Things I would say.

I am very stressed over the upcoming Thanksgiving Holiday. I feel the need to prepare and make everything good and hopefully smooth. In the meantime, I seem to be making myself sick and miserable with worry. Forgetting what the holiday is supposed to be about and focusing on what I will look like and all I need accomplish. Walking through the stores this week buying different Thanksgiving Day meal ingredients, I can't seem to believe that its my turn, that I am old enough to be hosting and cooking the meal. Oh how I miss the days of driving to my mom's and sleeping late. Not understanding why she was so crabby and stressed out. She worked hard to make sure things were just right and up to someones standards. Then there I was relaxing and smelling the food cooking in the kitchen and the anticipation of it all coming to a rolling boil in the living room! I miss those days, can't believe they are gone really. I wonder if my mom were still alive, what our Thanksgivings would look like. Certainly not like this upcoming one I believe.

I get it now, why my mom was so stressed that is. She built up this standard in her mind that she needed to live up to. I assume her mom helped her concoct this unattainable standard, and probably her mom's mom before that. I think most women have it, ingrained somewhere deep down, whether it goes many generations back or just one. So instead of basking in the meaning of Thanksgiving, she was wallowing in the muck of expectations, her own or someone elses. Now as her daughter, looking back on all those holidays when she worked so hard and seemed so endlessly stressed, I appreciate more her effort. I also wish I could go back, I bet she does too, now having the perspective she does. I can hear her tell me to calm down. None of these things I am worrying so much about are even going to matter, and heck if I burn the turkey, we can all load up and go to the best chinese buffet in the metroplex. She would probably tell me, if she could do it over, that she wouldn't care so much about creating the perfect image, she would care more about actually living in, and enjoying the sweet moment given. Trying harder to grasp the real meaning and moment instead of some image someone told her she had to accomplish. I think she would be less stressed about someones expectations and more concerned with  what matters. What really matters on Thanksgiving, isn't the perfect food, or the decorations or the dust on my blinds and baseboards or lack therof. What matters are the people and the blessings and the THANKFULNESS. Don't get me wrong, I also think my Mom worked so hard on all those Thanksgiving and Christmases past because she wanted us to love and enjoy them. She wanted us to have happy and joyus memories of those times to carry with us, and oh do I ever. I have so many sweet memories of her efforts, but I also remember her being so worn and stressed and yes sometimes just a tad bit crabby because of it! Of course what mom doesn't have her crabby moments, am I right!?

A few weeks ago I sat at the kitchen table with Abram. Just him and me, eating a quiet lunch together while the older boys were at school. I sat enjoying his sweet company and the rare quiet in my home. I looked around at the table and chairs and suddenly it struck me. There were four empty chairs at the table in that moment. Four. I sat there thinking who would fill those chairs. Thinking of the four people that have died over the last 2 1/2 years. Thinking what I would say to them if they were sitting around that table right at that very moment. I looked at the chair closest to me and thought first of my sweet Koralyn. I thought of her as a small child, around the age she would be, 2. Thought about what she would want for lunch, what juice would be her favorite, what meds I would be giving her with each meal. I also thought of her as a grown woman. What would I say, if given the chance. I would start by telling her how much I love and miss her. How I am so sorry for feeling overwhelmed by her many medical issues. I am sorry for my fear and my doubt. Sorry for the days in the NICU I could have held her, but was too afraid to mess up all her wires and tubes, or too afraid to bother the doctors and nurses with my requests. Sorry for all the early mornings she was awake and talking it up with all the nurses and I was over at RMH sleeping. I would ask her about her favorite things. I would tell her thank you for the amazing gift that she was and tell her about my very favorite times with her. My pregnancy and growing belly, the moment in the medical building after the first world spinning diagnosis. When I clutched my swollen belly and told her how much I loved her and how it was going to be okay. The moment we learned she was a girl! The precious rainy day we spent in room A18 snuggling in the purple chair. Feeling a bit normal, just getting to hold and love on my newborn daughter as she slept and snuggled next to my chest. I would hug her, hold her. Feel her precious hand in mine and her sweet breath on my neck as she hugged me. Feel her beating heart in her chest up next to mine.

I moved on to the chair next to Koralyn's and thought of my Mother. Oh what I wouldn't give to be able to say a proper goodbye. I would ask her if she was scared in her last moments. I would tell her I am so sorry for that pain. I would tell her I loved her and that I am so sorry for all the times as a teenager that I was awful and ungrateful and took her for granted. The times I thought it was all her fault that my parents divorced, not seeing her effort in the 18 years they were married. Not remembering her struggle and her tears. I would thank her for sitting by my hospital bed all those years ago as my little body endured open heart surgery. Keeping vigil with me all those weeks, fighting for me, being scared and worried. I would tell her as a mom to a precious baby girl with a heart defect I understand better what she went through. Her pain, her exhaustion. I would tell her I remember and am so thankful for the many sweet moments she gave me over my lifetime. The Christmas mornings full of stockings and bikes and toys, even though we lived in a double wide trailer and I know they struggled to pay the bills and often used lay away to give us those gifts. The thoughts and effort she put into our days. I would thank her for the moments she taught me to be kind and think of others and give back. Like all the Christmases we picked angels from the angel tree at the mall. How much fun we had buying those gifts and thinking of the joy of those kids. I would remind her about the times in middle school when we would cry together every night, because I was being bullied and I dreaded walking those mean halls every day. I didn't know at the time how that must have been so gut wrenching for her as much as it was for me. I would Thank her for that Valentines day in the 6th grade when she bought me one of the biggest bouquets of chocolate roses and sent them to my homeroom as a secret admirer. She knew all the other girls would be getting something, it was a thing the student council did every year and for a dork, in stirrup pants and oversized glasses the chance of being gifted a chocolate rose or a pink carnation was slim. She knew I would be teased and dissapointed when my name never got called to get my Valentine surprise. She was thinking of me. She thought of me more then I knew really. That Valentines Day stands as one of the best in my memory, because no one knew the secret admirer was actually my mom, one of the only fun and exciting days I had in my horrid middle school career.  Her heart broke with mine, I know that now, as a mom myself. I would tell her she did a good job, she loved me the best she could and tried so hard to make things good for me. Oh how I miss her.

