Rewind

I keep replaying certain days and moments in my head lately, part of the grieving process I am sure. I have so been missing my sweet Koralyn and my mom as well these last few days. I would like to get some of my replayed memories out, so here it goes.

I remember it like it was yesterday, it was not long ago. A Sunday the 20th to be exact, two days before my 30th birthday, a milestone birthday. Anyone who really knows me, knows birthdays are important to me, I love them, my own and everyone elses too! I love to celebrate and decorate and have a blast. I had opened a gift from my mom the night before that of course said, "do not open until your birthday." I didn't follow my moms directions and opened my gift early. It was a book, a daily devotional to be exact "Jesus Calling." Oh how very glad I am that I opened my gift early!

We had just finished dinner at the Ronald Mcdonald House, Italian, cooked by my wonderful friends, Cyndi, Stephanie, Doug, and Jennifer. We had stayed a little longer than planned, talking and eating and feeling blessed to have such a wonderful church family. We finally pulled ourselves away and gathered the boys things to go back home with Amos for the week. Walking along the sidewalk outside the old clinic building, I picked up my phone and realized I had missed several calls from my family members. I said to Amos who was walking ahead of me with Asher on his shoulders and Asa at his side carrying all their things "uh oh, something must be wrong everyone is calling me." The first person that popped into my head was my grandmother, Gran as we call her. I thought maybe she was sick, or hurt, or worse. I called my sister and immediatly heard her wailing, my heart leaped in my chest and I then assumed it was one of my nephews, Jack or Tyler. I thought oh no, one of them has been seriously hurt or maybe even killed. My sister through her sobs was telling me she and Jeff and Larae were at the hospital and something terrible had happened. I kept asking her what and she just kept telling me its bad Kenda, its so bad. Finally, on shaky knees I yelled at her and demanded she tell me what was going on. She cried more and said it was mom, Kenda, its mom. She blurted out that mom was in an accident and she was dead, dead Kenda, mom is dead. I laughed one hard laugh from my gut and said no! At first I literally thought it was a joke, that my sister and my mom were playing a joke on me. By this time Amos who was standing at the end of the sidewalk waiting to cross the street, figured out something bad was happening, I had stopped and was pacing back and forth by some stairs leading into the old clinic building. I will forever remember that sidewalk, where we were standing, what was said, what was felt in those first moments of getting life altering, life shattering news.

I didn't know where to go, what to say, I remembering saying no, over and over again, my sister saying yes over and over again and sobbing lots of sobbing. I remember asking my sister what they were doing, if she was sure, if she had actually seen my mom, what were her plans. Then I was so confused at first I started walking towards the hospital but realized I wasn't going to be able to walk into that building at this moment, so I told Amos we needed to go back to the RMH. As I was walking up the walkway to the front door of RMH I fell into the arms of my friend Stephanie. It was by God's grace that as we were walking back in, all my friends who were there that night were walking out. I truly believe God placed them there to help get us through those first moments when you can't breath or move or think. Stephanie immediately thought something had happened to Koralyn and asked "what happened to the baby." I said its not Koralyn, its my mom, my mom is dead, she was in an accident. I was trembling clutching Stephanie for dear life as Amos stood behind us. Eventually the group lead me inside to sit in the foyer of RMH as I sobbed, at this point Asa was scared and saying his tummy hurt and Amos was confused. I remember Cyndi getting on her knees in front of me and talking me through those first moments. Telling me I could do this, I had to for my husband and my boys, that this would be the hardest thing I ever had to do (that is other then give my child back to the one who gave her a short 2 months later) but that I could, I would do it. I would get through it, it would be hard and awful and ugly but with God and my family I could do it. Again Gods grace, he placed those 4 precious souls there that night to help me, Cyndi having experienced the untimely death of her own mother a few years earlier. I look back and think how amazing it is, the way God works, even in the midst of our worst nightmares, he is there carrying us.

The next few hours are a blur, I know I called my dad and Clint I talked calmly to Jeff about getting things started for my moms funeral and me getting out to New Mexico within the next couple of days. I tried again to talk to my sister, but I could not understand her words through her pain soaked sobs. Amos decided to stay at RMH in our room with the boys and I eventually headed back over to the hospital to see my sweet Koralyn, to hold her and love her and break the news to her nurse, so that she could then break the news to everyone else. While walking back over alone I called my friends, Stacie and Amanda, I needed them to grieve with me, to know my big awful secret. They two thougt at first that something had happened to Koralyn. I guess we all think our mothers will always be around, that we won't have to bury them until they, and we are old and gray. Some days it still seems unreal that my mom, the one who raised me, who was my security and comfort for so long, is gone. No longer here to talk, or hear my worries or complaints or funny stories about my boys. No longer here to call and ask me what I had for dinner, like only a mother would.

