Nests. They collect themselves all over my home. Sweet little things that find their way into sweeter hands and onto my table. My favorite? The one where the mama bird gathered little bits of this and that, scavenged building materials that she wove together into a home. It requires a gentle hand and an observant eye.
After reading Tracey's book, I've been paying closer attention to the bits my older three leave around. No more do they wander into the house carrying little treasures from outside. Instead, they let their own lives drop and scatter wherever they will. And I have been carelessly stepping over the teen years. The boots I trip over. The bags left by the door. Airsoft bullets in cushions. Stickers that mark interests. The details in rooms behind the closed doors (closed only by mandate to guard from tiny hands). There are things that I have ignored as precious. Things and images that one day I will cup tenderly in my palm for the treasures they are. I commit now not to wait until someday.
Not to be outdone by his brother's compound bow, John took to the woods and made his own. I am amazed at how strong and accurate it is. And, of course, a contest, a battle of the bows is always a given. The handcrafted held its own.
See the blur out the window? Yeah. That would be the last 15 years.
It seems such a strange title for a Valentine's Day/birthday/gratitude post. But, what an appropriate day to complete this labor of love and bring it to delivery, a day where love and birth swim sychronized around my life creating concentric rings of grace, the kind that demands thanksgiving!
It is a most exquisite pain, to hold your daughters close the moment hello mingles with goodbye in the most bittersweet of ways.
We were left alone with them, Alexandra and Christina. And in those brief moments we loved on those two babies a whole lifetime of caring and longing and nurturing and dreaming. We took turns holding them, heads pressed together over them. Tracing the outline of each hand and foot. Caressing the details of tiny faces, eyes that would never open. Running our fingers over the familiar curves of elbows and knees. Loving how much they looked like the Dancer. Washing them with salty tears. Memorizing. The salt that burns in an open wound heals and preserves, seals the memories into flesh. And every last bit a gift.
We kissed them.
Then, let go, christening them both with the middle name,
Grace.
Never before had I experienced the sweetness of simple time, just being all there. My hard, cynical heart in the breaking and unbearable crucible of loss was softened. The softening led to remaking, renewing, a healing of the old Edenic wound that bled out the belief, "God isn't good." And this is grace, not that the flame is doused but that while we walk the circle of grief's blazing furnace, He is with us. His glorious presence rewrites the old script and reads, "He is good! He is good!"
Since that early, dark morning, I have learned that this story isn't ours at all but His. We've had no choice but to declare His sovereignty. But more, His goodness. But what a wonderful thing to be bound to, a lifetime of sharing Him and seeing how from this one thing a thousand blossoms spring forth!
Today, a day of gratitude, I remember their lives and all His graces on that Sunday after Thanksgiving. I am certain I will miss something. #'s 558-586
two ultrasounds
arms and legs rolling, flutters beneath my heart
the scent of their newborn skin
every touch
a diagnosis - Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome
time together as a family during the pregnancy
our family and friends who shared their homes, their time, their love
our pastor, Bill, who worked to get the Navigator by my side
the K's, who were there the moment I cried the first time
my sister sitting with me
sharing in their dance
love letters
the offers of grave sites
the use of a beach house to spend time together as a family at the Christmas Exodus
the sensitivity of the doctors and nurses and hospital staff
a small white heart with a blue tear drop on my door
the local church who supplied dresses and bonnets for the girls
the polaroid photos the nurse took, the only ones I have of our girls
the shells filled with their footprints
the staff at church that played music and printed the bulletins for the memorial service
the Dancer and Hunter whose sweet snuggles filled my empty, aching arms
all who prepared meals and sent flowers and cards and emails
all those who walked the path before who came alongside to cry, to comfort, to offer what they had
the community of women who have lost children
my parents- are words enough? They were there through every last bit and revealed his grace in ways I can never fully share.
the Navigator's parents traveling many after their births and for their memorial service
the Navigator's arms and words and loving me and walking with me
peace that truly defies understanding
His walking through the fire with us
sharing Him with the general's wife at the Navigator's graduation from basic training
two Novembers years later, the conceptions of Little Bug, then Baby E, whose name means "whole"
What a song! Our song. His story. (Thank you Christa Wells.)
You’re gonna cry yourself to sleep
Your’re gonna soak the pillow
for many weeks
You’re gonna cry
Why?
Why me?