Next as I sat thinking, my Grandma came to mind. I wondered what she would say to me. She died March 2012, when I was nine months pregnant with Koralyn and couldn't fly out to attend her funeral. She was the first of the deaths that would occur. She was 94 when she died. She went quickly and died just 7 weeks before her 55 year old daughter would be killed. She had already buried one daughter years earlier, so we were grateful she was already gone when my mom got killed. Mom's grave is just below Grandma and Grandpa's. I sat for a moment still, thinking of my words to her. I would tell her that I am thankful for all the times she encouraged me and let me know she was so proud of me. I would apologize again, for my atrocious behavior as a teenage girl. the times when I was so self centered and became angry and impatient when she would ask for a ride to the post office or the store. I would tell her now, if I could go back and do that over, it would be different of course, I would be different. A bit less awful and selfish, a bit more gracious and thankful. For often it was her that would give me rides to and from school after my parents divorced and my Grandma became like a mom to me really. We would talk about the memories we share, the lunches at Furrs and the ice cream cones at Mcdonalds. The long drives to my middle school I was transferred to, to try and escape the ridicule and threats that became constant. The nights when I was smaller and we would cuddle in my mom's old room as the clock radio played Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. I would lay there with her and look at the old paintings of New York, or at least I imagined thats what those water colors depicted. I would dream of visiting that city and fall asleep safe and cozy in that little house on Mockingbird Lane. Always waking to the smell of eggs cooking or bacon frying the next morning. I would thank her for her help in shaping my childhood and giving me so many good memories along the way.

Last but not least, my Dad. Who in recent months had sat at this very table, celebrating Christmas and birthdays, as well as everyday life. My words to him would be much the same. I would tell him I am so glad my sister and I got to help usher him home when his time came. Thank him for his love, let him talk and tell me his thoughts now.

By the time I sat at my table and made it around to the last chair, the chair my dad would be sitting in, I was emotionally exhausted. I sat there and also wondered what the conversation would sound like between all of them. What would they say to one another? What would my mom say to sweet Koralyn, or to her mom. What would they all say to my dad. I think those conversations would be tempered now, with regrets but also a lot of laughter and a heaping of grace towards one another.

I remember right before Koralyn was born, my mom called one night as I was driving to Walgreens for shampoo for the boys. Stocking up for my time away I knew was about to happen. My mom was so broken. She cried and told me about the night before Grandma died. How she had gone to the nursing home and realized Grandma had signed some paper, refusing to go to physical therapy and not realizing that it would void her payments and her status at the home. My mom was a worrier like me, and a big ball of stress most times. She told me about how she got so frustrated and angry with Grandma and how she had yelled at her in the dining room in front of her friends. Eventually she helped her to her room and into her bed, telling her she would take care of the problem. She told me Grandma seemed stressed and sad after the incident and didn't say much as Mom left. Then the next morning Mom got the call that Grandma seemed to have had a stroke at the breakfast table and she needed to come right away. By the time Mom made it to her side Grandma was being loaded into an ambulance. I can still hear the pain and anguish in my Mom's voice as she told me she got up close to my Grandma and told her she loved her. Said it three times loud, making sure to look grandma in the eyes, for some sign she knew, she knew of the love and desperation in my Mom's voice. Mom said she slightly nodded, but couldn't talk at that point. She died the next day, with my sister holding her hand in that hospital room in Albuquerque. Mom cried and just talked about the great guilt she felt, wondered if the stress of her yelling at Grandma had sent her into this medical crisis and death. Wishing she could change it. Go back, give grace, do it differently. Little did I know not two months later I would be standing over Mom's casket as they lowered it into the ground next to Grandma's grave.

I sat at my dining room table thinking all these heavy thoughts. Feeling regret and sadness, but also being grateful for all these people, all these lives I had a part in. All this love and these lessons. I believe now that all four of these great people would have words of love and wisdom for me. They would have a different perspective. I believe they would tell me to do my best, work hard and be thankful. Slow down and live. Forget about all these silly requirements and expectations we put on ourselves. Be kind, for all that matters and is sacred, be kind, and show love every single chance you get. If you screw up, don't live with that regret, say sorry, make amends and try to do better with every forward step you make.But also remember to give grace to yourself because we have a Father who has given us amazing grace and mercy and we don't do him any service when we can't remember we are forgiven.  They would tell me not to be afraid, there is more to come and its bigger and brighter and better then anything we can imagine here on earth. I believe they would tell me to keep running my race and to finish well. Love is what matters. Not romantic love the world thinks of, but Agape love, like the love God gives us.

So this Thanksgiving, as I sit around this very table with the loved ones I do have left; I will try hard to remember these lessons I am still learning, from those that have passed on. I will love them in these moments, I will be thankful for them and these breathes we get to take. I will try not to worry so much about the dust and the noise and whether or not everyone thinks I am a good cook or a stellar decorator. I will think about what I would say to those who are gone. Yet, instead of feeling regret for those things I can't change and those words I will never get to say, I will pour all that love into those that remain and I will do my very best to cherish them all and not waste one minute the good Lord has given us as we journey here on this earth.

If you are still blessed to have all of your family members with you, say those things you need to say. Tell them sorry, tell them thank you, tell them you love them so much. Don't wait, because tomorrow may never come, for either you, or those you love. You don't want to be sitting around an empty table thinking of all the things you should have said. Say them now. Be thankful and say them now.

