i walk upon this barren land; it’s cold the season that has no color the ground and trees are dark and gray and brown
scattered around me are the stones etched with names and dates and poems symbols, the markers of death, of no more life
buried here are the children who never lived outside the womb who were born and breathed, but died and some like mine who lived longer, but not so long at all
this place beckons me every march nine years ago death came and grabbed her and took her breath away it took my breath too, but left me living
buried far away from here and not too long ago are the bones of her grandmother she would walk this place with me with love and tears, but she never will again
and now this march i grieve for both my mother and my daughter but I know that they’re together
i bring flowers to this grave that are dead and nine years old white roses dried and kept the same ones that had been draped on a little casket
they’ve been sitting on my dresser dropping petals into their vase gathering dust, lots of dust i’ve held onto them, cherishing them
but I scatter them now, releasing the dust these petals, the color of earth some will blow away some will cling to ground or stone
the crumpled petals unleash the tears i try to let go of this burden will I be lighter?
soon this landscape will come alive with spring, the colors will chase the brown away daffodils and forsythia and tulips cherry trees will drip with pink blossoms
i’ll come back to see the spring and smell the sweetness and drive these tears away and think of those i’ll see again
A lot of my friends have been asking me how I’m doing…I haven’t been writing except little snippets on facebook. Blogging is virtually non-existent and has been replaced with one liners.
I’m good. Most of the time, I’m great. I really am. God has blessed me and given me peace and joy. I am living my life and enjoying it. Tonight I’m thinking back eight years ago waking up in labor with a certain baby girl.
I want to go kiss that baby girl right now.
But she’s getting all her kisses in heaven from her great grandparents right now. And from the angels. And from all the other little girls who have slipped from their parents’ arms into Jesus’ arms.
About a month ago on facebook, a friend asked for inexpensive ideas for her daughter’s 8th birthday party. We had been pregnant together. A few minutes later, another friend posted pictures of her daughter’s 8th birthday cake. Another blonde girl. BAM BAM. I hadn’t really had any moments of grief for a long time. Tears. But that’s not all. Then another friend whose baby was stillborn just a short month before Abby’s life ended was writing about her grief too. More tears.
I want MY birthday girl where I can see her and touch her and watch her eat cake.
Today is Abby’s 8th birthday. Where has the time gone? We only had 2 birthdays with her. Then she was gone. Now she has been gone nearly six years.
As I was thinking of my labor, I decided to look through her photo album. When I got it out of the cabinet, my tears fell. Then I opened it. On the first page is her name:
Abigail
“father rejoices”
Helene
“the bright one, the shining one.”
Then on the next page is this picture.
Do you see her praying hands? I remember her folding her hands quite a bit her first few days.
So sweet!
It’s almost as if she was born to worship, born for heaven right out of the womb. With this thought and looking at this picture and the others on the page, Forget a couple quiet tears, my body was racked with sobbing.
I miss my Abby girl!
It’s been a long time since I’ve cried like that, and I want people to know! This has been the EASIEST February ever. I can’t even believe it. My growth is phenomenal since last year and the previous ones. Part of the reason is I haven’t had time to have a personal pity party because my heart has been heavy, so heavy for others in recent weeks. I was reminded of something I wrote a month after Abby died:
A month. 4 weeks ago tomorrow, our journey of death began. When we were driving home yesterday, Todd asked me if I was doing a lot of crying that he didn’t know about, and I told him not really. I asked him if he cried when Rachel died. The answer was no. I asked him if he cried when Petros died. No. I asked him if he cried when Corrie died. No. And I asked him if he cried when baby Anna was stillborn. No. And I asked him if he’s been broken and weeping and praying for Beth’s recovery. No.
I have spent 9 months, many nights sleepless, just crying and praying for other people. Now, there’s a million people crying and weeping for ME and God is answering their prayers and God has brought me peace and grace.
I don’t think I’m holding it in (so to speak). I asked Todd if he remembered that Thursday morning. How could he forget? I screamed at the top of my lungs and relived every detail of those almost 2 hours of agony where Abby was hurt and dying. I scared him, he said. He kept telling me to relax. He said he reverted into his Bradley mode because it reminded him of labor (before I wrote about it in that way in thefuneral memoir) My release was in every way physical, emotional and spiritual. And now I have peace. And my tears are much less than his.
Happy birthday, beautiful. My pretty dancing, singing girl in heaven. I miss you.
I never got past those first 2 pages of the photo album. I’m saving those for the morning when I go to the cemetery with whoever wants to go with me. Not sure which of the kids, if any will want to come. I have some tulips from church that I’ve been enjoying all week that I’ll toss on Abby’s grave.
I buried myself in this novel on a road trip this summer. A heart wrenching story about a child who dies and a mother’s grief and journey to her homeland to find healing, this book isn’t for everyone. When my husband asked me what the book was about and I told him, he replied, “How can you read that stuff?”
