud of her as I am of the three I have here with me. If I believe her short life was one of meaning and purpose, I cannot hide her from others. I will share her and expect God to do great things through her.

To My Sweet Eveyn,

Today is your 7th Birthday. As I write this, I am sitting in the place where I feel closest to you - with your brother and sisters. Elijah, who at the tender age of 20 months old, cared for and comforted his mom more than he may ever know when you didn't get to come home with us. Ella, the gracious gift of hope that God gave us a mere three months after he took you home. And Emerson, who is still eagerly learning and asking about her big sister Eveyn that "gets to be with God." They are all so uniquely their own, and they each have a special connection to you in their hearts and minds.

Elijah, just like in all of life, is very matter-of-fact with you. He can't remember a time when you were not a very real part of his life. He had to spend so many hours of his little life caring for me, and checking on me, I was concerned that it would ruin him. I feared that my grief would stain him. I now know this isn't true. I am convinced that Elijah is the caring, kind soul that he is because of his relationship with you, and his love for you.

Ella is the most carefree, dreamy spirit. When she talks about you, it is with joy, affection and care. She thinks it is the most wonderful thing in the world that you are with God, Jesus and the pure peace of heaven. She always says that you are the third person she is going to go find and hug when she gets to heaven. First God, then Jesus, and then her big sister. Ella has always been connected to you and genuinely happy when she thinks of you.

Little Emerson wants to know more about you. She is the most distant from you, but she is so intrigued by your life. She talks about you often and asks questions about when you were in my tummy. She has told me a few different times that she wished you could come back for your birthday or to be in my tummy again so she can see you. She so desires to know her big sister more.

I echo her sentiments. Oh how I wish I could see you now. Not as I saw you last, but where you are now. I make no claims to know what heaven is like. I wonder all the time what your heavenly body is like. How beautiful you must be.
I don't know if we will be reunited, as Ella talks about. And Elijah, Ella and I agree - how can we possibly have no tears in heaven if we don't get to see you again? There are many great theological minds that will tell me what it is like, but I don't know that I need to have all of those mysteries figured out. I have searched and questioned God long, deep and hard over the last seven years, and I know one thing for sure. You are in the full presence of God with joy and praise. For a mother there is no stronger desire than to comfort my children. You are in the ultimate hands of comfort, and that gives this mother's heart peace.

But my dear Eveyn, even with peace in my heart, I miss you terribly. The words, "I miss you," don't quite do it justice, but they are the best ones I can find. You are loved, you are missed, and I am thankful to call you my daughter. Happy Birthday. I love you sweet girl.

Five Senses of Hope

On a perfectly beautiful spring day last week, my wind chimes started singing. They make music every single day, but on this day it signaled something different. The time of year I love the most, the days of spring that I cherish. It's fascinating how God does that. How he turns our ashes into something beautiful.

I have always loved Spring in Texas, and especially April, the month that really signals change. April, the month that pushes the short Texas winters away for another eight months, that ushers in thunderstorms, and calls the bluebonnets up out of their rest, is what I always look forward to each year. Seven years ago I was enjoying the fruits of another lovely April while also anticipating the birth of another kind - the birth of our first daughter. But my coveted springtime became a very dark winter when our daughter Eveyn passed away later that month.

After that, I thought springtime would be the time of year that I always dreaded, but the opposite has come true. It is the time of year that I feel closest to her. The warmth of the air, the shine of the sun, and the sound of my wind chimes gently swaying all take me directly back to that April seven years ago.

When we first came home from the hospital without Eveyn, the weather was beautifully springtime all week. I spent many hours laying on my couch in a quiet living room, in between discussions about funeral plans, staring at the beautiful simplicity of the sunshine out my window and listening to the soothing music of my wind chime. It was such an amazing contrast I was experiencing in my heart. While there was so much darkness within me, there was the constant bright, hopefulness of spring all around me. This was a saving grace to me. It gave me hope, it gave me a promise of tomorrow. (At least in those first shocking days, anyway. Grief is a very long, complicated process that many times feels very hopeless). But he gives us reminders that even during all of the bad, difficult things, there is still so much good. Beautiful glimpses of eternity, right here in this often times mucky world. Hope.

