yesterday, my sweet friend danielle gave birth to her baby boy.
only it was all so wrong. again. a couple days ago, her and her husband found out that their sweet baby boy had died in her womb. he was strong and healthy and thirty-nine weeks gestation and just waiting to be born.
and once again i had to be reminded that life is fragile and a whisper and passing away.
last night i lay in bed, tormented by my one regret from eisley’s life. i have replayed it a million times, tried to fix it a million times…and yet time and time again i find myself back at my parents’ house at christmastime, working, working on something. and sarah calls from the other room, “hey come in here for a second. she’s moving around.” and i reply, “ok just a sec” but i finish whatever i am doing.
i can’t even remember what i was doing. i think it was something about christmas. you know, preparation. something that needed to be done. i just can’t remember what. but i finished, maybe just a minute or two passed. i set my stuff down and walked in the room and put my hand on sarah’s tummy…but eisley had drifted off to sleep and stopped kicking.
i felt eisley quite a few times during her 31 weeks in utero. i honestly don’t know why my mind keeps replaying that one scenario. i don’t know why it can’t replay all the times i did stop and feel her kick. grief is a weird thing you know. it hits you deep, hard, sharp when you least expect it. it floods you like a gigantic tidal wave, just when you think you are doing okay. it sneaks in like a pesky mosquito and manages to bite you while you think you are peacefully sleeping. oh grief. you are a pain in the booty.
my friend irina share a quote with me the other day. “there is no end to grief . . . and there is no end to love.” i know that i have to look forward. for me, i have realized a few things. i have become very quick to drop everything i am doing just to snuggle “just one more time” with mercy before bed. and to stop everything and help addy paint/glue/cut “just one more project” before we do chores or homework. when christian says, “hey do you have a second, i want to show you something” i don’t find myself struggling between that and “what needs to be done.” i am not so worried about “what needs to be done” these days. people. i find myself much more concerned about people than tasks.
this post is for danielle and her husband nathan. i am so proud of them these past few days. i don’t even know nathan, but i know a little of the shock and pain he is feeling right now. i know a little of the anger and doubt and fear and sadness and desperation and bargaining and grief that will follow. i have watched from afar as they bravely went through the delivery of their precious baby boy, knowing that they would never meet him alive and well. and this post is for sweet william harrison, who i will never meet on this earth but i have a feeling is making quite the playmate for my sweet eisley hope right about now. today our hearts are aching for yet another sweet little person that we should be snuggling. i am so thankful that there is no end to love.
goodnight sweet william…have fun playing with eisley…but beware, she has small but mighty klein girl blood in her. 😉