"And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!”  Revelation 14:13

Because He Lives

I know many of you know part of this story I am about to tell, but I feel very lead to tell it again, in full, as best I can.

I came to faith at a very young age, so I feel like there is very little of my life without knowing Jesus. I have strayed, as most do at some point, but even in my straying I have always known and felt God has been with me. Some claim to hear God speak often. While I do feel the Holy Spirit and his leading in my life, I haven't had many occasions where I have heard God speak to me. I think if we were honest most of us don't, at least not in the way some think and like to portray or us crazy Christians. So anyway, here is my story of hearing God speak to me.

The night before our sweet Koralyn died I was standing by her bed talking to God. Not out loud of course, which sometimes I do when alone, but  talking to him none the less. My pleas went something like this. God you cannot take my baby from me, you have already taken my grandma and my mom and if you take my only daughter I will not make it. There is no way I can walk out of this hospital and go on living if you take my daughter God. Please just not that Lord. Don't ask me to do this, I have already had to bury too many, not her Lord, not this. Please God, Please. Later in the PICU bathroom, I got down on my face and prayed that the Lord would please send us a miracle, I knew he could do it if he wanted to. So please let us, let Koralyn be a miracle. As I finished my prayer on my hands and knees in that bathroom I told God I wanted this miracle more then anything I have ever wanted but that ultimately it was His will not mine. If he decided against a miracle please give us the strength to go on somehow. Your will, God not mine oh but please can our wills be the same this time.

Earlier, as I was pleading with God and standing by my daughter's hospital bed holding her hand, I heard God speaking to me. Not audibly of course, like some big booming voice in the movies, but I knew it was him. You see as I was telling God I wouldn't be able to live if he took my daughter, a song suddenly started playing in my head. This song wasn't one I grew up hearing all that often. It wasn't a family favorite or one I had even heard more then a few times. Yet suddenly, this songs chorus kept replaying in my mind. "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know, He holds the future, and life is worth the living just because He lives." I think standing there in that moment, I knew my daughter was going to die. God was telling me, "I am going to take her Kenda, but you can go on living, because I live and that will be enough. Sometimes it may not feel like, these days ahead will be your darkest yet, but rest assured dear one, you can indeed go on living, because I live."

Fast forward a day or two and we are at the cemetery to pick our daughter's plot. The care taker took us to the baby section first. The cemetery where Koralyn is buried is considered historic and was started sometime in the late 1800s. The baby section is located in a newer, less used part. I immediately hated it. Unlike the rest of the place, this section had no trees and in July, standing there for just a few minutes I was burning up. It felt so bright and blistering hot. I stood there and thought about my baby in that ground next to the other babies and I hated it. I didn't want her to be hot and in the constant unforgiving Texas sun. I of course know its not her, only her body but it just didn't seem right. So the nice man, in his boat shoes and his Carnival cruise shirt, told us he had some spots open in the more historic part of the cemetery. I told him yes, please take us there because I hate this place.

We stopped in front of two very large trees near the back of the graveyard. He told us which plots were available. I liked this spot much better, I could see myself coming to visit her here. Sitting with her and bringing her flowers and such. As we were standing there, my Aunt pointed out the cross directly in front of the spot we had decided on. It had the name Sheila on it. Sheila was my Aunt that passed away from a brain tumor years earlier. She was an awesome fun lady, and I have many happy memories that include her. I walked over to look at the front of the cross and noticed a bench. On the pink marble bench were engraved the words, Because He Lives, I Can Face Tomorrow. I knew in that moment that this was the spot I wanted my daughter to be buried in. As I have visited her grave often in the past two years, I have noticed how many other babies and children are near her grave. Some living a month, others a few years. Some buried the same times as their mothers. Some lived and died all in one day. As I stand over these graves I often wonder if my Koralyn has met these precious souls. I picture her up in heaven knowing of me, knowing these other children who were probably as loved and as missed as she has been. I take comfort in that, and one day I picture meeting all these beloved souls myself. I often go to the bench and marvel at how God can speak to us even today, if we are willing to listen. I don't believe that bench just happens to be there because of coincidence or fate. I believe its because of God and his care for the brokenhearted.

Then on the 2nd anniversary of Koralyn's death, we found ourselves far from her grave and asked friends to take her flowers and balloons so her grave would not be bare. I had a hard time being away from her grave on that day, but took comfort in the fact that my sweet friends were taking her special things. Again not that I believe Koralyn is there, I know she is not. Her grave is all I have left on this earth to take care of for her. As a mother I want so badly to take care of her, and visiting her grave and keeping it nice and decorated is a way I can tangibly do that here on earth.

 We had decided to take a quick family vacation to Arkansas. Our original vacation to Boston was canceled, when just a few days before, it was determined the time had come for my dad to be put on hospice. While in Arkansas, I decided we were so close to Branson that we should detour and take our boys to Silver Dollar City. This theme park is based on an 1880s mining town and celebrates American craftsmen and the good ol days. I have some very good memories of going to Silver Dollar City with my dad, my cousins, and my grandparents. So we thought this heavy day, would be a perfect day to go have fun and make happy memories with our boys. It was a very bittersweet day. As I walked the park and remembered the happy memories my Dad tried to make for me, during a very scary time in my life, as my parents divorced and I moved around. It was made even more bittersweet by the fact that my sister had told me,that morning, that Dad's condition was starting to deteriorate rapidly. He seemed confused and a lot of his talking was jibberish. He didn't really want to eat or drink much either and was sleeping a lot. I remember standing on a bridge waiting for the boys to ride the Log Ride with their daddy, and thinking about the weight of all this death and grief. I wondered what it would be like to take our Koralyn to a theme park, would she enjoy riding in her stroller and people watching. I remembered my grandfather Pop, and my dad, trying hard to give me good memories here and how strange it was that Pop had been gone for awhile, and now it wouldn't be long until his second son, my dad would join him. I thought back to those days with my young dad, thought about what I would do differently, what I would do again. I also thanked God that I had these moments and memories and that I could make new ones with my boys. Part of that description of being joyful and yet having grief as a constant companion.