God gave me so many gifts of the senses in that first week that I carry with me to this day. From the moment I held Eveyn for the first time and smelled her freshly-birthed skin, God was building those memories into my heart. As strange as it sounds to others, God understands and smiles with me when I smell freshly laid mulch in the spring. He knew what was happening when the little girl across the street was born exactly one month after Eveyn, and I would get to watch her play and grow each year. He knew what memory was being laid when I first felt the warm breeze and bright sun as I stepped out of the hospital. And he knew how that first time I heard my wind chime in my quiet home would be a blessing to me the rest of my life. He knows my senses and how I'm blessed by them. He created them in joy.

We all connect so much of life, memories, and love to the senses that God has given us. What a gracious, kind and generous gift to give us. We not only get to remember with our minds, but we have the joy of tasting, smelling, feeling, seeing and hearing our memories as well.

It's what allows me to feel close to her still. Without these sensing memories I have of Eveyn, she would feel so much more distant with each year. But God has allowed me not only to simply remember her, but to keep her very close to me. What a blessing. And a hope.

Dirty Feet

Washing the feet of my children was surprisingly moving and profound. I did not expect the emotional reaction that I had.

Maundy Thursday is a long celebrated holy day in the church. It commemorates the last sharing of a meal together between Jesus and his disciples. It is the night before he is put to death, the night that he is betrayed by two of those same disciples that shared the meal with him. It is the night that Jesus takes the posture of a servant and with unfathomable love, stoops down to each of these men and washes their feet - even the ones who would betray him. He washes them in order to show them how much he truly loves them, and also to show them how to truly love others.

This story of washing feet doesn't really resonate quite the same until you have washed and been washed yourself. I never really understood the true depth of the message of love and service until I allowed myself to live out the story this Thursday.

I've been to church services before where there have been foot washings. But it has always been something that I have watched others do in front of the church. Never have I been an active participant in the story. It is profound.

My little family of five went to one chair in the back of the church set up with a couple of bowls, a pitcher of water and some towels. Many other people were there, doing the same thing with family members, friends, or perfect strangers at different chairs throughout the room. But when I was there at our chair with my family, it became an intimate moment between us. My little Emerson was the first to enthusiastically hop up on the chair, excited to see what it was like to have cold water poured onto her little feet. As I knelt down in front of her, and saw her wiggling toes through the running water, I was struck with my deep, unashamed love for this little soul. How much I truly love her - each of my children. In a way that could never be expressed in my words, but was so profoundly expressed as I carefully wiped and dried her cold little feet.

I looked up and saw her sweet, smiling face. But I could also see a twinge of embarrassment and even confusion. She was happy, she was satisfied with what I just did, but she also didn't fully understand it. There is a depth to my heart that she can't fully see or understand. And she won't really know how deep my love is until she is a mother herself. And I realized, maybe for the first time, that this is how Jesus loves me. He loves me, all of us, with such a profound depth, that I really don't understand. As Jesus knelt next to his disciples to wash their dirty feet, they were uncomfortable, embarrassed, confused. They didn't understand the depth of his love for them. They didn't fully get it. And neither do we. We know Jesus loves us, cares for us, petitions the Father for us, even died for us. But we still don't really know the absolute depth and fierceness of his love for us. And maybe we never will, until we see the completion of the story in eternity, and see him face to face.

We continued with washing feet as a family. I washed Ella's and Gavin's. Gavin washed mine and Elijah's. I spend each and every day serving the blessings that God has given me. It's what I do. I am a mom and a wife. It is my responsibility to take care of these people that I have been given. Some days it feels more like a chore than a joy. But when I washed their feet, just the simple act of getting on the floor, below them and in a physical posture of servanthood, the chore became a joy. It is this way when we serve in the way that Jesus exampled. Whether we are serving our own children, close friends, complete strangers, and even those that are put in our life that we would never pick on our own, we are called to humbly serve with abandon by taking the posture of Jesus. Jesus takes JOY in loving and serving us, and he allows us that same deep joy when being a servant to others.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."