But in spite of the ache
that doesn’t go away
You’ll be sharing your story
one rainy day
And at the next table somebody catches your words
He hears a truth that he’s never heard
He takes it back to the marriage he’d given up on
Hands it down to his daughter
who writes it into song
You didn’t know
A thousand things are happening in this one thing
Like a thousand fields nourished by a single drop of rain
So honey, wrap yourself in promise
while you wait the morning light
A thousand things are happening tonight
You’re gonna cry yourself to sleep
‘cause for the moment all that you can see
Is what you’ve lost , lost
Why me?
But in the midst of the most exquisite pain
you’re drawn into a peace that You cannot explain
and the praises you sing of a sovereign God
reach the girl whose last hope is gone
she never thought there was purpose in anything here
now the seed has been planted and it’s taking root there
You didn’t know
Chorus
A thousand things are happening tonight
You’re gonna cry yourself to sleep
A thousand miracles you’ll have to wait and see
She hooked up the fetal monitors. Moved them around several times. Hunting. Expressionless, she left the room and reemerged with an ultrasound machine. And the OB. I was completely oblivious. Just excited to get an ultrasound again. He took one swipe.
The look on his face. It remains forever imprinted in my mind along with His grace-ink spilled there to color, interpret all that was coming.
I read it wrong, the doctor's face.
Then his words pierced with their honesty. The truth he spoke with as much sympathy as one person could offer to another. There was no way to misread them. No way to sit in a false hope.
"I'm very sorry, but both babies are dead."
He had no idea but he had given me a gift in those words. He had called them babies. And he knew his words were going to crash hard against my very being.
"I need to...I have to figure out how to... Get to my husband."
He was only fifteen minutes away but a mile of paperwork, late night phone calls, prayers had to be mounted, raised for him to get out. He slept peacefully, in his own quiet oblivion of Army barracks with other soldiers-in-training, most fourteen years his junior and with no concept of the weight he was bearing. That he would bear.
The nurse immediately unhooked all monitors and whisked the ultrasound out of the room. The OB left. Neither said a word. Their absence, their silence was a gift. And I sat there motionless.
Since that day, I have often described grief as a tide schedule we don't have. The undulating currents move and swell, and we have no idea when the next wave will crash over our days.
I was alone with Him as I groped and flailed and fought for the surface as that first wave slammed hard against my heart and sent me rolling.
He bolted awake. Sat straight up in his bay bed. He was led downstairs by the soldier on watch.
The first sight brought him to tears. Our pastor and a dear friend, who had watched our toddlers while my parents were with me in the hospital, stood waiting for him in the open air first floor. The air was bitter. He knew before a single word was spoken.
He was released on emergency family leave. Somehow our pastor started making calls to the base chaplain after visiting me in that sterile room. In record time, we're told, just a few hours, he was on his way to my side for the delivery of our daughters.
His grace-ink continued to write our story in bold, red letters that bled into our pain. "I'm here with you," they whispered and wrapped us warm in His love.
By the time he reached me, I had been moved back to labor and delivery and had an epidural. We were waiting on him.
They told me he was on his way up, and I watched the door until he appeared with a newly shaved head. And a smile for me. Another stroke of His imprinted grace, etched clear and deep into me.
Read on here
I moved day to day from one letter, one rare phone call to another. Hoping for a call. His voice over the phone was golden. Waiting for letters. Writing them daily. That cheap, plastic Walmart-bought box now sits on a shelf collecting dust most of the time, but its content is now a treasured link to those days apart.
I unfold our hearts in each envelope. Run my fingers over love infused ink. Try hard not to let pain seep into those ordinary moments.
My attempts to hold back the tears when the sergeant told me that he had just left after we had traveled across town for a brief visit. The Hunter's sweet smile as I wept and hoisted him into his seat.
The afternoon the babies wouldn't nap.
The way my belly and tired body kept me from caring for them as I so wanted.
The daily routine as my parents' house, three adults and two toddlers.
A day trip to a craft fair.
Little lips ritualistically touching a photo of him.
Their small hands on my belly, feeling their sisters' play.
My stomach knots and twists a little as the date draws near on the postage stamp, an expiration date for the mundane. Life apart was hard, but the days were normal. A rhythmic flow gently guided us through the hours. And each movement was a gift, a love letter from Him, ink that leaked into the deepest recesses of our hearts and left its permanent stain.
But, I knew. Twenty-four weeks. My belly was too large. My sides hurt. The babies were slowing down with me. Their dance no longer a frolick but a slow waltz. A sweet little elbow would stay in place when rubbed. A larger bump would roll not bounce.
I bent over the freezer and prayed as my stomach tightened. It was Thanksgiving and my appointment with the new Department of Defense OB-Gyn was the next week. If I could just hold on.
