gravel

Almost May.

One more day.

As I pick up crayons

finish Kindergarten with my JD

help Cambria learn to use scissors properly {cut fabric scraps, not hair}

answer texts from my crazy-hard-worker husband

wonder if the little flutters in my stomach are for real. .  .

I have this little edge on my heart, and at the weirdest times I will think of

gravel.


gravel in our hospital parking lot.

why is there even gravel there?

maybe it isn't gravel, maybe they are landscaping rocks.

i wonder about the insignificance of my wondering.

my heart wants to remember.

tears push at my eyelids at the oddest times as i remember. . .

the floor.

where i sank.

legs unable to hold me

weren't there chairs everywhere i went?

all of these odd memories of looking up at people from the floor.

the doorjamb of the trauma room.

where i grasped at straws and watched

frozen in unbelief

as everyone tried everything.

i think it's grey. and cold. and plastic. and probably imprinted with fingernail prints.

the floor.

again.

sitting there, numb and shocked, my voice not sounding like mine.

i can't call my mom.

i can't call and tell her.

if i call and tell her, it will be real.

Handing my baby to a nurse to take away wasn't real enough?

gravel.

again.

outside.

air.

mom.

you need to sit down

it's really bad.

gabe is with Jesus.

I kept saying that.  So weird.  I'd never even used that phrase before.  I see myself, standing on the sidewalk in my pajamas, saying in this odd high pitched voice to the neighbors. . .

he's with God he's with God he's with God

awful awful refrain.

with God with God with God with God.

not with me with me with me with me.

gravel.

mom.

no i don't know, mom.

there wasn't anything wrong.

i know i know i know

i don't knowwwwwwww what happened.

my babyyyyy.

gravel.

maybe i could throw the rocks.

or kick them.

or just lay down on them and die.

this isn't happening to me.

this is a nightmare.

but it wasn't.

I straighten my stack of current books on the stand next to my favorite huge chair where I'm curling up late at night to read. . .

Strengthsfinder

Choosing Gratitude

When Your Child is Hurting. . .

I remember the stacks of thank you notes I kept there to write with him snuggled in my lap. . . such a loved little man.  So many fire truck outfits.  So many tiny jeans.  Newborn infant boy clothing has come a long way.  I grin, thinking of his uber hip jeans and his little grey hoodie and his dark dark hair and his super gorgeous self and then I cry.

tears that bottle up now. . .

it's not quite so raw. . .

i can hold it together if i go out.

actually i can hold it together for a long time.

i am making it.

there really is healing.

i do have hope, hope i didn't know even existed.

but still, always that missing piece to our crazy family puzzle,

that little ache that knows he would be saying daddy and mamma.

that incomplete heart,

the break

the edge

the frayed parts of it. . .

remember the reality of our loss and then i know why. . .

why my heart twists

and why I think of odd things like

floors

and

gravel

while I'm washing pink plastic cups

and folding grass stained jeans

I think of gravel. . .

probably because my heart knows there should be sippy cups with little trucks on them next to the pink plastic cups

and jeans that don't have grass stains next to the ones that do.


Ahh, my littlest man. . .

you are so loved,

every moment,

my heart doesn't forget you,

little man.

I wish your jeans could be in the laundry too.

wish i didn't know about broken hearts

wish you didn't have a grave

wish there weren't weird corners of ER entrances with rocks and gravel

wish you would have been here to have ice cream when your big brother finished Kindergarten. . .

wish you could have snuggled in with all of us this morning and enjoyed our Saturday morning at home

and pancakes

and syrup

and that you would have needed your sticky pudgy hands wiped.

love you, buddy.

Mommy.