It's interesting to me that throughout all of the darkness and pain of the past 5 months I've also experienced love on a deeper level. I've always loved my children more than anything, but I have loved them deeper and cherished them more since I've lost a child. To some extent, while loving them, I still took them for granted. We never got pregnant thinking we were asking for a gift from God. We just assumed that most people get pregnant and this is what we wanted for our lives. I took for granted the fact that my children were alive everyday. I've heard before that you can't have one side of an emotion without having the other; like you can't hurt deeply unless you love deeply. In some strange way I am finding that to be very true. I couldn't cherish my children in the same way that I do today without having experienced all of that hurt from losing Wyatt. They amaze me everyday. Every funny thing they say and do. Every independent act the achieve on their own. My daughter is trying to discover her own sense of fashion while checking with us every three seconds that she is still pretty. Lexi is spitting out a new word everyday. I wake up to "Mommy! Where'dya go?" on the baby monitor. My son, bless his heart, has learned how to surf the internet. Not only is it time for parental controls to be installed BUT I'm amazed that he is old enough to surf. I was in 7th grade learning how to "open a window" and "double-click". I look at these things in a profound way, much different than before, although not with more love than before. I almost feel like a philosopher throughout the day and it renders silent most of the time. I haven't spent enough time as an observer in life, I think. I look at my kids and all children for that matter as these tiny, new beings that look at everything we find boring with absolute amazement. They love unconditionally and with their whole heart. When I thought my daughter was being irriating she was really just wanting to be near me. When Lexi wants me to read her the same book AGAIN it's because she love hearing me read it, and I should be honored instead of upset. Birth is amazing. Life is amazing. Children are amazing. They aren't old and tired and boring like I am. I've spent my whole life being as productive as possible every single day until I collapsed into bed for not-enough-sleep ever single night. For once I am getting 8 hours of sleep. I'm not very productive since Wyatt left us. I am not taking classes. I didn't sew the kids Halloween costumes. I've barely started Christmas shopping. But my house is clean and I'm spending a lot of time with the kids. Good time, like I haven't spent in a long while. I'm rested and I'm taking vitamins, things I've never done before.There are moments, at least one a day, that something about Wyatt brings me to tears. It's always right there in my throat, and it comes out when I dust his urn or see his pictures or think about how he was supposed to be in this years Christmas picture. But I'm usually ok. I've developed this thought pattern where I say to myself "That's my son's urn, and that's ok. I'm ok". Something no parent should ever have to say but it works. It calms me down. Aside from feeling a deeper love for my children, I've felt true love from my husband and friends. People have come to love us and support us that I never would have thought. Our church stepped up and took care of us. My husband stepped up and took care of myself and the kids since I was unable, both physically and emotionally. Even my girlfriends who I thought I were lifelong friends anyway pulled through one more time for me while I was in need and didn't even know it. I may never be able to understand it but it's taken a deep pain for me to be able to feel and understand deep love.
As I've survived the past few months I've found myself asking questions about God and life. For the first few weeks I was pretty sure there was no God. How could children die if there were? Now I'm back to knowing that there is a God and I believe Jesus came, but I don't understand a lot. Why did God create us? Why do we mourn if earth isn't all it's cracked up to be? Ecclesiastes 5 and 6 talks about how a person with a sad life is better off never having been born. When Wyatt passed that was what so many people told us, "he just gets heaven before we do". So then why do we have children? Why do we have that deep desire to procreate and love and raise a child? Why does it ruin us when there are fertility issues? Logically shouldn't we just be happy that any children we were to have don't have to live here on earth? What really happened with Wyatt in utero? Has everything in life I've attributed to God really been God? I know He listens, but does He really guide or help us? I asked him all of this and more this morning. I realized I had never actually asked Him, I had just asked everyone else. I'm still waiting for His response. I also reminded Him that He gave me my brain so he must be thoroughly amused with the way that it's working right now. I've asked Him for months to give me a sign that Wyatt is ok and that He is God, but I'm still waiting for that as well.
I've mustered up the courage to be out in the world again with the normal people. I started volunteering at church and it's been really fun. I just hope no one noticed I was late in skipping the screen to the next set of lyrics when I started playing with Wyatt's necklace around my neck and zoned out. I'm not sure I'm feeling the fullfillment that I should be from helping out. I think I'm supposed to be serving. People thank me for helping and I'm not sure what to say. Maybe the feeling will come. We did children dedications today where families gave children back to God. I hadn't thought of my children like that before. I thought I had to raise them right, but I always thought of them as more mine than His. I'm pretty sure that's wrong. I'm also pretty sure that if there were ever a time I considered more children that I would have to understand why we want another child to be on earth and to see the act of having a child as receiving a precious and temporary gift from God to be stewards of.
Aside from church, It actually seems that nothing is really fullfilling me at the moment. I need to find solid ground with God again. I don't feel like I can really go on until I know what in the world I am doing here, why there is so much pain, if I can really rely on God, and if heaven really is as awesome as we think. I need that back in place. Until then I will keep waiting for answers and loving my children more than I ever knew I could.
