Dreading the Holidays....

I just want the next four months to over and done with so that I don't have to deal with the fact that our family is not all here for the holidays. I use to love the holidays and now thinking about them puts a pit in the bottom of my stomach. Last year, I was so excited thinking about how this year was going to be around holiday time and now it is just literally heartbreaking to know that we won't be celebrating with the boys. There is Mackenzie's birthday, Halloween, Kevin's birthday, Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, New Year's Eve, the one year birthday of Declan and Lucas and then final both of their angelversaries. Four long months...I wish I could just close my eyes and February 1st would be here. I don't want to celebrate, I just want to curl up in a ball and wish it all away. Selfish of me, I know, I feel like a horrible mom, a horrible wife, a horrible person. Tonight, just sucks and I just don't want to feel like this any more.

8 months

I miss you both so much today and everyday.... Today, I can't think about all the what should have beens because I have to celebrate with two different friends that are having their own babies. I have to brave through the day with a smile and try not to think about how I wish with all my heart to have my own two baby boys in our home with us. I love you both and my love for you, Mackenzie and Kevin is what I will try my hardest to focus on.

Good-byes...

The hardest thing about losing someone you love is saying good-bye and it is not only the initial good-bye that is the hardest. It is the fact, that you have to say good-bye each and everyday for the rest of your life. I wake up in the morning and think of the boys, knowing that I said good-bye to them and that in this lifetime, I will never see them again. I see them all around me everywhere each and everyday and yet, they are not here. I get asked questions about them from curious students and am reminded that I have nothing new to tell them. I will never have new memories of the boys all I can do is hold on to the old. Yet, holding on to the old memories are so painful but it is all I have of them so, I hold on tight wanting to never let go.

It is interesting how kids grow brave over time and begin to ask questions. I have students whom never asked questions last year, now asking about the boys. Some days it is a blessing in disguise while other days I am caught off guard and attempt to answer quickly as to not get emotional. Middle school aged children are an interesting bunch, they often are quick to speak before thinking but when it comes to curiosity surrounding death, they can be exceptionally tactful. I think there are many adults out there who could take some lessons from this kids when it comes to addressing someone who is mourning the loss of a love one. Often so many adults, feel that I should be moving on with life as if this were a thing of the past, over and done with regardless of the fact that they were my children. A few of my students, whom don't think I can hear when they whisper, think the opposite, they can't believe that after 7 short months that I would be at work, talking, laughing and going on with life. Had it been them, they would never be able to go on and they would still be crying.

In a nutshell, this is my life and I find myself being resentful of the need or want for me to be all better. While at the same time, I am sad that I don't cry everyday and that I have the ability to laugh and go on without them. I feel so much guilt when I truly think about that last sentence...going on without them. I don't want to go on without them, but I don't have much choice in the matter and on most days the tears have stopped flowing. I remember thinking I just want to stop crying, I am so sick of crying and now there are days where I wish I could cry but the tears don't always come. Even though their are days when I don't shed a single tear, the fact remains the same....everyday, I say good-bye to them and everyday is still as difficult as the last without them.

5 Years

Dear God,

Today is the 5 year anniversary of my marriage to my husband, Kevin. I just wanted to thank you for bringing him in to my life and to acknowledge how truly blessed I am to have him as my husband. The last 5 years have been filled with love, laughter, joy, pain, loss, heart break and strength. While, I never imagined this would be my life after 5 years of marriage, I am in awe of his strength and unwavering love towards me and Mackenzie. It is hard to believe that after 5 years, we still don't have a house full of kids and maybe we never will? However, I will never take the life that we have built together for granted nor will I take for granted all of his hard work and love.

Today, I try to remember all of the good memories that we have shared together over the last 5 years. It seems like we have grown up together and we have so many stories to share. Yet, it is hard to focus on the positive when our grief circles up around us sometimes swallowing us whole. It is hard to enjoy talking about our plans for the day when we know our plans for tomorrow are to go visit the boys at the cemetery. Yet, we try. We try to enjoy our anniversary even though, we know this is not the life we had envision for ourselves 5 years in to our marriage. By now, we were suppose to be done having our 3 to 4 children running around the house. Instead, we still battle the question of do we continue our family or do we just treasure Mackenzie all by herself. 5 years seems like it should be such a big milestone, especially in this day and age, but I feel some disappointment.... not in my marriage but in the aspect of growing a family. So, I ask of you today, God, give me the strength to enjoy this time with my husband even when the tears start to flow. To help me be the wife that he deserves and loves. Give us the strength to endure all that lies ahead in our lives, in our family and in our marriage. Give us the strength to make the next 5 years as memorable with more love, laughter, joy, strength and with less pain, loss and heart break.

Melissa

Dreams

I am searching for Mackenzie, Declan and Lucas. I am showing pictures of the three of them to people. Mackenzie looks the same as she does now but the boys are older than when they died. They are toddlers and they look so much like Mackenzie. Declan has the same hair that Mackenzie has now but it is a brown/red much like Kevin's and Lucas has shorter hair and it is Blonde with a tint of red to it. I can still see those pictures in my mind so vividly because they were not photographs, they were oil pastel drawings that I had done of the boys. I am running through the rain, frantically looking for the kids and I come to an old barn. Mackenzie is in the barn and I am so relieved she is okay. She is scared but she is okay. I hug her and kiss her and tell her she is fine. I tell her I won't let anything ever happen to her and then I ask her where the boys are but she doesn't know. I am then back at our house with her and I leave her at our home with someone so that I can go search for the boys some more. I am crying and frantic because I can't find them, I can't save them and I know they are gone. I wake myself up and I am so upset that I couldn't save them. Once again, I couldn't save them and in an instant they were gone. My chest is aching and I have to check on Mackenzie. She is sleeping soundly but now I am back in bed and shaking out of heart ache and fear. I wish that the last almost 8 months was a bad dream I could wake up from, I wish that I could have saved them.

