Chapter Two

When I was in the hospital on bedrest, someone gave me a little journal with bible verses on each page.  While I was there, I used it to record what I ate (grilled cheese ice cream, grilled cheese, chocolate pudding), and who visited me each day.  It was the way I planned to remember my hospital stay...food and good friends.

After Rip died, I had this little book and no idea what to do with it, it felt wrong to abandon it, just leave it unfinished after all of the memories I'd poured into the pages of those five weeks.

So I started using it as a prayer journal, every single day since the week Rip died, I've written my prayers in this little book.  This Saturday I came to the last page.  It was bittersweet...I have poured the very worst times of my life into that book...and yet there is a lot of happiness in there too.  To me, it represents a beginning, an ending, and then beginning all over again.  I look back through it and see that through everything, there was always hope, that I was never left alone, by God, by my family, or by my friends.

So...on to Chapter Two...and whatever (or, hopefully, whomever) it may bring!

Step One

One of the things that has been hanging over my head for the past six months is all of my unwritten thank-you notes.
I bought stationary months ago.
I bought stamps months ago.
I started looking up addresses months ago.
And yet...I just couldn't write them
I think there may be two reasons for my procrastination.
First, and probably most of all, before now, writing all of the notes and having to confirm to myself all of those times that Rip was really gone was just too hard.  I think maybe I needed to reach a certain place in this healing process to be strong enough to face this task.
But also, I think maybe it is hardest to write a thank-you when you mean it so much.  I am truly so thankful to all of those people who have been there for us that I almost don't know what to say.
So many of these people have also said not to write a note, that they were not expecting that...and I know that they mean it...but I think this is something I need to do, another step in the right direction.
My hope is that writing about it here will be the final nudge I need to take that step.

The Day I Remember

Today it has been six months since Rip was born.  In some ways it feels like forever, but six months seems like nothing when I think about it.  It is so hard for me to believe he was here only six months ago.

For some reason, I only think of Rip in terms of his birthday, that date- 11-11-10 - is forever etched in my mind...the day he left this earth was the 18th of November, and even though I know date, I rarely think about it.

I guess it just makes me feel better to concentrate on his life, rather than his death.

Whether it is six months or sixty years, I will always love him just as much as I did that first day.

Love you so so so very much, Baby Boy!

The Way It Goes

Some of Mother's Day was hard...I cried a few times, I missed Rip the whole time, I wished things could be different, like I do most of the time.

Some of Mother's Day was nice...I received text messages, phone calls, Mother's Day cards, and sweet gifts.  I ate good food, I spent time with my family.

It was another "first" that we survived.

In short, it was a day full of good and bad, just like most days.  And there some comfort in knowing that is the way life goes.

Speed Bump Ahead

I was sitting here, trying to think of something positive and hopeful to say about Mother's Day...but to be honest, this is not a day I am looking forward to.

It's not that I don't consider myself a mother...I do.  And it's definitely not that I don't think we should have a day to celebrate mothers...I've had two great-grandmothers, two grandmothers, a mother-in-law, and most especially my own mother who were and are the greatest women in the world and make me want to throw a parade just to show off how fabulous they are.

But Mother's Day is one of those visible speed bumps in the road of grief for me...I see it coming, I know it's going to jostle me around for a bit, and I'll be glad when I make it to the other side.

Seeing is not always believing

I love babies, always have, always will.  I also, for the most part, love seeing the babies grow that were born around the same time as Rip.  It makes me so happy to see them getting bigger and staying healthy, I say special prayers for all of them.

Sometimes seeing pictures of babies, especially those born around the time Rip was born, is really hard.  It hits home that I don't know what Rip would have looked like at 2, 4, 6 months old.  We have a handful of pictures from his short life, and those are the only images I will ever be able to close my eyes and see.

But I try to remind myself that I knew, and know, that little boy right down to his very core.  I knew him (and knew it WAS a him) from the first moment of his existence.  I knew he was a night owl like his daddy and loved chocolate pudding as much as his mama.  I knew that my voice and my touch calmed him like nothing else in this world, both inside my belly and out.  I knew that he was just a stubborn as his daddy when it came to doing something that did not suit (both inside my belly and out...the nurses very nicely described him as "feisty").

So I know that when the day comes that I get to hold him again, even if I don't know what he looks like, I will know him...just as I always have...right down to his little core. 

Don't Worry, Be Happy

For the first 29 years of my life, I took happiness for granted.  In fact, when nothing was going wrong, I thought up things to worry about.
Then we lost Rip.  It was worse than the worst of my worries.  Something had happened to me that was almost literally unimaginable.
But there is a certain "safeness" in the worst happening.  In those first few months, I was allowed just to float through life in my misery, in the knowledge that this is as bad as it gets.  Nothing could touch me, because nothing would ever hurt as bad as losing my child.
And that is still true, I can't imagine anything happening that would ever hurt as badly as Rip's death did, and does.
But as time passes, you start to feel again.  You start to notice that things are happening around you...and some of those things are good.
And that has been one of the scariest parts for me...I think it will be a very long time before I can trust that something good happening doesn't mean something bad is just around the corner.  To be able to trust that something beyond my wildest worries is waiting for me just up ahead.
I would never want to live in a world where misery was my only company...but it's going to take a while for me to call a truce with happiness.