could wreck me. Rip my heart into a thousand tiny shreds all over again. Wash over me with a sadness so deep, so profound that my body felt too heavy for me to carry.
I wrote them all Valentine sentiments. Even Mercy & Sam. I know they can't read them, I know there is no Valentine's Day in Heaven, I know it's just for me, and for Charles, and for Eva, Charley and Max.
I KNOW ALL THESE THINGS.
Yet, the Mommy in me is terrified they somehow think or feel that we are forgetting them. That they will know and be hurt if I don't remind them of how much they are loved, missed, cherished-how perfectly God created them for the life that they lived. How connected to Him they were because they had such a short time to influence the rest of us-to leave their legacy-to inspire great FAITH.
Inspiration-
I'm trying every. single. day. to find it somewhere.
In the soft and gentle hugs of my Max.
The gentle whisper of a breeze when Eva whirls by, dancing her heart out.
Hiding in the pools of Charley's inquisitive eyes.
Radiating from the selfless servant heart of my precious husband.
Infusing the cries of the prayers we whispered to our precious Holy Father when it all just became...
Too. Much.
Sometimes the strangest part of this is walking through it with Cassie. As I watched my 13 year old wander off to bed last night, my heart broke again for the loss of her innocence. For the pain she hides behind her eyes, for the cracking and shattering of the rose colored glass her eyes were once hidden behind.
And I flashed back the day we brought Eva home from the hospital, Cassie meeting us at the door, taking our picture in front of the sweet stork in our front yard, Noah and Gav fascinated by this little tiny human. With an intensity that nearly knocked me over, the desire to be back there once again washed over me...back where we began, where life seemed so complex, but was yet so simple. Because they were all alive. And despite whatever seemingly insurmountable life complications we thought were in our way...
we were happy. We were whole. We were mommies.
I woke this morning to the bleeding of her heart, voicing a carbon copy to the hole in my soul...
I'm tired of being broken.
Tired of being sad.
A part of me died that day.
I want to feel better.
I want to feel joy.
Instead I just feel tired.
I feel different.
I feel subdued.
Quiet.
Bewildered.
Awkward.
I'm tired of feeling alone.
I miss him.
Tired of having one kid instead of two.
Tired of cringing when a stranger asks me about my kids.
I just want to feel normal again.
I know EXACTLY how she feels. And it's not often one soul can say that to another. But I can. And I wish I didn't. I wish she didn't know how I feel. I wish I didn't know that we'd never be "normal" again.
Sometimes I wonder if she would have let him finish driving alone if she wasn't distracted by the horrific circumstances that had invaded my life.
And now, because it's what we do, I'll somehow find my own blame in her pain.
And I know it's not my fault, I know that if she had still been following him it would have been even worse, because she would have been following him instead of the doctor who saved him and gave her the gift of 6 days.
But because I love her, I want to take a piece of her pain. Take just enough to make her see the tiniest spot of hope. Take just enough to make her a little less tired.
We did that for each other when we first met. We had the uncanny ability to somehow shoulder one another's burdens, to be the wall the crap got thrown against, to motivate the other to step a little higher, work a little harder, strive stronger.
And now? For the first time ever-we truly know how the other feels.
And it sucks.
On a epic level, life without our kids sucks.
It's a bond that we hate, a bond that we'd sever in an instant if it meant one of us could have our kids back.
And I wish I could say I only had one of those bonds. But I don't.
I share it with another set of precious friends, friends who traveled this road before Charles and I, whose love and wisdom has kept us afloat when we thought we might drown.
I see it in their eyes too. And in the eyes of every other "left behind" parent we've bonded with in this awful club.
Longing. Soul crushing, heartwrenching, faith shaking LONGING.
For what was, what is, and what will never be.
Tenaciously, we cling to what is left of our lives. We cling to the future of the children we have left, and we pray, we beg, we plead and we bargain-
for them.
For the loss of their innocence, the longing in their eyes, the pain and the holes in their hearts.
We plead for joy, for the passage of time and for the patience to wait for the peace that will only come when we are each reunited as the families God created us to be.
With the Lord, one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
2 Peter 3:8b-9
As always,
with love and by His Grace,
clan mac mama