Morley describes grief in such a genuine way that I doubt she is a stranger to loss. I found Come Sunday well-written and at times, poetic. For example, in the hospital scene after Cleo’s death, Morley pens,
Cleo’s lower lip is crooked, weighted to the right as it always was when she was asleep or when she was scared. Exactly how it was when she was born.
“Cleo!” I cry, calling into the abyss, calling her back from the void; a loud clear call. “Wake up, Cleo, open your eyes, darling; it’s time to go home.”
But she has gone to the burial grounds of drowned boys and crucified Lords.
A child dies. A mother mourns. What else can I say? That’s my life story.
But that’s where my path diverges with the grieving mother in the book. She lets her grief overshadow the rest of her life for a time. She places blame for her daughter’s death where it doesn’t belong. She shuts out some of her closest friends. She leaves her husband.
The main character remembers a conversation she had with her daughter Cleo about a statue of the virgin Mary:
“What’s her name?” she asked.
“That’s Mary, Jesus’ mommy,” I answered.
“Is she sad?” she wanted to know, glancing up at the Holy Mother with her downcast eyes.
“I’m not sure,” I said after a pause.
But I know now. I know that Mary’s grief is a thousand fathoms deep, where blue is so dense it becomes black. So vast is her sorrow that she cannot speak but only part her robe and reveal the crimson heart that in its stubbornness will not cease its beat.
It’s passages like this that made the book a page turner for me. I found myself holding my breath, feeling nauseous, laughing, wiping a tear from my cheek, and wanting to get to the last page to see how it ends and then wanting more of the story. I recommend the book to those who don’t mind being a little sad or mad…
In a conversational video, Morley says about the book, “I want people to feel that redemption always triumphs tragedy and loss and hope trumps sorrow. I want them to feel assured about holding onto hope, that although life is hard and sometimes there are seemingly insurmountable tragedies that there is a new day, a Sunday coming.”
What follows is something I wrote in April of 2008 and am just now getting around to publishing it.
As life continues to march on after the death of my daughter, I encounter people who didn’t know Abby. When strangers ask me about it, I merely tell them she died in an accident. If pressed for more information, I say what type of accident. I don’t really give any details if I don’t know the person well.
I especially enjoy talking about my daughter’s life–both her short time on earth as well as the eternity that she has started in heaven without me. I don’t mind talking about my daughter’s death. When asked how Abby died, I quickly process the request and the person making it. I need to trust the person if I’m going to tell my story. If he/she has a genuine interest in me and my well-being, I proceed. The reaction is usually one of total compassion that includes tears, a hug, prayer, and perhaps disbelief. I welcome a listening ear from someone who cares.
But if I don’t know the person very well or if I think the request comes from mere curiosity rather than a genuine care for me and my family, then I won’t tell my story. I’m vulnerable and don’t want to get hurt. I told my story to the wrong person last week.
I mean, I tried to tell my story. When I told her I don’t mind talking about it, she asked me if Abby had been sick. (this is a common question and I don’t mind it at all), but when I told her that she died in an accident, she said that her interest lies in illness and death caused by vaccines. I should have stopped talking right there.
But I didn’t. I continued my story. When I told her a couple details, she said,
No wonder why it’s so hard for you.
I include this picture from the funeral as an illustration as to why “it’s so hard for me.” My daughter’s body was in a casket. It doesn’t matter how she got there. Just that she’s there. Still there.
And why did this person think “it” was so hard for me?
Because I asked a few people to pray for me as the third anniversary of her death approached? It was the season that was more difficult than others and I asked for prayer. Usually people tell me how well I’m doing. I’m living life and getting out and mothering my children all the while living with great loss.
Seriously.
how to be insensitive to someone who has lost a loved one
So I continued my story. I’m not exactly sure why I continued. I guess I was as insensitive to her needs as she was to mine, meaning I should have picked up on the fact that she wasn’t interested in listening to how my child died since it wasn’t the kind of death that she likes to hear about.
Maybe if I kept talking, she would be interested in MY story that she asked to hear?? I don’t know. The third time she said this, I said, “Well, I can’t help you with that because that’s not how she died.”
We’re moving. Our growing family, although diminished needs a little more room. We hinted of it before March 22. But now that leaving is closer to becoming a reality, its hard. I think its harder to leave this house now than it would’ve been before Abby’s death. I feel like we’re abandoning her a bit.
Some might think we’re running away from this house because our daughter died here.
But we’re not. Because of Abby, we want to stay. She’s everywhere. She was conceived in the blue room that is now the boys’ room. I labored in the tub with her. I brought her home to this house. She rolled on the wooden floor and then moved on her belly and pulled herself along, ever a struggle until she was up on all fours. She took baths in the kitchen sink. She crawled and walked and ran and laughed and smiled and sang inside these walls. And then one day she escaped these walls and walked outside and soared to heaven.
And now all we have of her are the pictures on the walls and the pictures in the albums and her memories. And a box in the attic filled with her things. In this house. This home. The memories of her are in every room. Every corner. This house.