The next night I finally called. She told me to drink orange juice and lay on my left side. It wasn't enough.
For hours in labor and delivery, I laid in bed, the same bed I was in with our first two when they told me I would be whisked away to a larger delivery room, as they stopped my labor. Their heartbeats were stable in spite of their safe cocoon squeezing and shaking uncontrollably from the drugs.
I woke through the hours to a succession of visitors in a chair across the room. My sister with her note cards preparing for exams. My parents, a constant, my rocks. Our friends bringing a book to pass the time. I told my parents not to let him know if he called. I was certain he would leave without authorization. And this was nothing really. It was all under control.
The babies and I were upgraded, sent to a bed in recovery to rest and be monitored. And I slept deeply with His letters echoing in the dreams.
Deep breath. I write with the haunting tune from David Nevue on Evlogia spinning around me. I should be cleaning. I should be. But, here I am. Here I AM is with me as I press on.
In the cloak of early morning, we made our way, fingers threaded across the seats. I drank deeply of the smell of his skin, the only scent he wears, the lines on his face in the flickers of street light, memorizing all that would be gone from my senses for weeks.
The babies we both had held in our arms, rocked, danced to sleep for over a year slept peacefully in bed while he leaned over to touch their heads with gentle lips. The babies only I had the privilege to hold within danced their pas de deux. All were oblivious to his leaving.
We passed through the gate. My heart dropped into my stomach. I wondered if they felt it hit hard. I walked around to the driver's seat. We had already decided. No hard good-byes there in the dark drop off. I nuzzled close for only a moment, one sweet moment, got in the car, and drove away as he carried his burden into the building. He now belonged to the government for nine weeks. Really for four years.
Read on here
I fell in love with them, too, those two sweet little babies that He knit within, my body, my heart.
The days grew shorter as my belly grew larger. The corn was harvested. Heavy coats were pulled tight around to shield from autumn winds, and they danced and rolled and tumbled in the warmth inside. And, I soaked up every moment of their play. It was a gift to feel the quickening so early, a gift I would treasure.
I would laugh when given the familiar shocked expression. Two sets of twins under two! My heart caught up to the gift and skipped along. The Weaver was untwisting the warped, cold, hard strands, softening and molding them in the warmth within His hand. He was quickening me.
Read on here
There they were in black and white, those words I've never dared to utter: I wasn't sure I wanted this. Those are the words I trip over and walk around and try to ignore, but there they have laid for years right in plain view. They have held me back in this storytelling because "this" really meant them.
Before I had any clue of what was about to happen to my neat, safe world, I had said "no" to these two gifts, put a job and paying off debt above them. At least in my heart. And my heart, it twisted a little that day.
Or... maybe I just finally saw the deformity that was there all along. We often live under the delusion that we shape and fashion our idols, hammering them out into lovely, presentable things. But, with every strike of the hammer on the heart's anvil, we are twisted and molded into their image, dumb, deaf, and blind, unable to see Grace falling into our laps.
And this was one of those moments of Grace falling. I, the good girl, had fallen hard into the full knowledge of my own need, my own sinfulness. My eyes were opened to the truth that I was the wicked hag in Grace's audacious story, but, even more, Grace had fallen before me in such a way that I could not help but see more than myself in the story. Never had I been so in love with the beauty before me, the Savior, my Savior.
Read on here
The best kind of story is always saturated from start to finish with Grace. While I am far from the end of my telling, I must pause to say that this birthing has not been easy and that perhaps the hardest part of my story's plot is the ugliness that surfaces from within this weak character. I am, after all, the type of character who desperately needs redeeming, and that truth isn't comfortable.
But, when things fall apart, Grace really is the punch line, the kicker that blows away all our misconceptions and misgivings. And not the maid-turned-into-a-princess kind of kicker but the ugly-wicked-hag-transformed-into-the-lovable-bride kind. It rushes in unexpected and breathes light into the darkness, beauty into the ugliness, life into the death. Grace is the hero, the One who forgives and heals those self-inflicted soul wounds and then writes a whole new beginning, not one that necessarily wipes out the old but uses it, redeems it. He is a skillful yarn weaver, taking the worst kind of character, the worst kind of ending to produce something beautiful. Those threads we would rather cut out and tuck out of sight become the stuff of his great workmanship. And we dare not critique him with a disapproving eye for His choice of materials. After all, we only see from our side, the side with all the knots and unharmonious mix of colors. Our dislike for our view of the picture is only natural. But, our Grace God takes our hand and guides us around to the His side, the right side where the glory is revealed. And we are left, yes, breathless.