It so happens that there is a little chapel at Silver Dollar City. In this chapel they actually hold weddings and church services and hymn sing alongs, just like in those good ol days. Well I wanted to go into the chapel as we passed it that morning. The boys protested of course, so Amos offered to stay with them outside while I went in and sat awhile in this quaint place. As I walked up to the door that morning, July 25, 2014. 2 years to the day our Koralyn died, I realized people were inside singing. Normally that would be enough to make me turn around, but as I got closer and opened the door, it hit me what song they were singing. Because He lives, I can face tomorrow, because He lives, all fear is gone... I sat down in a back pew in utter amazement and disbelief. I sat and sang and listened to the song, the song that in many ways has carried me over the last two years. I sat in awe at the wonder and care of God for my broken heart. You see, I don't believe that they were singing that song, on that day, in that little chapel by coincidence. I believe that our big God cares enough about the little things in our lives, and he knew just what I needed to keep me going on that sad day, and in the weeks to come, as I would sit with my dying dad. For me, hearing that song again in that moment, was reassurance that Jesus does indeed live. He sees me and my broken heart, He knows me and what I need. He cares for all of us who mourn and are brokenhearted. He lives and He is in every detail of our lives. That moment for me breathed life into the dark and dead places and was a sweet reminder of his care of me and for me. Indeed, as I have learned over the last two years, I can keep going, because He lives.  

Consolation Prize

I have been having many hard days lately. I will go through a week and have a few good days and a few bad days. This doesn't seem strange to me 2 years out and yet it does. I told my counselor weeks ago, during a few really bad days, that I feel so stuck in my grief. She reminded me that I have fresh grief with the death of my dad and I am not stuck but just cycling through once again. That was a revelation to me. I guess I feel in many ways, that I should be further along in my grief and more productive in it for sure. I have this standard in my head that I am not living up to in my grieving process. People have always told me I am too hard on myself,  maybe that is true, but I don't know how to be any other way. I have a real problem with being still, which as a Christian I am told to do. I am what the experts call Type A (anal rententive with OCD to a fault) I constantly feel the need to be productive, to be accomplishing something, working hard, doing a god job, feeling in control of the situation. Funny that God would choose to give me a daughter with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome and 3 crazy boys! None of these things fit into a nice tidy, quiet, box or to do list.

When Koralyn was born I had to give up all control of both of my lives. The one at home with my boys and my husband, and the one at the children's hospital with my medically fragile daughter. I couldn't be in control of either situation, one where family and friends stepped in to take care of my home and boys, the other where I had to stand by as doctors and nurses made decisions for my daughter.  I look and think back to the weeks before Koralyn was born and nothing I did could have prepared me for the Tsunami that was about to hit my nice tidy shore I had made for myself. I am still picking up the pieces. I still sit on that shore and look around, I see some things coming back together and being made new and yet the destruction from the massive storms and the aftershocks remain. Just losing my daughter was enough to devastate and confuse me. Losing my mom in the midst of our turmoil, and then a year later being told my dad has stage 3 lung cancer has rocked me to my core. I still struggle daily with grief, exhaustion, fear, and anxiety. I am still working through all my grief stages. Some days I feel good. Most days the outside world, my friends, or my kids can't see the struggle I am having internally. I am living my life and trying to live it well, honoring the many gifts God has given me, loving my family and still finding joy in each day. Yet grief and confusion seem to be companions I can't outrun. Just when I think I have some clarity, BAM another confusing thing happens and I am brought to my knees.

That is not to say that I don't have much Joy and much to be thankful for, but some days I yearn to shake off these sackcloth and ashes and dance. In some ways I know I have and will continue to do so. It is also a harsh reality that I will miss my daughter and feel a void in my heart for the rest of my life on this earth. I will never again be the same person I was before that day in the picu when the machine keeping my daughter breathing was unhooked and she took her last breath.  I thought, I hoped, I would be further along by now, but I am still sifting through the rubble it seems. My foundation is not gone, but the walls have come down and in order to rebuild I have to clear away this debris and figure out a different set of plans, start from the foundation up. I still pray that God will turn my mourning into dancing and make beauty from my ashes. I have all these pictures in my mind of what they beauty should look like, I keep struggling with my picture and Gods picture, I am afraid.

All this ache is so deep, my wounds are gaping and seeping. My tender heart is still shattered into a thousand pieces. I stand here with it, broken in my hands holding it up to my God asking him to take it and make it  beautiful, not for me but for him. Broken is what I was, and what I am. It started that day in December when we heard the words, "I am sorry there is a problem with your baby." I was shattered a little more the day I got the phone call from my sister when she wailed, "its bad Kenda, its really bad, its Mom Kenda, Mom is dead." The last shards were broken, sitting on the edge of my dad's hospital bed, in my sister's house. Using the weight of my body to hold up my Dad as he sat dying, unable to talk, unable to sit under his own weight. All these moments now ingrained in the pieces of my heart and mind. Many of these moments so humbling, beautiful, and devastating all at once. These moments take you to the edge of life and back again. These moments replay in your mind and bring you to your knees.

I am sure many onlookers would speculate that I must feel angry. Angry at life and at this Jesus I believe in. I do have moments of anger, towards these circumstances I find myself in, but mostly the theme of my grief seems to be confusion. I am no Biblical scholar but I think Job was confused in all his affliction too. I think there were moments on his journey where he felt so utterly confused and he cried out to God. He didn't hide his bitter tears or his confusion. I can't hide mine either, at least not from the God who knows me.

