finding meaning

I think we all want to find meaning in life. A purpose for our being.

I feel as though I have led two different lives. Before Kathleen and after Kathleen. My first life was pretty comfortable, you may even call it normal. I would go for daily walks on the beach with my son. I attended mom's groups and hung out with other normal moms. My church ministry was multimedia which kept me rather busy. It was a different life. Not necessarily a wrong or meaningless life, just different.

Then Kathleen was born and it turned everything upside down. Her short life brought so much pain into mine that sometimes I wasn't sure how I was going to survive, and I wondered if the rest of my life would be a matter of surviving rather than living. I wondered how God could and would use all of this. I was no longer the same person and couldn't continue to do the same things. Of course I was still a mother and did the things a mother does. But there had to be more. There had to be something I could use this loss for, this pain. Something that would give it purpose, give it meaning. The things that had given my life meaning in the past, no longer cut it. The words of Ecclesiastes would go through my mind:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”

After my loss I spent a lot of time online connecting with other bereaved mothers. I had no idea there were so many and it seemed the numbers were increased daily.. I found that this mutual support and encouragement through the journey of grief and also subsequent pregnancies were invaluable. But I had a burning desire to do more, something face to face. I just didn't know what. And so I waited, wondering. Wondering what I could possible contribute, how I could make a difference.

Two years later the doors opened and I became a volunteer photographer for forget-me-not, taking pictures of babies that have passed or will pass or may pass so that the families can have lasting memories. I found that there was something I could do for others and that my pain had meaning. I know it may seem strange to some that I find my meaning and purpose in other people's pain. But reality is that this kind of loss happens so very often, more often than we know or would like to think. I am brokenhearted for the families and wish things were different for them, but in the midst of the pain I feel alive. I am no longer just surviving, I am living. But if a while passes and I don't get a hospital call (maybe another photographer gets the call, maybe the family chooses not to have photos taken..) I start to get irritable, frustrated, restless. I don't expect you to understand but without the pain, without this ministry, my life feels meaningless.

But then I get a call and I know that my life has meaning. I believe our lives have meaning when we serve God, and I believe we serve God by serving people. As I go into the hospitals with my camera I know I am doing just that. I am serving, I am finding meaning - meaning for my life, and for Kathleen's short one.

Meaning.

I promise

Dear Kathleen

I promise I won't forget you.
I know I think of you less often. Each day the memory of you become more distant. The memory of holding you, seeing your perfect little face, perfect little fingers. The memory of you, being real. I have less time to think of you these days as I take care of your little brother and little sister. Less time to remember, to grieve. Maybe I also think of you less because I am happy. I hope you are happy for me. But please still forgive me. Forgive me for going on with life without you.

Sometimes when I hold your little sister I think of you. Wonder for the millionth time what you would have looked like. But mostly I think of her, enjoying her many smiles and little coos.

I think of you when I go to my monthly support group. It is my evening to remember you, focus on you. It is our evening. But I didn't go this month. Instead I went out on a date with your daddy. I felt guilty but I hope you looked down at us and just smiled.

I thought of you yesterday when I held a little nineteen week baby girl in my hands. As hard and as sad at those moments are, I also cherish them. Cherish them because they bring me back to you. I know most won't understand that. They won't understand why I want to hold onto something so painful, so devastating. But in the pain I feel close to you, my little beautiful girl, my little Kathleen.

So I may not think of you as often, but I promise I will never forget. And I am who I am because of you. I do the things I do because of you. In me you will always live on. That is your legacy.

I love you and I will always love you.
Your mommy.

an amazing gift

I have been granted an amazing gift, a little girl, a daughter.
She is all mine. Well, she will be when the adoption goes through.
But she was mine from the moment I held her, four days old.

A year ago it was hard to believe I would ever have more children.
Now I have three. Three to hold, love and see grow up.
And one in heaven, that I will never forget, always cherish.
God works in mysterious ways. In ways I never imagined.

"I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD". Psalm 27:13-14
This is the verse God gave me as a promise May 2009.
A promise I have meditated on many times,
wondering if and when it would come through.
It came through when I held Kaden in my arms.
But God's goodness did not stop there.
He knew my desire to have a little girl, and He granted it.

Kaitlin fills the hole in my heart that yearns for a little girl.
She will never fill the hole that yearns for Kathleen.