I went to Koralyns room in the corner of the NICU and told the nurse standing at the end of Koralyns crib that my mother had just been killed in a motorcycle accident. I remember loving on Koralyn and then going to the chapel down the hall, with the big stain glass of Noahs Ark. Sitting in the back pew by the window and calling my moms phone, willing her to pick up, tell me this was all a bad joke or a dream, telling me everything was going to be okay. I remember crying into her voicemail that I was sorry and I loved her and I wanted her to pick up, just pick up the phone mom. She didn't of course.

Sweet Amber came to sit with me late that night, in Koralyns room, she loved me and talked to me about her husbands big plans to honor God and his mom, who had recently passed away due to cancer. Somehow, I eventually made it back to our room on the second floor of RMH, where my sweet boys slept peacefully, and my husband met me at the door with worried eyes. I laid next to him and cried and eventually fell asleep. waking the next morning confused and then quickly struck with the realization that my mom, my 55 year old mom was no longer going to call me on my cell at 8:00am to ask me how our sweet Koralyn was doing.

The next morning I remember once again walking into Koralyns room and seeing sweet nurse Debbie standing there with Koralyn. She looked at me with kind and knowing eyes and gave me a hug. She told me she was proud of me and that I would be all right. You see, She was the most perfect person to take this 12 hour shift with us. She had lost her sweet 17 year old son in an auto accident and then her husband to cancer a year later. She knew my grief and it was such a blessing and a comfort to have her there with us. I will be forever greatful to her and to God for placing her there. Amazing woman for sure!

On the plane ride to New Mexico I sat down in one of the last rows with a window seat, realizing I would need to pump during the flight to keep my milk supply going. Two nice women sat down next to me. The older one nearest to me was so sweet and kind and helped me get my cover up over my head and everything situated, she talked about her daughters having to do the same thing for their children. Never asking questions about where my baby or rest of my family were. She and her daughter sitting next to me told me about how they were on a girls trip and were headed to meet the other sister/daughter in Seattle for a special week, just mother and daughters. I sat there thinking how ironic it all was.I wanted to blurt out that I was leaving my sick baby in the nicu to go bury my dead mom in the ground but didn't want to crush their happy spirit or ruin their trip with my sad story, so I smiled and said how nice it was. I left the flight feeling happy I hadn't ruined their fun and realizing I wasn't in Albuquerque to visit my mom but to plan her funeral and carry it out. I walked through the big revolving doors to where everyone stands to wait and at first I didn't see my sister but a women standing with her back to me, short red hair done just right and I thought to myself, oh,theres mom,
then my sister came into view and cold hard reality punched me in the gut.

Looking back at these first dark and awful days after my mom died, I see the hurt and pain and ugliness of it all, but I can also see Gods amazing mercy and grace in the people that walked alongside me, sometimes carrying me. I can say with certainty that God is still good, he is still my God and he is ever gracious and ever loving and he shows us, we just have to be open to seeing him in it.

"It is hard to have patience with people who say "death doesn't matter." There is death. And whatever IS matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it, and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter." C.S. Lewis

We can experience joy in adverse circumstances by holding God's benefits in such esteem that the recognition of them and meditation upon them shall overcome all sorrow." John Calvin

On Grief

Grief is a nasty thing. Its sneaky, like a thief in the night, it catches you off guard and knocks the wind out of you, dashes your hopes, makes you fear. Grief.

Since being home I am struck by the fact that things are much like before I left for the 15 weeks I was missing from my home, being a wife and a mom to my boys, living in my house, sleeping in my bed. The lost summer, as I like to call it. Of course there are differences, my kids got a little taller, a little older, maybe a little less innocent. My belly is no longer swollen with life as it was before, my mom no longer calls in the mornings before breakfast and in the evenings before dinner. From the outside looking in, you would never know we just went through hell and back again. The tunnel I wanted so badly to get out of, spit me harshly back into the glaring, hot, unforgiving sun and I am blinded now by that light I wanted to see, stumbling around, trying to regain my sight, get my bearings, figure out this new strange and yet eerily simliar land to the one I was in before I entered the tunnel.