When you are grieving, people try to be helpful in their loving advice to you, and like Job's friends, sometimes those words can cut deep to the core of your wound and confuse you even more. In reading through Job again, I read that his friends speculate that he or his children must have done something to deserve all this calamity on their lives. How hurtful those words must have been to Job's hurting heart in those moments. Oh some days I feel like Job, I feel like I carry a sign that says pity me, and rejoice that you are not afflicted as I am afflicted. I feel like the outcast, the forgotten, the leper.  I tend to overthink everything and add to my confusion, its a lose, lose situation it seems.

My picture of grief looks something like this: I call it the American Dream, grief version. My baby has died of a pretty rare birth defect, heart defect, congenital heart defect, to be exact. HLHS is its official name.  During the almost 4 months of her life, my mom was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident. After a year of grieving, we were told in September of 2013 that our dad had a mass in his lung, later to be told it is aggresive and he has months to live even with treatment. When this news comes, there is pain yet to work through in my relationship with my dad. He comes to Texas to live between my house and his brother's. I have a pregnancy and then a brand new baby boy when he comes a few weeks into December. I am floundering, I am struggling with this role I have been thrust into,  of loving, supportive, (confused as heck) daughter to my dad dying of cancer. Mom of 4, 3 to the world outside and any well meaning onlookers at the grocery store, or the restaurant, or the cancer patient waiting room.

 Come August of 2014 and my dad has died. We have tried in these past two and a half years to honor all this pain. To honor our Koralyn and my mom and now my dad. It all feels so small to me though. This grieving girl, with so much death in her life, wants something more tangible for all this grief. Something more measurable, more obvious, more BIG. So I sit and struggle with my confusion and my American dream of grief. The one the blogs and facebook and The Today Show tell you about.  Why am I still stuck in this small place with my big grief and my ashes and my sackcloth? Where is my mountain peak? When will I leave this valley, this valley of the shadow of death I am stuck in. Where is my book of triumphs? Where is my foundation to benefit those who suffer? Where is my beauty for ashes? This is what I keep asking, what I keep struggling with. So many parents are handed a death certificate and they feel the weight of that thin sheet of paper and they go out and take that pain and make it usable. Make it big. Most days I still feel so small, so stuck, so confused. What is all this death and grief supposed to add up to, is what I keep asking God. In my mundane days of mothering, keeping a home and a family and being a wife, I struggle with all this small and want to exchange it for something big. Like a consolation prize for my grief. This is who I am though. I want everything to fit in a list or in a box. I want everthing to make sense and have a reason and an outcome. I want recognition for all my hard work. I want to yell how unfair it all is.

I have been considering the painful fact that maybe God doesn't want  to make big beauty out of my ashes. Maybe he isn't asking me to start a foundation, or adopt an orphan, or write a best selling book about my journey (which, being who I am, I would like any number of those things to fill these gaps that have been left in all this grief. To help make it make more sense in my hurting heart and my confused head) Maybe my beauty for ashes is in all these seemingly small things I do to honor my God, my daughter,  my mom and dad. It is in this gift of motherhood and mundane. In Ashers antics and Asa's jokes and Abrams laugh. In the small kindness we show to those who are hurting, and in the kindness that continues to be shown to us.

 Last night God used a sweet little red headed girl to show me that the small things can be big, if only to one person. I have been hurting the last couple of days, missing my mom and my sweet Koralyn. Missing the life I would have had being Koralyn's mom, fighting for her and loving her. Being a part of a team of people to make sure she thrives and gets the best care. Missing being a part of the group of parents with children with chds. A group no one wants membership to, but hindsight being 20/20, a group that feels more welcoming and purposeful then this group called Parents of Dead Children.
Last night I didn't want to go through the motions and go be out with people. I wanted to retreat in my grief and have a quiet and introspective moment (which with 3 small boys is impossible unless they leave or I do) Being the person that I am, and a mom to three living children I don't want to disappoint, I trudged through, put on my best I am strong and happy face, and made my way to dinner and then church.

Last week on Wednesday night, I had brought some of the cute Koralyn jars to the classroom I work in every week. The girls all wondered out loud what they were for and talked about how cute they were. So I told them I was collecting tabs from cans for The Ronald Mcdonald House. One girl got very excited and talked about how she already saves the tabs at her house for her Uncle. She told me, very excitedly that she would start saving half for me and bring me some! By this Wednesday, I had forgotten the conversation. When I walked into the classroom last night, this sweet girl, who I had previously taught when she was in first grade, very sweetly and excitedly came up to me with a small ziploc bag holding several red tabs. My heart melted at her kindness. To think she remembered and made the effort to save them and then bring them to me. I hugged her and let her know how grateful I was that she remembered. I don't think she will ever know though, what that small ziploc bag of tabs did for me in my grief. It just meant so much to have one sweet little girl remember my cause and make an effort for it.  I felt like God was saying, see Kenda, small things, small kindnesses do matter. They matter to you, they matter to me, they matter to all the hurting and broken people in the world. What seems small to some, may be life giving to the one person who needs it.

 I have learned in this grief journey over the past two and a half years that grieving hearts want so badly to be remembered. Those that grieve want to know their grief matters, they want to know it means something and has purpose. Grievers, want to know they aren't alone, that there grief is not wasted. They don't want to be told the time limit is up and they should be over it by now. They want to be met on the lonely road of grief. They want someone, maybe several someones, to take their hand and tell them; its okay to hurt and its okay to be scared and to not have all the answers or have completed all the steps. Because the truth is, we never get over it, we will not, cannot, be the same people we were before. We have to become new and different, but no less meaningful and beautiful people. Don't cringe and turn away from our wounds and our scars. We know you are curious, we would love to tell you how these wounds and scars, while painful have made our souls more beautiful. So next time you have an opportunity to meet someone on the lonely road of grief, even if briefly, take that opportunity. What seems small or insignificant to you or someone else may mean the world to a hurting, grieving person. To a hurting, grieving, world.

