3 Months

Happy 3 month Birthday Matthew. Mommy and Daddy miss you so much.

You're in a better place, I've heard a thousand times
And at least a thousand times I've rejoiced for you
But the reason why I'm broken, the reason why I cry
Is how long must I wait to be with you


I close my eyes and I see your face
If home's where my heart is then I'm out of place
Lord, won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
I've never been more homesick than now


Help me Lord cause I don't understand your ways
The reason why I wonder if I'll ever know
But, even if you showed me, the hurt would be the same
Cause I'm still here so far away from home


In Christ, there are no goodbye
And in Christ, there is no end
So I'll hold onto Jesus with all that I have
To see you again
To see you again


And I close my eyes and I see your face
If home's where my heart is then I'm out of place
Lord, won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
Won't you give me strength to make it through somehow
Won't you give me strength to make it through somehow


I've never been more homesick than now

Lyrics

Heard this song today that I don't usually like all that much, as it's fairly shallow and silly, but one of the verses touched me deeply. They weren't meant or intended in the way that they touched me, but all the same...

Lord make me a rainbow, I'll shine down on my mother
She'll know I'm safe with you when she stands under my colors
Oh, and life ain't always what you think it ought to be, no
Ain't even gray, but she buries her baby

The sharp knife of a short life
Well, I've had just enough time

I Still Sing

He's not here, but I still sing to him. I know he hears me.

I sing my love, my pain, and my mother's heart to him. I sing his name. I sing his songs. I sing love over and over again.

He hears me.

One day, the day that cannot come quickly enough, I will sing to him in my arms, and I will never let him go.

Another's Words, Spoken From My Heart

"I don't need to find a meaning in my son's death. Or, more precisely, I don't think there can be meaning grand enough to be worthy of him, to be worthy of the enormity of what it means to have to live without him.

To me, my son's death doesn't have to be beautiful and meaningful. It doesn't have to teach anyone anything, and it doesn't have to have changed our lives for the better. In fact, I think if someone tried to find anything of the sort in our story, I'd be beyond livid.

I remember a post on someone's blog from when I was only a couple of months out from A's death that has stayed with me throughout the years. The post was about how of course the deaths of our children are unfair, about how we, the survivors, didn't deserve it. There was a quote too, about how the only thing worse to imagine than their deaths being unfair and undeserved is for their deaths to have been fair and deserved. Jeez, right? What would you have to do to deserve to have your kid die? And if you put it that way... Well, the beauty and meaning thing, I feel similar about these-- what in the universe can possibly be worth my son's life? I have only one answer to that-- nothing, absofrigalutely nothing.

Which doesn't mean that I do not see beauty in our stories, in our story. The difference is that to me the beauty is internal.  It doesn't come from or depend on anything that happened as a result of A's death It's jagged and mangled, and may not look like beauty to anyone but us, and let's face it-- few are willing to look for long enough to see it. The beauty I see is in the origin of our pain, in why our worlds are torn and our hearts-- a mess of shards. That, of course, is grief, the new and unbidden roommate-inside-us.

To me, there is beauty in the pain, in the grief. But not because I enjoy the sight of blood and gore-- I don't. I see beauty in why the pain and the grief are there. They are there because we love our children. And when they die, when we lose the world that was to be them, the pain is the reflection, the mirror image of the love. And to me, that's good enough. Actually, to me that's the only way it can possibly be."

-julia http://www.glowinthewoods.com/

Sometimes

I think about the things I've lived through, been through, and I can barely believe I've survived. I relive those moments again in my head with absolute clarity, and it feels like I am watching someone else live my memories. It can't be me. I couldn't have gone through something so horrific and still be alive. I'm not that strong. My memories seem like deception, but alas, they are true. Every single moment is true. Sometimes...I don't believe my own mind's recalling. How can I be here, when I was there? How can I have lived through that without losing my mind, my heart, my soul?

Keeps On Rolling

Ah, life. How unfair, yet healing it is that you continue on, regardless of the events within. I have wished you would stop countless times. I have wished you fast forward countless times. Yet, you ignore my wishes and steadily carry on, knowing better than I.

Steps have been taken and lost over these past few months. Mostly lost, but still, progress towards a little healing has been made. Unfelt, invisible, but still there in my days. My memories begin to hold not only intense pain, but also joy. I can sometimes envision his face without sobbing now, and the thought of his little nose and toes can bring a smile, when before there was only tears.

I carry my inked likeness of his tiny feet with intense passion and love, tenderly stroking the outlines of his baby feet daily. All of these things say "He was here." At this point, I can ask no more. Though there are so many moments that all I can choke out are pleas for his presence, there are now moments, amazingly, that I am able to acknowledge my gratefulness for his time with me.

Why?

Why not them instead of us? Why not her instead of me? Why not their baby instead of mine? How is it fair that they get 2, 3, 4, 5...and I can't even have just him? Why would you take Matthew away after we fought for him for so long, but give others beautiful "accidents". Why do I have to go through this, without the comfort of a child at home, or even children at home. Why did you have to take my first. I would have been happy with him as my only. Why would you make us go through so much, so, so much, and then rip him away. Why can't one good thing happen in my life, and not lose it. Why did you have to give me such an overwhelming desire, from such a young age, to be a mommy, but refuse me a living child. Why would you make me go through all that worry and fear with his heart defect and downs, then make everything wonderful again, only to rip him from my arms 5 days later.Why do so many, so many, get to have children they don't even want, and yet I can't have the only one I do want with every fiber of myself. Do I not deserve children? What did I do that was so horrible that I can't be a mom. Why must I suffer every day with constant thoughts of pregnant friends and mommy friends. Do I need to pray more? Do I not go to church enough? Is it because I cuss? I don't know. I know I'm not that great of a person, but did I really deserve this? Are my wrongs so great that my little boy and my husband had to suffer for them? I have never been good at anything in my life until I was going to be a mom. I finally felt like a person, instead of a lump of useless nothing, and I was going to pour my heart and soul into that little boy. He would have been raised to love you, to love his family, and to love himself. But now I'm left here, so desolate, confused, ripped apart, broken, and lost. Constantly plagued with pitied looks, having to respond to "how are you" with fake responses to avoid making others uncomfortable, and feeling like everyone has forgotten the one thing that gave my life meaning: Matthew. I had 6 months of pure ecstasy, after a life of pain and anger, and now I feel like I will lose myself in it. I just want to know why my little boy, when he was my world and my love, and everything to me. Why does my heart go on beating when his does not. Why do I have to finish life here on Earth when my place is with him. Why must I agonize through each day, and minute, and hour, without him. I just want to know, why?