While We Wait

 

It seems I am failing miserably at this blog thing. This is partially due to lack of time but more due to the fact that I have much that I would like to share about sweet baby boy but still need to maintain a level of confidentiallity where he is concerned. He is a major happening in our house but there is much to be determined about his future and for this we remain discreet. I find it easier to not post at all than to try to post about life events without detailing this one, biggest event. I am, however, a bit appalled to find that I didn't even have the decency to post an update that he was finally released from the hospital. My apologies and deepest thanks and appreciation to all who diligently prayed and continue to pray for him.

Baby boy, whom we are referring to as "Kruz" while he is in our home, has been out of the hospital for three weeks. He is making huge progress in his growth and development and is pure, one hundred percent, sweetness. To say that his presence in our life has been disruptive would be a gross understatement. Yet, once again, I am amazed to find that life, regardless of the changes it brings, has a way of settling into a routine and a new normal is always established. So it is with this monumental change. We have adjusted, stretched, and molded him into our lives. Having him here means a little less sleep, earlier mornings, countless doctor's appointments and everyone pitching in a little more. It also means more softness and cuddling, more time spent in awe of the wonder of life, more soaking up the beauty of perfect simplicity, more moments that take our breath away.

This child, so sweet and so incredibly complex, has awakened something in me that I thought was dead, buried with my sweet baby girl. I cannot put a name to it. Healing??? Joy??? Redemption??? Perhaps a combination of all of these. Our days have been hectic and I feel pulled in a million different directions. Yet, in spite of the chaos, this child has brought a quietness to my soul in a way that nothing has been capable of doing since Laynee was taken from us. His soft, warm body fills the aching emptiness of my arms. He brings a smile to my face and joy to my heart. Still, I know that I will never know joy like I knew it before I became mother to a child in heaven. I know that I can never have that joy again on this earth. To have a child in heaven is to hurt in the very depths of who I am, a hurt that has no end, a hurt that is a part of every day, every thought, every breath. This hurt stems from an emptiness that no one and nothing can ever fill; nothing, that is, on this earth. In the meantime, we continue to love.......our children on earth, our child in heaven, and this child who, for now, is in our care.......we love them all and we wait, anxiously, for the the day when we will see her again.

 

 

Wonderfully Made

I've debated about which blog this post belongs on. This happens often, Laynee.....her life....her death.....the subsequent grief and sadness, have become such a part of who I am that nearly everything I do, everything I think, links in some way or other, back to her. Nearly everything that takes place, every event or happening brings memories or longing for her. More often than not, on our family blog, I choose to omit the part about how this or that causes us to think of her. On Laynee's blog I feel more free to openly pour out my heart about how we miss her still. But this......this post about this life event is too big, too life changing. It belongs on our family blog for it affects each one of us. But it cannot be written without Laynee being a part of it and so I have decided that it will have a spot on both blogs.

The last week has been tumultuous to say the least. On Friday we brought into our home, a beautiful little boy. A child with dark skin, soft black curls, enormous dark eyes and thick, black lashes that curl. I will preface anything else that my heart has to say about this by saying that I will be purposefully vague concerning this pecious one. No decisions have been made concerning his future and I will not give details about the child or his biological parents, nor will I post any pictures of him. We value his privacy and that of all involved in making decisions concerning his future. My purpose in writing is that this is a big, perhaps even a pivotal event in our life. Already, in just 3 days, this child has dramatically impacted our family. My heart is full, overflowing with things that I honestly cannot explain.

When a phone call came to us explaining that there was a child in the hospital, who had been there too long already and needed a place to go home to, my heart felt torn in two. One part desperately wanting to fill the emptiness that my arms have felt for more than three years, the other terrified of the hurt that this child could cause my already aching heart. We refrained from giving an immediate answer about whether or not we would bring him into our home but what we found was that time only made the decision more difficult. For Jamee and Jade, the answer was simple "why would we not take him?" Jade nearly burst with excitement and longing. The boys, more reserved in their emotion, seemed content with whatever decision was made. But Jim and I? We swayed, like branches in the wind, between wanting to bring him here and wanting to run far away from this.

This is not the first call of this nature since Jalayne went home to Jesus. We pray daily that God would use us in whatever way he sees fit and that he would open our eyes to the needs of those around us and write upon our hearts, the names of those whose lives we can touch, be it in big or small ways. We have actually been contacted several times about babies who were in need of a home either permanently or temporarily. Jim and I have tried to have open and willing hearts for whatever God has planned for us. In each instance, God has closed those doors and made it clear that he has other plans for our life, leaving us with a sense of peace that comes from knowing that He is in control. But somehow, for some reason, this time felt different. This may very well be because there is a great deal of uncertainty in regards to this child's future development. Suddenly we were faced with the question "what if God doesn't close the door this time?"

