I sat on the shore a few weeks ago, feet in the sand, swelling belly wiggling with new life below, watching the tide come and go. The same ocean we'd brought his ashes to a year and a half ago... those lyrics wandering through my mind.
The kids jumped and squealed with delight in the waves, the sun shining brightly on their faces.
The tide is a peculiar thing. It's constant and unchanging, yet wildly unpredictable. Kinda like grief. It washes in and out but you're never exactly sure its power until it hits you. And you're never quite certain what it may bring in with it or take back out to sea. Sometimes coming and going as quickly and quietly as he came into our lives and then left us.
But there is One who knows. And only one who controls the turning of it.
It was a hot sunny day, just like today. I left the kids with a sitter and went on my way. A few errands to run before my appointment. The weekend before I'd done a huge yearly party, so the house was in shambles but I'd have weeks to clean up and prepare for baby, so I thought. The night before I'd felt a weird sense of urgency and late that night I went out and bought Ryder school clothes and purchased a diaper bag I'd been eyeing.
That hot day I wore a purple & gray tie dye looking skirt & a tank top and got a much needed pedicure. I then unassumingly went to the sonogram. It had been two weeks and the last visit was a good report. I laid on the table alone for 2 hours, texting Daniel that I was irritated these sonographers couldn't figure out what they were doing. They kept sending a different one in, each time leaving with a more confused face, until finally my Perinatologist came in. Calm yet worried she looked... and looked some more. She asked me a few questions that seemed out of the ordinary, but still I wasn't getting it. She sat me up, took my hand and told me I needed to deliver the baby. 12 hours she said. I had 12 hours and they were going to get steroids in me first. Well, that's not exactly how things proceeded and within 45 mins we were waiting to hear him cry...
No idea what the next months would hold. No idea what the next couple years would bring.
Sometimes I selfishly say I wish I could erase everything that happened. But I don't mean it really. Then there are moment like Tuesday when we're standing in a store and Ryder exclaims loudly to the register girl, "My Mom's PREGNANT..." "I see," she says smiling, and then without warning here it comes, "We already had a baby, but he DIED."
There were times during his pregnancy I begged God that if G wasn't going to make it to take him then because I didn't want to live through the after. But...
I'm glad he was born.
I'm so thankful for those moments and months we had that changed all of our lives. But sometimes the pain of walking through the after is harder than the joy of the moments gone.
I want to celebrate his life today because I'm so grateful God sent him to us. But sometimes the waves just want to bring in other feelings. And sometimes I've found I have to let go of my courage and feel them. God is angry too in those times. His heart is broken with mine. He's not looking away from me in my grief. He understands I truly wish I were holding him to celebrate his life today instead. But He knows I still trust that it truly IS well.
We'll celebrate as a family tonight. We'll let balloons rise to the heavens. {We will not have a piñata as the kids requested-kids have the weirdest ideas sometimes!} But we will love each other a little bit more today and hold each other a little bit tighter.
And we will be thankful that he was born.
Happy 2nd Birthday sweet Gibson. This momma misses you every second of every day.
