Maybe there is just something about having your mom with you that makes things better, and I am in a very different place than I was just two short weeks ago. It was a very dark place that I don't wish anyone to ever have to experience.
I told Jarrett, I told my parents, I had lost all hope and I wasn't going to let myself feel anything hopeful because I'm honestly kind of afraid God might take that away too. I'm not very trusting right now, so I choose to not risk anything that could make my heart ache and the pain worse. Kind of like that saying, "What do you have to lose when you don't have anything TO lose." That's how I felt and to protect myself, I choose not to let any hope seep back in.
Its not the way I want to live. This has never been the way I've lived my life. I've always been a hopeful person, I've always believed my dreams could someday become my reality and to follow one's dreams, there always has to be hope.
Having Noah was probably the biggest risk in hope I've ever taken. After we passed 20 weeks, I thought things were going to be okay, so I opened up my heart, and let hope flood my insides. I had great hope in seeing him for the first time. Getting to feel his tiny hand around my fingers. The hope for what our future was going to be like as a family of six. Hope for what he and his siblings would grow to be someday. Hope. It was racing throughout my body as Noah's tiny body grew day by day.
And then in a flash, Noah was gone and along with it went every ounce of hope I've ever felt. I just don't understand how God could grant the answer to my longest prayer only to take him away so quickly. I still struggle with this daily. Just last weekend, here in the valley, I happened to see on the news that someone found a newborn baby boy deceased in a dumpster behind a store. I immediately thought of Noah and that that baby was someone else's miracle. The baby, some mother's precious son, tossed out like a piece of trash. And my heart grows heavier, my mind spins, and I feel angry that God would allow such terrible things to happen. When I heard the news about the newborn baby boy found in the trash, I just happened to be driving to work on Saturday, and alone in my car, I shouted to God for an understanding.
There is nothing that makes since God in what you've done. Why would you take my son and allow a mother to throw away her perfectly healthy, full-term baby boy into the trash? I can't understand the sense in this. God, you've crushed me and with that you've taken my hope. I loved my son. I wanted my son. I would have died for my son. Why did you do this?
The response was silence... as it filled the air around me in the car on my drive.
It is reasons such as these I protect myself, by blocking out all hope, all chance that life can be full of color someday.
I can't put my finger on exactly what has changed in the last two weeks other than my mom has been here with us every minute we are not at work. It has been wonderful. She's made us home-cooked meals, took me shopping with her (which we haven't done in years), we went out for dinner just the two of us, and we spent time watching movies. Some nights, as she'd sit on the couch with Jarrett, I'd sit in the chair (still can't sit on the damn couch) and I'd think back to when I was a kid. How nice it was to feel sheltered by my parents protection. How no matter what was stressing me, they were their like a shield to take the brunt of the blow. That's what parents do. They protect, they provide safety and security and they are there to be one's rescuer in all danger.
Sitting on the couch seeing how my mom put her life on hold to come and "rescue" me, I've realized how lucky I am to have the mother I do. My mom never got the chance to have her mom rescue her when life with four young children got to be too much. My mom, lost her mom at a very early age.
And while our losses are the exact opposite, I know my mom's scarred heart can relate to the terrible heartache and pain I constantly feel. Perhaps that's why she came. Perhaps, she could sense it. Perhaps, actually the reality is, she's here because of a mother's love.
In the last two days of Noah's life, it was excruciating to have to watch him be poked, prodded, and filled with medication, blood and fluids. I found myself turning away as I just couldn't watch my poor baby go through another procedure. Internally I begged the nurses and the doctors to stop and to just let him be. I never vocalized it, I knew they were doing what he needed. I prayed by his bedside, I talked to him, I sang Amazing Grace over and over and over to him, and I begged God to let him stay. I would have given up my last breath in an instant, if it would have meant he could have lived. I really would have and if God came to me today and said I could take his place and give him life here, I wouldn't hesitate. I would go willingly.
And that's what I think a mother's love is. A mother loves her child, her family, her spouse in self-sacrificing ways that often go unnoticed. A mother, when she sees her child's life crumbing into pieces, races to help catch the other pieces to save them before they too crash to the floor. A mother would do anything to take away the pain her child feels, to take it unto themselves without question. I would have done this for Noah everyday of his life, and I try to do it for Gabriel, Michael and Isabelle now. This is what my mother has done for me the past two weeks she has been here.
And I think that's why I am not as far deep into that terrible dark hole as I was 15 days ago. Where the exits are no where to be seen and the only place to go is farther down. My mother found a way in the past 14 days, to throw a rope down to me, crawl down beside me, lift me up and carry me back out of that place. She has been my rescuer. She has guided me back on the path and cheered me along, telling me I can make it through this challenge.
I pray that this terribly difficult road we now walk, doesn't have any holes quite so large. I know there will be more, I worry about those days coming back. I beg God to let the pits be not as deep, but in my lack of trust, I try to prepare myself for another canyon to cross ahead.
Tomorrow morning, before the sun comes up, I take my mom to the airport, and say goodbye until next month when I go home as my sister gets married. I wish Mom was staying, we all wish she was staying, but the time has come for me to try to do this again on our own. I am an adult and need to carry the pieces of this broken life in my own arms. The burden seems unbearable, the weight of the sorrow crushing, and I'm not quite sure I'm ready to assume the struggle that for two weeks my mom shouldered for us. Its time to stand up, and try to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
My mom rescued me. My mom did for me, what I could not do for Noah. I will always live with the sadness I could not save him, no matter how hard I tried. And as hard as that is for me, I look at the life left in front of me and realized, my mom is doing exactly what I wanted to do for Noah. Only she's doing it for me. She was there for me in a way, that only a mother's love can be.
Thank you Mom. I'm so grateful you came, even though I told you not too. I'm so grateful for being that rock for the kids and I when I just couldn't pretend any longer. Thank you for everything you've done and continue to do. I'm truly blessed to have you has my mom. I love you.
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| Grandma, you're going to be missed. We love you. |
Until next time,
Angie
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