Emotional

I don't know if it is the date or just one of those days but I have been an emotional roller coaster all day. Remembering that today is September 11th, and thinking about that day makes my hair stand up on end. It always brings tears to my eyes and yet, even more so this particular year. I am more in tune to other peoples grief and it makes my heart heavy to think about all of those loved ones still grieving and mourning the loss of their family and friends on that very day. When we had our moment of silences today, the hair on my arms rose, the tears in my eyes welled up and my chest closed so tightly around my heart I thought I might not breath. Grief is everywhere and I am not the only one to experience it. We all suffer and have experienced it in one form or another. Whether it is as parents, spouses, friends, siblings or even as a nation, we all know how precious life is. Yet, I miss the boys so much today. Today, it makes me physically sick and I tear up over a Disney movie. Today is just hard, I want them to be here to hold, to hug and to kiss. I want them to be almost 4 months old instead of almost 8 months dead. I want to be decorating their room instead of thinking how to decorating their grave site and waiting for their marker to be placed in to the ground. I want to go back 8 months and do it all over again...to still be pregnant, to still be naive, to still be happy. I wish we could go back 8 months or 7 years and take those days away but instead we live with their memories and try to make that be enough, even though it's not.

Ecclesiastes 1:13 states, "And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith." I am trying to understand God's plan for my family and myself. But, on days like today, it hard to make sense of it all?

For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 1:18

Another Child?

Having another child has been weighing on my mind so much lately, I think because I don't know if it is the right thing to do or not? Should we or shouldn't we is what goes through my head on a daily basis. Do we risk losing another child? Do we risk the possibility of having a child with severe disabilities? Do we risk more heartbreak? I just don't know what to do? I guess I should re-phrase that as I don't know what is the RIGHT thing to do? I have always wanted to have multiple children but I am so afraid. I thought being pregnant is suppose to be an exciting, happy time? I long to have that in a pregnancy, just once. To enjoy the aches and the pains of a "normal" pregnancy without the intense fear of something horrible going wrong. I am so saddened at the FACT that I have been pregnant 5 times and dumbfounded by the fact that I only have one child here on earth with me. Yet, I am so grateful for having Mackenzie to love and watch grow so maybe I should learn to be content with her alone? However, my heart feels uncertain and our home feels too quiet and incomplete, but will those feelings outweigh and over take my fears?

I want to pray to God on this question but then I think why? What is the point? I prayed so hard and had so many people praying for us when I was in the hospital but it didn't make a difference. He still took them because he has his own plan. If he has his plan and is going to carry out that plan regardless of what I want, then praying won't make a difference? Right? I guess this is one way that I can look at what happened to us.

However, on the other hand I can think about all the prayers that I said and our family/friends said and admit that praying did work. I can hope that it was because of all those prayers that I was allowed to remain pregnant for 3 more weeks, which granted myself and my husband the opportunity to meet our sons alive. To hear them cry. To hold them. To touch them. To admit, that prayer allowed us to be with them and know they were safe and not in any pain when they died.

Which do I hold on too? The one where God has his own plan and no amount of praying will change that or the one that proves that prayer can change the outcome in the events of our life, even the horrible ones? Being stuck in the middle and leaning one way one day and the other the next day is where I am at right now. This is why I am so unsure of us having more children? How do I just take that leap of faith? Especially, when I know how devastating it can be when you are fighting to believe that everything is going to turn out okay and it doesn't. I want to know, HOW? If I knew how, if someone could explain it to me so I could understand it. I would do it but I need to know how? How to let go of it all...the fear, the questions, the uncertainty, the unknown? I will do it but I need to know how to take that leap of unwaivering faith.

Tired...

Starting work this week has been mentally, physically and even emotionally draining for me. It has been a needed distraction and always feels good to be back helping my students. While, I welcome the distraction, I also can not deny the fact that it has been a little tough. I have thought about the boys and how I should have been taking them to their first day of daycare. How hectic our mornings would have been trying to get 3 kids under the age of two off to daycare in time to go teach middle school children. It was just a sad day to know that this wasn't going to happen and on the first day it brought tears to my eyes as I drove my lonesome self to work.

Needless to say, I have been looking for something to help remind me of the beauty in life even while I miss the boys. So yesterday, I was on a dear friend of mines blog, Devon, who also lost her twin boys almost 6 months ago. On her site, she had the most beautiful pictures of her boy's names written in the sand. As I read more about these pictures, she provided a blog of a wonderful mother whom will write your children's names in the sand and photograph them for you. So, yesterday I emailed this mother and provided her with some information about Declan and Lucas. I was hopeful that maybe in a few weeks I would have some beautiful pictures of my very own. Well low and behold they arrived today. They are so beautiful and I am so grateful to this mother, of whom is a stranger to me, that she would do such an amazing gesture and provide such an amazing gift. This strong amazing woman had her child born to her stillborn on January 26, 2007. She knows the grief that so many of us suffer and yet she reaches out to us by writing their names in the sand to honor them and all that they mean. On an even happier note, she had a daughter born one year later on January 30, 2008. She provides us with a glimpse of hope in the life of a her newborn daughter, all while remembering and loving the child that she has lost. You can go to her site and see all the beautiful pictures that she has taken here.




When I look at these pictures, how can I not see a god and heaven?