Many people have compared the battle I just went through to the one of a soldier, and now here I am. I survived and have been brought back to my homeland. Yet I am forever changed, forever scared by what I have seen, and tasted and been through. When a soldier comes home, people expect them to be so happy and thankful and just get back into their lives and yet if we look at statistics that is rarely ever the case. So many times the soldier has trouble finding his balance, just getting back to "normal" life. Because of what he has witnessed, he will never be the same again, and he tries hard to reconcile his "new" old life with the one he had before he left and the one he lived while fighting his battle. Its hard and ugly and lonely. Grief is the loneliest road you will ever walk, no matter how many people you have around you, at some point you are left alone with  your grief and you have to find a way through it or drown in the waves that seem to overtake you every time your head reaches above water. Along with the grief comes massive guilt. You see, he wants to just get back to normal living but when he tries and succeeds, the guilt knocks and says, "how dare you have a happy thought, a smile, a moment of excitement anything good." The thoughts of what has been lost, the people that are no longer able to enjoy life overwhelms him and here comes another wave.

I am experiencing a lot of that guilt, I have moments of happiness, where I think to myself, wow, things are just like before and here I am at home again. Like I have finally come out of slumber and realized that it was all a bad dream. Having littles its hard to not go on and have to get back in the game, they need, and want and expect. So much feels the same and yet on the inside I am screaming, NO, NO, NO, Koralyn was here, she was real, she was worthy, I have the scars, both physical and emotional to show for her life. We all do, the boys ask a lot of questions that we try to answer to the best of our ability. There is a constant ache in my heart, everywhere I go I see and think about Koralyn. Every store with little girls clothes, every pregnant mama, her belly full of promise and life. Every baby stroller and highchair, the baby section in the grocery store, the Ronald Mcdonald House donation flyers at the mattress store and in the drive thru at Mcdonalds. Grief stalks you, it becomes your invisible partner, shadowing you wherever you turn. You look out and see all these people and you wonder do they know? Can they tell? You want them to know, you want them to know you loved this precious life and now she is gone and it hurts and it sucks and life is hard. You want them to say she mattered, she was and is loved, her life was  not wasted. You want to tell them about her smile and the way she kicked and got excited when you talked to her.  The way she felt in your arms, what a fighter she was, what a blessing she was. How something is missing and your heart will never be the same.

Along with the grief of Koralyn comes the grief of losing my mom. So evident when the phone no longer rings in the mornings and evenings. So evident when I am sick or the kids are sick and she doesn't call several times to check on us. Many times I have caught myself thinking about when she will call, or that I need to call her, then it hits me in the gut that she won't be calling. A hole, a constant hole. Even though my mom and I have lived so far apart for the last almost 8 years she was a bigger part of my life then I realized. When a daughter loses a mother she loses a piece of her identity. So much of what happened in my life, I told my mom about, related it to her, experienced it through telling her about it. Even when you are grown, you want your mom to be proud of you, love you and know you are doing your best. So many times lately I have thought about how things are a little less sweet or fun or colorful because I can't tell her about it anymore. Part of me just wants my mom, you never lose the need for your mom, I know that now. The morning of Koralyn's funeral my Mom was surely missed, the realization that she was no longer here was cold and real.When I realized she would have been taking care of us, making sure my kids were dressed and fed even through her grief she still woudl have been taking care of me in mine, and while my Aunt and Sister were there, nothing can replace your mom. This is both heartbreaking and so wonderful to know as a mom myself, if you do your job right you will be loved and missed, and as mothers, don't we all want to know we are needed and appreciated. My moms missed presence is a testament to the kind of mom she was, she did well, she did her job.

In this day and age we aren't allowed to grieve for long, we are supposed to get back up and pretend that things are okay and be tough and go on. I always thought it was so funny in Gone With The Wind when Scarlett is so tired of wearing her grief clothes over the death or her husband. I only wish we still followed these practices so that people knew to be kind and patient and loving towards you, you just went through a battle and lost someone near and dear to you. I wonder, who decided to do away with all these rituals that helped you and the community around you to heal and acknowledge and grieve? It is so helpful and good, when people acknowledge your grief, your loss, your hurt. I believe God made us to meet each other in our grief, after all Jesus was called a man of sorrows, he knew grief didn't he. He met Mary and Martha in their grief and wept with them.  I want to say to all who have met us in our grief, thank you, you have made a difference in our lives. We love you and know you love us and we are so thankful for you. To all who know someone grieving, meet them in their grief and help carry them, if only for a day or an hour, you won't regret it and they will be forever greatful.

This post might seem crazy, it was written over several 10 minute periods at the Mcdonalds play area, while my boys played. I am posting it now, because I want to and have more to say in other posts that are still in my head waiting to come out. Hope it makes sense!