Where are we now?

So. This is the first post I can really make since Linc died.

I'm going to babble, I can feel it. Please forgive any of the following incomprehensible mush. I really just need to put it somewhere.

There are so many things that can happen that don't enter your mind when you decide to have kids. There are so many things you still don't know once you have them. Would I have decided to play the infertility lottery if I knew this would be where I would end up? Probably. Will I play it again? No idea.

I still can't believe that this has happened to our family. I had to take a good long look at the world at large to comprehend how many people things like this happen to. After I had hard evidence in front of me, I didn't feel comforted, I just felt sick. All these people in the world, walking wounded. All of us trying to figure out how to be real, breathing, feeling human beings again. All of wondering how to pretend that things matter, feeling like frauds when we can't make other things matter. Driving ourselves crazy wondering if we are further damaging the other people in our lives when we are locked inside this vicious grief and only see the rest of the world when lack of air forces us out of it.

Nobody is telling me anything I don't already know. I know my faith, family and friends are going to carry me through this. I know that there is always help available. I know, and appreciate, the reminders that my loved ones are there for me. Unfortunately, when it is a quiet moment, time to try to sleep or when I'm waiting for something, I am entirely alone. Everyone is still there, God is still there, but I am stuck with me and sometimes I hear me louder than I can hear anyone else. The me that is still curled up in a ball, rocking and tearing at her hair is screaming "I can't live through this! This can't be happening, because if it is, I have to die." Then I have to argue with myself to keep moving. I'm not saying I'm going to stick my head in the oven, I'm just saying that it's a good thing that people can't will their hearts to stop beating or I wouldn't have lasted through the first day. I sometimes can't remember what I live for, or why. All I can do is realize that I'm about to have a bad moment and watch the world around me fade away. When the grief hits it's like a giant blanket that insulates me inside myself with these horrifying emotions and isolates completely. I can't hear anything, see anything, feel anything but what is inside me. Oddly enough, dealing with the loss of my baby is incredibly similar to my labor and delivery with him. I find that both poignant and obscene.

I don't know yet, in my heart, if I can live without him. Part of me is afraid that my life from here on is just going to be a waiting game. I'll play along, do my best to look like I'm really alive, but I'll just be passing time. I feel sure that wouldn't be good.

When I'm not sucked into this grief, I'm so thankful I surprise myself. I'm thankful that I had Lincoln in my life. I'm thankful that I don't ever have to worry about him again, that he's in the safest place in existence. I'm thankful that I appreciated my time with him so much, and that he knew that I'd rather be where he was than anywhere else. I'm thankful that I finally felt like a real mom with him, instead of the inept, inadequate mom I felt like I was with his older brother. I'm thankful for the faith that is in me, the people God gave me to support and uplift me. I'm thankful for my husband, the only other person who feels almost exactly what I feel right now. I'm thankful for my older son, who has accepted this with a faith only a child could have. I'm thankful for God's promise that Lincoln and I will be reunited, and the faith He gave me to trust in it. I'm thankful for God's power to make life and death decisions, for His wisdom in seeing a picture so big it is beyond our comprehension, and for orchestrating all of life according to that wisdom, not our human wishes. I'm thankful that He made me who I am, and sent me all these wonderful people who help me just by being who they are. I'm thankful He reminds me that we all suffer, and that if we are smart, we will suffer together instead of choosing to suffer alone.

Most of all, even when the only footprint I can see right now is a post-mortem print of Lincoln's, I'm thankful that I know that God is carrying me.

For Lincoln

The Broken Chain



We little knew that morning that God was going to call your name,
In life we loved you dearly,in death we do the same.
It broke our hearts to lose you, you did not go alone.
For part of us went with you, the day God called you home.
You left us peaceful memories, your love is still our guide,
And though we cannot see you, you are always at our side.
Our family chain is broken, and nothing seems the same,
But as God calls us one by one, the chain will link again.



--Author Unknown--