My God tells me that those who mourn are blessed. He tells me to take heart and not become discouraged. He tells me to count my suffering Joy. He shows me that he takes what is lowly and nothing to the world and he lifts it up and makes it beautiful. I trust and hope in him. This Jesus who loved the lost, the outcasts, the whores, the lepers and tax collectors. The sick and dying of this world. He got down and dirty with the grief stricken. He met them on the lonely dusty road of grief. The road after his death, where those that followed him thought it was all for naught, they thought their grief and strife was for nothing, that they were forsaken. He came down and walked with them, he listened to their hurts as they told him the story, they didn't know it was him, not for awhile, not on that dusty road anyway.  He told them they mattered, their pain mattered that all this grief and ugly mattered. He wept with the hurting next to the grave of their loved one. I have hope that he hears me too, and walks beside me in my grief, and in all my ugliness as well. He listens as I cry out in my pain and wonder in confusion at this path, this plan of his, this story. He calls us to keep going and to bind up one anothers wounds, whenever we encounter the hurting along our path. He calls us to compassion and service. For some, that may look big, for others, it may be small things. A wise woman, a fellow Christ follower once said, "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love." Mother Teresa

 I want to continue on this dusty, broken, grief stricken path, to do as many small things with great love as I can muster. For it is all this great love that has been shown to me in the last two and a half years that has kept me going. Never underestimate the power of your small deeds my friends. Because we all matter and in the eyes of God, none of us are small, we are all magnificent. Its His stage after all, and I have been told that Earth has no sorrow that Heaven can't heal.

Grief Multiplied

I am by no means a hoarder. In fact friends and anyone who knows me really, will tell you I am the opposite. I love to purge items to a fault. Stuff stresses me out. I am happiest when closets remain empty or at least very sparse. I donate items I eventually need and therefore regret donating. I love the feeling of loading up boxes of stuff into the back of my Traverse and donating them at our local thrift store in town for someone who will actually use the stuff.

Yet in the last months, I have found myself unable to get rid of a few things. An old, almost empty bottle of hairspray. A container of chia seeds, stuffed into the back of the fridge. A webpage of bible verses that remains open on my cell phone everytime I click into the internet. The last jumbled text my Dad sent, that doesn't make much sense, but I can't bring myself to erase.

I remember doing the same thing with the last text I sent to my mom, a picture of Koralyn in a pink Zebra striped bow my mom had sent her among the thousands of bows she had sent to her first granddaughter, in all the excitement of finally getting one after four grandsons. It was a cute picture because the bow was so oversized and gaudy on that tiny baby girl.I don't think my mom ever recieved that text. I sadly had erased all her texts the night before she died, making space on my phone. Not knowing I would never receive another text from her. I can't remember any of those texts now.

(not the picture from my text)

 I  remember the night I realized her last voicemail she had left me had been erased from my phone. Walking back to the Ronald Mcdonald House late and in the dark. Dialing to listen to her voice and it being gone. The sheer desperation and panic I felt. The need to somehow get it back. The low that hit after calling the cell company only to be told it was gone forever due to some stupid rule about limits and time. I cried and told them in my best panicked voice that my mom was dead and that was the last message she ever left and wasn't there anyway to get it back. PLEASE. PLEASE there has to be a way I know it. That poor unsuspecting girl that took my call that late night. How heavy my burden felt to her in that moment. She tried, but to no avail. I remember the cold hard cement as I sat down in utter failure and wrenching tears after hanging up. Sitting there on the curb in between RMH and Cook Children's not too far from the spot where I learned I would never again hear mom's sweet voice alive this side of heaven. I sat there for some time, not wanting to mmake the walk up the stairs to my empty room.

 Growing up I always heard people tell her she had such a cute Minnie Mouse voice. I used to hate it when people told me the same as a teenager and young adult. Now of course I love to hear that, sometimes when I speak my voice sounds like my mom's and it is comforting, like a little piece of her is still here.

                                                (mom and me at Asa's 2nd birthday party)

Then last month, 2 years and a few months after we buried my mom, and then my daughter, my dad died. August 2, around 1:30 in the afternoon. I wasn't there when his heart stopped beating. I had made the ten hour drive back to Midlothian just the day before. I had such a hard time making the decision to leave, gut wrenching really. I so wanted to be there to usher him home, I had been pleading with both him and God to let it happen before I had to leave. As I drove away that morning, I felt a peace wash over me as I drove up into the pass and out of my hometown. A peace very similar to the one I felt the night before our Koralyn went home. Until I got in that rented van and drove away, I wasn't sure what the right decision was. I felt driving up into the Sandia Mountains and past Tramway that God and my dad were telling me I made the right choice. Clarity comes when you need it most.

                                                (Krystal, Dad, and Me. July 3, 2014)

So now here we are again. Some days it seems unreal that I am 32 and an orphan, in the sense that I have no living parents on this earth. I know things could always be worse and I know there are children out there who have lost both parents in their developing yearsx when a child needs her mom and dad the most. I am so thankful that I had a chance to grow up before my parents were called home. I am thankful my mama got to be at the birth of 3 of my kids and my dad got to hold a newborn Abram and watch the first 8 months of his life.

                    

Funny how the last 8 months From December to July were the beginning for my Abram, while they were the ending for my dad. If you would have asked me at age 20 if I thought 58 was old I would have said yes. Ask me now that I have had to say goodbye to both my parents in their 50's and I say no of course not! 55 and 58 are still so young. You still have so much potential, so much left you can do at that age. Not to mention the very important job of loving the littles you have been given. Those that call you Grandma and Grandpa. My dad and I didn't have a perfect relationship by any standard, there were hard issues in both my relationship with my mom and dad, but I loved them so, and I know they loved me. To know your parents love you in spite of your imperfection as well as theirs is a job well done in my book. Some cannot say as much about their mom and dad.

