From Our Family to Yours
(click on the image for a larger version of our greeting)
I don’t want to be a Scrooge-y Mommy
I’ve been meaning to post that greeting on my blog, since I don’t have all of your email addresses, and some of you I know only through BBC (no, not the British channel), and/or blogland. So first, I want to apologize for the lateness of this greeting reaching you. The holidays and the recent loss of our Rainbow babe brought such a heavy sadness that I needed to cocoon myself for a while and nurse my grieving heart. It has been difficult to say “Merry Christmas” and “Happy New Year,” much less say it with sincerity. That’s because I’d forgotten that my children (though not with me and their daddy) were celebrating in Heaven. And since I know they are watching over me, I don’t want them to think their momma is a scrooge!
I have yet to reply to your comments, emails, and prayers over the past few weeks, but please know that the gratitude I have – that Louie and I both have – for the ways you have lifted us up and kept us afloat, runs deep. Thank you for so much for keeping us in your thoughts and remembering us and our babies. Please try to be patient with me as I catch my breath and re-adjust to the light, and forgive my holiday hiatus.
“Blessed to be broken by this brokenhearted love”
In attempt to express the intertwining of grief and gratitude and love that I was feeling, I tried writing a song for Calvin. That line up there was one that immediately came to my lips. After Calvin died, I lost pieces of myself that I will never get back. That’s part of losing a child (of losing both of my babies); it’s a part of any loss. I won’t “get over” this. I can’t be “fixed.” I was broken by loss. I was broken by love. And I still am.
But in this brokenness, I am also blessed. I am blessed to know what it feels like to carry life inside me and speak the secret language of creation that happens between a mother and her child. I am blessed to know love so deep that the wounds of grief will never scar. I am blessed to know that my tender heart can love just as fiercely and break all over again for my next baby. Some of you, I’ve found through the shared experience of baby loss; others have shared of yourself as I’ve bared by my tears and anger and helplessness; all of you have blessed me. So that is why I’ve re-titling this blog to Fragments: Blessed to Be Broken. That is who I am right now, and I’m okay with that.
And in case you were wondering, I never did place that lyric. For now it’s just a fragment, but that’s okay, too.
Happy 10 months in Heaven, Calvin Phoenix! Thank you for helping Mommy realize that though losing you has left me broken, I am completely blessed by your life.
Thank you so much to Amanda at Written in the Stars for putting my sweet babies’ names in the sky and giving me another beautiful way to remember my children.