With each day that this decision lay before us, my heart seemed to writhe with increasing agony. Everything in me rebeled at the thought that anyone might think we were attempting to replace our sweet Laynee Grace, knowing that this could never, ever happen. My mind filled with horrific images and I questioned my own ability to keep another child safe. I reasoned that I had only recently accepted a 30 hour position at my current job and an infant didn't fit into that plan, even for a brief time. I have questioned whether or not I could ever love a child in the way they deserve to be loved, knowing how much it hurts to let them go.

Over the few days that we struggled with this decision, we began to see the hand of God working things out in ways that began to ease some of our fears. I know that our sovereign God is always working out all of the most intricate details of our lives. So often these things go unnoticed, taken for granted, but in times of deep struggles our eyes are opened and we become keenly aware of his presence and his mighty hand that goes before us. Most specifically, the concern about my job was resolved as two or three dear friends have expressed that they would not only be willing, but delighted to care for him as I work.

Finally, on Tuesday, we agreed to meet this little boy after lunch. My heart stuggled with whether or not this decision was wise. I was terrified of loving this baby and I knew that seeing him would take the decision to an entirely different level. I knew also that seeing him would answer alot of the questions that we had concerning his development. That morning before work, after Jim and I prayed together, I told Jim that "I wish God would just tell us what He wants us to do" As I worked that morning I felt almost physically ill with apprehension over the upcoming meeting. As I was seeing patients, I felt my phone vibrate deep in my pocket, indicating that someone had sent me a text. Later, as I took a restroom break I read the text and it nearly took my breath away. I have a friend who sends me a scripture verse each morning. This friend knew nothing of the decision that we were faced with and that morning's text came to me in two parts so that when I looked at my phone, this is what I read "there was a great calm. He said to them. 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith? Mark 4:38b-40 With a sense of peace in our hearts, Jim and I went to meet the baby in the hospital and it was determined that we would bring him home and care for him while a final decision concerning his future is made. On Friday we brought him home and without question, this child has brought joy into our home. In just three days he has blossomed under constant affection and nurturing. He is a beautiful child, so wonderfully made, exactly as God intended him to be. Like any child, he has been sent here to love and be loved and we are honored to have a part in loving him.

Please pray for this sweet babe and all involved in the decision making process. Pray also regarding the surgery that he will be undergoing on Wednesday. For now, we are content to love him in the best way that we know how. And we will remember what Laynee taught us so well, that each day is precious, each moment sacred and God is good..........all the time.

Psalm 139

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

3 Years

Three years.  Three long and painful years.  In my mind the memories are fresh and painful as if it happened yesterday. In my heart it seems a lifetime ago since I last held her.  Three years and I still wake up wondering "How did we get here?"  "How could this happen?"  Three years and my heart still twists with longing for her.  My love for her remains desperate.  Three years since the worst moment of my life but three years since the best day of her life.  

Today, no matter how we try to pretend as if it is just another day, time stands still as we remember her last day.  Her love, her joy, her radiance, her simplicity.  I remember her smell and the sound of her soft laughter.  I remember and long for one more hug...........oh how I long for another squishy Laynee hug.  And to see her raise her hands up for her daddy to hold her close or raise her hands in declaration that she is "the prettiest girl in the world." There was just never a doubt she knew that she was most beautiful, most loved, most adored.   I remember all the beautiful attributes of this most precious child along with the horror of  her final moment. 

Three agonizing years since I've held her, three years closer to holding her again. Thank you, King Jesus for that hope that I will hold my baby again. Without this we could not, would not survive.

 

HAPPY HEAVEN DAY,LAYNEE GRACE

 MY FOREVER LOVE, THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN ALL THE WORLD

 

 

 

 

 

 

I LOVE YOU

 

FOREVER AND ALWAYS

 

 

 

 

 

Kissing Hand

"The Kissing Hand"......... it's a story that most mama's know and probably most children.  I cannot say that I remember the story all that well but perhaps if I dug through the stack of books in the "game" closet I would find it.  Or maybe we passed that book along to someone else, another mama and child, somewhere along the way.  I don't really remember all the details of the book but I clearly recall the concept, the idea behind the beautifully written story of a mama raccoon who sends her baby off to kindergarten.  I know because we lived it for many years. We incorporated it into our daily routine as, one by one, I sent my children off to school.