My heart breaks for Asa and Asher, who have all but forgotten my mom, there beloved Grandma Kay. In the past 8 months they were around my dad more then they ever have been in their short lives. As he lived between our house and my Aunt and Uncle's, he was built up in their little eyes as an old hero, a mans man, a stinky, funny old cowboy who loved them and laughed with them.

 I pray that picture remains for them, one of sitting with him on the back porch as he read about the Sword In The Stone. Sitting at the dinner table with him eating pizza or pancakes. Christmas morning handing him his presents. The fact that every time he came in from being away for a few days, he had a handful of quarters for each boy. Practically a million dollars in the hands of a 7 and 4 year old. I am glad they got the gift of building these happy memories with him. I am also heartbroken it took him dying to get it done, and heartbroken in the fact that now the boys are yet again filled with sorrow, confusion, and questions. They have learned at such a young age that death is indeed a part of life, and that things can change so quickly for anyone. I pray that turns into purpose for them and not fear.

As I sit back and reflect on the past months, I think about my heart and my intentions when my dad was here in our home. When you are 31, with a newborn and two small boys, having your dad come stay can some days feel like a heavy burden. It feels unnatural to be caring for your baby and your sick dad at the same time. Worrying about well checks for your kids, and brain scans for your dad. I told Amos several times this feels like it came about 20 years too soon.

 My heart aches to remember the early mornings and frustrations I felt with my dad when he would drink all my coffee before I got a cup, or be up in the early hours and bang around the kitchen waking my very light sleeping boys. The times I grumbled when he said, Good Morning Baby! The days I felt so inconvenienced when I made the 45 minute drive up to Baylor for his appointments. I sit and think now that all of that hard, was a gift. Also a glaring mirror into the heart of the matter, my heart. I think I understand now more then ever, that something not done in love is a waste. I can do great and wonderful things but if I don't do them out of love what have I accomplished? I count it a privilege that I got to do these hard things with my dad. That now looking back I can think about the good and bad days, my selfish and selfless moments. I can not change things, I cannot be perfect. I can forgive myself for my ugly days and forgive my dad for his shortcomings (God knows we all have them). It is funny how cancer and death can erase things, good and bad.  I would like to think my dad knows now, he knows of my heart and my intentions. He knows I am broken and imperfect trying to love the best I can. He was too. Aren't we all?

My mom too. It is true what is said, you will regret things after someone dies. You will miss them when they are gone. I don't think this happens so we will remain stuck in our regret. I think we are given these pictures of ourselves and our failings so that we can learn and grow, move forward and love deeper and stronger with the ones that remain.

Oh how I wish I could go back to certain days and times and do things different. All those evenings standing in my kitchen when the phone rang and it was my mom and I didn't answer because of my busyness. The times of friction and strife as a teenage girl when I was so rude and disrespectful to my mama. I know now as a mom, that I must have broken her heart into a million shattered pieces many times over. What I would give to go back and do those days over. Of course I can say the same thing for the good days, the smiles, and the warmth. The times we confided in one another and laughed and laughed. The times I made her proud and she let me know it. What I wouldn't give to do those days again as well.

I think that is the beauty of it, this life I mean. It is so bittersweet and you miss every season after it passes. I think God made it that way for a reason. To stretch and grow our hearts. To open our eyes to the hurt and the healing that is constantly taking place around and in us. Our need to have a foundation to stand on when we have lost ourselves and failed others. I can now rest in the fact that my mom, and dad, and even my sweet Koralyn, know the rest of the story. They can see me in all my imperfection down here and love me because they can see clearly now when my view is still foggy. All these lessons have indeeed helped me to live more in each day. Helped me to step back some and see the gifts even in the pain. Not always, (because I am human) but more then ever before.

So why can't I let go of these silly little trinkets that may look like trash or clutter to others, when I am usually so good at purging and being organized? Not usually attaching emotion to objects with no life? Maybe because I can look at the almost empty can of hairspray and think about how my mom used it the week she was out here when our Koralyn was born. I can hold it in my hands and think about how her hands held it as well, in these very walls of my home. I think about what she was thinking when she sprayed it on her hair the day her Grandaughter was born with half a heart. I look at the Bible page on my cell phone and think about how I read these verses to my dad as he lay in my sister's house dying. How I struggled and prayed for him to be taken out of the misery that is dying a slow death to cancer. I can look at his last text to me and think about how he was so broken at that point and yet still trying to be strong. All these things are the connections I have left. Very bittersweet memories that help me to remember the fragile state of life and the importance of every single day.

I know logically that these items connect me no more then my memories alone, and yet I can't let go just yet. I want to hold onto these things and take them in when I need to. I hold a precious tiny pink outfit my daughter wore and it makes her come alive to me again. I can recall the weight of her in my arms, being so careful not to mess up her many cords and wires. I can remember my mom and her always perfect hair that was curled just so. And my dad and the way he always smelled like musty old cigarattes and how the boys got a kick out of telling him so. These memories are not a burden, but a gift. Some days they do indeed feel heavy with the ache in knowing I will never physically be with them again this side of heaven. Most days they help me remember the good, accept or at least work through the bad, and want to strive to make my living I have left the most meaningful it can be. I want to be kinder, more gentle and patient. I want to remember each day could be my last, to live in the moment without fear, but also plan for the future both here on earth and in my eternal home. Life is such a balance, one I don't think will ever actually be found here on earth.