But above all, I have seen the goodness of the LORD,
in the land of the living.

healing

Occasionally people ask me if I am healing.
It is an understandable question but also puzzles me.
The answer depends on how you define healing.

If healing means no longer feeling an intense pain,
so intense you think you will literally die with the next breath
and death would be okay because it means you will be with Jesus and your baby,
then I am healed.

If healing means you can look at the pictures of your baby
without an overwhelming sadness,
then I am healed.

If healing means you no longer remember all the insensitive things that were said to you after your loss,
then I am healed.

If healing means that you can be at parties and celebrations without a constant urge to run away because you have nothing to celebrate and your smiles and laughs are all fake,
then I am healed.

If healing means that you can have fun with your other children, fully enjoy them, be silly and laugh,
then I am healed.

The list goes on.

But if healing means you don't think about your baby in Heaven every day, long for it and miss it,
then I am not healed - and I don't want to be.

If healing means that you don't feel the literal pain that other bereaved parents go through,
then I am not healed - and I don't want to be.

To answer the question..
I am as healed as I want to be.

more than we can handle

God does not give us more than we can handle.

I have heard that phrase numerous of times.
Our nurse was the first to say it,
while we held our dying Kathleen in our arms.
At the time it seemed comforting, a nice thing to believe.
Then the days went by, the weeks, the months.
My pain grew deeper and stronger and I started to wonder.
To wonder if this was really a promise of God.
So I opened up His book and came to find..
there is no such verse. No such promise.
But what He does promise us is strength when we are weak.
Rest when our burdens are heavy.
Peace when our hearts are troubled.
He promises us struggles in life, but a Heaven without tears.

So here is what I do believe..
God does in fact give us MORE than we can handle.
He allows it so we will rely on Him, not ourselves.
Rely on His strength, not our own.

As another blogger puts it:
My entire LIFE has been more than *I* could handle,
but I've yet to come across anything in my life
that has been too much for God to handle.

Or to paraphrase the phrase..
God doesn't give us what we can handle...
God helps us handle what we are given!

what if

What if Kathleen was still here?
What would our lives look like?
It's hard for me to imagine life with her.
Life that is less painful, less complicated, less stressful.
Life that is less challenging, and more comfortable.
Maybe even boring??

I thought of this today and realized how full my life is.
Full because she is not here!
Because of her I have met some most wonderful amazing people.
Because of her I am a better person, more compassionate.
Because of her I feel more, cry more and maybe even laugh more.
Because of her I feel fulfilled as I help others who too have lost.
Because of her I appreciate life and the miracle it truly, truly is.

As much as her absence hurts it has blessed and enriched my life in so many ways. I probably don't even see all the blessings yet. But slowly, slowly God is revealing them to me.

What if she was still here?
If she was here maybe Kaden wouldn't be.
So I hug my little boy and I thank Kathleen for her many gifts.

little girls

I admit it, I would love a little girl.

I don't know if it's because I lost one that I have this longing,
or if it's just a natural desire for any woman. After all,
most girls grew up wishing they had a real doll to dress in
pretty pink dresses and little hair bows.

Please don't get me wrong, I am SO grateful for my boys.
I adore them and would not trade them for anything in the world!
I don't want to trade them, I just want to add a girl to the family.

At times I think of adoption.
But is that forcing something that perhaps isn't meant to be?
Maybe I am destined to only have boys..
Or I could turn it around and say, maybe I don't have a girl
naturally because I am supposed to adopt one?
Please God, show me.

Sometimes I feel like I had my one chance and I blew it.

It hurts inside when I see little girls, particularly around the age of two. Each time it reminds me of what I have lost and what could have been. It makes me wonder what Kathleen would have looked like and what she would be doing at this stage. A year ago I wondered if she would be walking. Now she would be walking, and running. Maybe she would not be into pretty dresses and dolls, but cars and dirt - and that would be okay.
I just want my little girl.

My mom sent me a picture of her and my second cousin. She was so adorable. I wished with all of my heart that it was a picture of my mom and Kathleen. That I would have been able to give my mom a granddaughter.

Little girls are all around me.
They always leave a little sting of pain in my heart.
It's like a wound that just won't heal.
Like a scar tissue being stretched.
I am learning to live with it though. Or am I?

I want my two boys. I want my Kathleen. I want a little girl.
And that's the truth.