In the first few days after death, I sat on the couch nursing Mary, facing the doorway to the kitchen. I ached because I waited and waited for Abby to come prancing through that doorway like she always did. I just wanted it all to be a horrible nightmare, something to wake up from with a start. To slow my beating heart. But it’s not a dream and she’s never walking through that doorway ever again.
She sat on the kitchen counter as I prepared meals and she emptied the plastic containers onto the floor. And she played with the containers in the spice rack. And she was by my side every day as I readied for the day. She opened and closed, opened and closed my makeup drawer in the mornings.
But it’s just a house. Walls and walls and floors and a roof.
We need to let it go. A possession. A home. Someone else can come and live where our daughter lived and died.
We can buy a different house and we can make it our new home.
And next spring we can visit this old house and see the daffodils blooming by our front porch that were given in her memory by so many of our neighbors. And I can take pictures of the dogwood tree, blossoming golden in Abby’s memory. And I can turn the corner and see the driveway where her life started slipping away. And I can imagine the blood pooling on the blacktop. And I can see the steps where I held her lifeless in my arms. And I can remember where she laughed and ran and sang and played. Happiness and joy. So much happiness and joy.
Seven years ago in July we closed on this house and it became ours.
And seven years this house has been our home. We don’t want to go. But we must.
Clay has turned to loose and rich soil under Todd’s constant supervision where lettuce and cucumbers and beans and tomatoes now thrive every summer, even this summer in the drought. Todd painted this plaster covered drywall seven years ago. Perfect satin finish now stained with fingerprints and smudges of boys. And there are knicks on every doorway.
I just discovered this on my computer while looking for something else. I don’t even remember writing it and it remains unfinished. I wrote this four years ago. We never did move from this house. We spent the summer searching and decided that the best house for us was the one we already had.
My sister read my blog tonight and here is her response. When I saw this picture of Abby and Liz, I thought wow, look how my sister has grown up and changed in the last three years. Now she is without braces and has a fabulous haircut.
(nothing wrong with long, straight hair)
And as I look at Abby, wow, wasn’t she just a cutie? I don’t remember this picture. I don’t have it in my collection. I want every single picture that everyone ever took of her because that is all I have left. And I have a box or two in the attic with her things in it. I look at this sweet little outfit and I had forgotten it until now. Not that I obsess about the clothes she wore, but seeing it here in the picture, I remember it, and I want to touch it. I want to go up in the attic right now and dig through boxes until I find it. But you know what, I’m not going to. That will be for another day.
March 22. The anniversary of my daughter’s death. Has it really been 3 years since my daughter died? Three years ago, the day before Easter, I was sitting in the front row at a funeral, the funeral of my daughter. Now three years later, it seems like a distant nightmare. I go to the cemetery and think, have I really buried a child? Is she really gone? Was she ever here? The answers to those questions are yes.
This year, I am thankful that the 22nd of March also falls during Easter week. This year I won’t have to grieve twice and for that I am glad. When Abby died it was the Tuesday before Easter so her death is so tied up with holy week that no matter when March 22nd is in relation to Easter, the Tuesday after Palm Sunday will always seem like her heaven date.
I remember Abby singing “holy holy holy Lord.” That was the only line of the song she knew so she kept repeating it until we got to the hosanna part–then she would keep singing hosanna. I’m glad we sing it every week at church. To me, it was Abby’s song, is still Abby’s song. She is still singing holy holy holy Lord every single day, I’m sure.
holy holy holy Lord
God of power and might
heaven and earth are full of your glory
hosanna in the highest
hosanna in the highest
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord
hosanna in the highest
hosanna in the highest
This year the anniversary of her death is sandwiched between Good Friday and Easter.
He is risen.
He is risen indeed.
So thankful that I serve a risen Saviour.
So thankful that my sweet baby girl is with Him.
So thankful that I will spend eternity in heaven.
A friend of mine was due to have a baby April 1st and I was planning to attend her birth to help with labor support. When I realized that based on her estimated due date that the baby could be born on March 22nd (the 3rd anniversary of my daughter’s death), I was a little freaked out. I didn’t like that idea because I didn’t want to share the date with anyone, but then I put it in the Lord’s hands and rested in the fact that He knows what is best for me, even better than I do.
My friend called me on Monday to let me know that she had been having contractions. She wasn’t sure at that point if she were in real labor or not, but she did want to inform me of the situation. I thought that the baby could be born on Tuesday which I thought was a wonderful day to have a baby! The Tuesday between Palm Sunday and Easter will always feel like my daughter’s heaven day no matter what the calendar says. So the Lord did know what was best for me afterall. A Tuesday baby had not even occured to me, but now that it could happen, I thought it was a fantastic way to bring new meaning to a horrible day for me.
And indeed it did. A sweet baby girl was born early on Tuesday. I shall remember this always, and I don’t mind sharing this day. God is a wonderful God of grace, always full of surprises for me.
My sister read my blog tonight and here is 
grieving with guinever 