 All this hard is a gift, a gift that helps me savor the not so hard, the good, and easy. A gift that hopefully opens my eyes and hearts to others who suffer with grief. I can say now, even in the midst of great loss and pain, I believe more then ever, it is ALL a gift. It ALL has purpose and meaning. God didn't give me these trials to destroy me, but to grow me and make  me more mindful that this short gasp of a life is not all there is to our stories. Its only the beginning. Some may say thats foolish to believe I say that is HOPE, and we can't survive without hope now can we?


 "Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men, who have no hope." 1 Thessalonians 4:13

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ² through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴ perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵ And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." Romans 5:1-5

4 Months

I was sitting in my sweet baby's room tonight, rocking him to sleep on his 4 month birthday. Such a bittersweet victory of a day for me at this point. You see his sister never made it to the 4 month mark. Never would I ever think I would be saying this about one of my sweet baby's, that they "didn't make it" to some mark. That they ceased to live at some point. A mom is not supposed to outlive and bury her baby, yet it happens every single day all over the world, and why should I expect to be the exception to the rule?

Koralyn would have been 2 years old on April 9, 2014. She would be toddling around in cute little jumpers and dresses. She would have little teeth and maybe little curls and would squeal at her silly brothers when they act goofy. She would be amazing and beautiful and she is, I just don't have the gift of watching her grow and fight and live here on this earth. She was a fighter, a beautiful, brave fighter and I would love to see her spitfire attitude at the sweet age of 2! How sweet it would be to hear her call me mama and to watch her wait at the window in excitement for her daddy to pull in after work.

As I was rocking our sweet Abram Jace to sleep in the same chair I rocked his brothers in and never had the privilege to rock his sister in; I was thinking about earlier in the evening when my Sister In Law text me about her sonogram with her sweet baby boy. I thought about her excitement and it brought a memory back of one of our sonograms with Koralyn. The first one where we knew something was seriously wrong with the health of our sweet unborn daughter. I thought back to the feelings of fear and helplessness we experienced in that dark room. I remembered how Amos was sitting next to, and a little below me, as I was perched up on the exam table. He was holding my hand as we both sobbed at the news no parent ever wants to hear. I can tell you that my soul suddenly felt as gray as the walls in that tiny room that seemed to have collapsed on top of us as our naive thinking that all our babies would be healthy came crashing down around us.

For the first time since that day and all the ones that followed I thought to myself; wow that seems like so long ago. That seems like years ago, that deep, dark scary space seems so far from this moment with my precious 4 month old baby boy. This has never been my thought when it comes to Koralyn or the loss of my mother. Most days it all seems so close and fresh and new. So raw and seeping with heartache and pain, and yet for the first time I can say, wow that was long ago, and feel it in my soul.

It hasn't been easy, this trying to live with grief as a companion. Trying to reconcile all thats happened and still find Joy in each day. Trying just to stop and breathe and wrap my mind around everything that occurred in such a short span of time. While it was going on I put my head down and trudged through those deep dark waters.

 I look back in amazement and shock at the things I did. The time I sat in my daughter's nicu room reading my mom's fatal accident report that had just come in the mail. The part where she told the EMTs her chest and her leg hurt. The leg, with the foot that was mangled and almost torn away. Reading the part where they couldn't properly place an iv and then as they were pulling up to the hospital them trying in desperation to resuscitate her as she suffered cardiac arrest, probably due to the blood loss she suffered with her leg injury. I sat and wondered about her last moments, her last thoughts. Was she scared? Did she see it coming. Did she think of us. I worry about how vunerable she was in those moments, lying on the asphalt. what was running through her mind? I prayed she wasn't afraid and she didn't worry of us, but knowing her she did; she was always worried about us. I know now thats just what moms do.

Or thinking of all the times Koralyn had a crisis of some sort. Like the day she started pooping blood and had to be reintubated because her sats dropped so low. I remember the doctors rushing in and trying without success and much frustration to put the breathing tube down her throat. I stood calmly and quietly in the corner, just kind of watching as if the baby they were working on was not my daughter. Even being asked by several nurses and doctors if I was okay, if I wanted to leave. Standing, replying calmly, no to each one and thinking, whats the big deal? It isn't until later after she is gone that I look back in irony and think to myself; she was dying in those moments, she could have died and I stood there not knowing the full weight of it all. Stupid and naive to the reality of our situation. All those doctors and nurses knowing full well what they were looking at, but not me, not then at least.

 Now there are days when I stop in shock and grief and think to myself: what in the hell just happened? Try to take stock and  make sense somehow. Days when I want nothing more then to hear my mother's voice and tell her about my day and my kids. To share with her the grief I feel of losing my daughter. To ask her questions and advice. To thank her, to just have her back for a fleeting moment.  To not believe the lie that life has been unfair to  me, but the truth that God has a good and perfect plan for me, for her, and all of us truly.

What has it been like to live in this aftermath? Both awful and wonderful. Peaceful and anxiety ridden. Amazing, and at times brutal. I guess that is life really isn't it? Learning how to reconcile that life is this gift and it can be all these things at once. Scary, uncertain, and beautiful. I try hard most days to cling to the Hope I have and not the fear or grief. Most days I do pretty good, other days I wallow in my grief and pity, and I think that is okay as long as I don't stay there.

I know it has been nothing but God's grace that has brought me through the last two years. His grace shows up in my husband's love and devotion to me and our family. His grace shows up in my boys laughter and my sweet new baby's cries. His grace shows up in every kind gesture and word in remembrance of our sweet Koralyn and my mom. His grace shows up on the days when I question why my baby, why my mom at such a young age, and now why my dad stricken with cancer at 57? His grace is there in all the whys and the questions and the great sorrow. I always come back to the great anchor of his grace and his mercy.

 I know I will continue to lean on my faith and not my sight to help me make it through each day yet to come.

"Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:16