My children are close in age.  All four of my biological children born within 5 years.  They had great fun with each other and with our neighbor children during their first, formative years.  Then I began sending them to kindergarten.  It happened fast, first Jamee, a year later Grant, two years later Jade and then Brock.  And just like that my babies were all school agers.   Each time I saw one of them off to kindergarten was horribly beautiful.  I wasn't at all sure that I was ready for them to leave toddlerhood behind.  Yet their was so much pride in seeing them left their chins, square their shoulders and,  inspite of all their fears, step tentatively into independence . 

 They were, and still are, quiet in nature, each one of them.  While I don't really recall alot of tears from any of them that first day of school, a couple of them hit a road block a week or two into it and decided they'd had enough, they weren't going back.  They wanted to be at home with mommy where all was safely familiar.  So we got creative and on my dresser sit two cherished pins, one a tiny blue bird, the other a St Louis Cardinals pin (we are Chicago Cubs fans by the way, but that didn't matter then:).  Two of my children needed these pinned to their shirts every day to get them through kindergarten.  They would pin them close to their hearts and when they felt sad or needed to see me, they would rub that pin and remember that soon, very soon they would come back home.   Eventually the pins were forgotten and they would realize that they can get through a day without me. They didn't really need the pins. 

We read "The Kissing Hand" sometime before Jamee went off to school and the idea stuck for us.  The idea was that if they kissed my hand and I kissed theirs and we placed our fresh kissed hands to our hearts, we would be together in heart throughout the day.   They needed this.  I needed this!  So began each new school day.  I would pack lunches, do their hair, make sure clothes were properly adjusted and shoes tied.  I would feed them a healthy breakfast, and supervise while teeth were brushed.  And then? Then I would squat down before each of them place my hands to their sometimes syrupy smelling lips, while they placed their hand to my own lips and kissed.  We would place our hands to our hearts, sealing us together for the day.  "I love you, have a good day" and off they went.  Every single morning. There was a time when I kissed four growing hands each day.  The routine was sometimes rushed and eventually it was done more out of habit than need.  Sometimes, on really hectic mornings, one or more of them would rush back to me, a look of sheer panic on their face, hands outstretched, "WE DIDN'T KISS HANDS." Or sometimes one of them would need just one more kissing hand.   The worry was so easily removed, a quick peck on the hand, the hand to the heart and all was well once more.  And then somehow, without any of us noticing,  in order from oldest to youngest, they stopped needing the kissing hand.  I remember the bittersweet day when I watched the bus pull away and realized I hadn't kissed any hands for awhile.  My children were growing and needing me in different ways.  It hurt a little but it was sign that marked maturity and independence, good things in the life of a child.  They were on their way to becoming who they were meant to be.

This past week and a half I have thought of the kissing hand each morning.  Not really longing to kiss the hands of my grown and nearly grown children, but that of my youngest, the one whose hand I cannot kiss.  For three years I have gone to her grave and placed my kissed fingers to her picture on the headstone.  I have placed kisses on the photos that hang on our walls.   But now my insides writhe with needing to kiss that little hand and place it to her heart, to place my own kissed hand to my heart.  I suspect that Laynee would not need the kissing hand nearly as much as I would.  She was a child that loved all and feared none.  She drew people in and captured them with her exuberance and joy.  With her bigger than life personality, I doubt that she would have faced much apprehension.  Still, we would have done kissing hands. Maybe because she needed it, maybe because I needed it or maybe just because it is a beautiful expression of the love between mother and child.  We would have done "The Kissing Hand."

Feeling Irate!!!!

It's a little thing..... I know that.......I shouldn't feel so angry about something so ignificant.......I know that too.  But I am angry!  I am so angry!

I stopped at Laynee's grave today.  As I pulled up I noticed that her backpack was unzipped and hanging open.  As I went to zip it back up I realized that the crayon and markers that I put there for her were gone.  Someone STOLE her crayons and markers!!!!!!

I know that it is irrational to get so upset over this.  I have thought of every imaginable possiblity that might make me less angry.  Things like....."maybe whoever took them does not know the story of Laynee, how much she is loved and missed."  But her grave site tells the story of a little girl loved and lost.  The very fact that she is there tells a story, not to mention that her grave is adorned with many trinkets telling of our love for her.  I've reasoned (and this is most likely the correct reasoning)
that it was likely a child.  I see children playing at her sight all the time, while their parents walk around the cemetary.  They play with the pinwheels and stuffed animals and I always imagine Laynee smiling down at them from heaven.  But if it was a child why would their parents not tell them to put the things back?

I am so angry.  I am angry that someone stole from Laynee's grave...........Who does something like that?!?!!!??  But more than anything I am angry that she is gone, that her body lies beneath the ground, that I have reason to visit the cemetary on a regular basis. 

Kindergartner

I should have coaxed her awake early this morning and fed her a warm, healthy breakfast.  I should have dressed her in new clothes and new shoes, rubbed her in sweet smelling lotion and done her hair up in ribbons and bows.  I should have gone through her new back pack, making sure all the necessary supplies were there. Each item with the name "Jalayne" carefully penned across it in black marker.  I should have placed that backpack over her shoulders and stood her at the front door for pictures with her siblings and some of just her.  I should have put her in the car, video camera in tow, and driven her to the school.  I should have sent my little girl to her first day of kindergarten with kisses and hugs and "have a great day."  I should have stood with other mothers, watching the line form and then the children filing one by one, through the school doors and out of sight. 

I likely would have felt the sting of tears.  But they would have been bittersweet tears.  Tears of "I can't believe she is so big" and "I'll miss her at home all day" and "I am so very proud of her." They would have been tears that mark one of a child's greatest milestones....the first day of kindergarten. Instead my eyes burned today with tears of raw, gut wrenching agony.  They were tears of missing her in the depths of my soul, of not having held her for three ruthlessly painful years. 

I went about my day as if nothing were wrong in my world.  I sent one off to our local college, 2 off to high school, along with our foreign exchange student.  I sent Moise to his first day of middle school and moved Jamee to her new apartment at SLU.  I sent 6 beautiful people off to school, all the while, keenly aware of the one I was not sending.  This reality has hung, heavy and burdensome, upon me for several weeks.  I felt it as I bought the seemingly endless amount of school supplies, as I met with teachers, and signed papers.  This morning like a vice around my heart, I felt the glaring truth that Laynee will never attend school.  She will never ride the school bus. 

Earlier in the week I gave in to the need to purchase a backpack for her.  I chose one that I knew she would love, pink with princesses on the front.  I also bought new crayons and markers and placed then in the backpack.  I bought them, not because she needed them but because I needed them.  I needed to smell them, to touch the tips of each new crayon and feel the weight of the pack on my arm.  I needed to see her lovely name printed upon that bright pink fabric.  I needed the satisfaction of buying something for my little girl.  I needed to remember what should be and forget, just for a moment, that all is not well, that life is incredibly, brutally painful.  I took it to the only place that feels like hers........her grave.  I hung it there and hope that it tells the story that she cannot, that she is a big girl now, big enough for kindergarten. 

She should have started kindergarten today.........but she didn't.

I LOVE YOU SWEET LAYNEE

That Time of Year

It's that time of year again.  I can smell it in the mature corn that surrounds us, feel it in the morning dew and in the chill of the evening, hear it in the sound of the cicadas, see it in the steam rising from the pond in the early morning.  It is there in the nervous excitement of back to school and in the daylight hours that grow ever shorter.  It is that time........the time of year that Laynee died.  Memories of her life and her death seem to permeate the very air that we breathe. 

Sometimes I marvel at the human mind and how the senses have so effectively captured and preserved the memories of those days before the accident.  It is as if somehow, instinctively, my soul knew that my time with her was drawing to a close and so the senses grabbed and clung to every possible reminder.  There are times, still, when I forget.  I expect her to come running around the corner, to hear her soft bubbling laughter.  I wait for her.  But then.......then I remember. Then the pain crushes, once again. 

Last week a piece of mail came.  It was addressed to Jalayne, not Holmes, but her birth name. It obviously came from a long outdated mailing list.  But still, it was for her. It was her name, that beautiful name, Jalayne.  It brought a jolt of painful reality and disrupted the act of carrying on that occupies every moment. 

It hits me most in the peaceful, early mornings when the world awakens to sounds, all the sounds except her jabbering in her bed.  And in the evenings, as heat begins to leave the earth and quietness begins to settle around us, I think of all the should have beens.  And late at night, shrouded in darkness,  I awaken to her name on my lips and the crushing, sometimes unbearable, weight upon my heart.  That's when it hits me most. 

 I still wonder "how am I supposed to do this?"   I have asked that question an infinite number of times but have yet to hear the answer.   Some may say that I AM doing it, but my heart......my heart just can't stop hurting.  Jade's words from three years ago, reverberate in the very depths of my being....."It's never going to be okay again."

 

They say time heals all wounds,

but that presumes the source of the grief is finite” 

-Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince