Not Just Another Day

Today was what it was. What fate/Nature/God intended? I'll never know. (I got so sick of hearing people say that it just wasn't God's will for us to have that baby. Who are we to presume to know the will of God, and why would anyone SAY that to a person who has just lost a child, anyway?) I only know what I feel. And I feel like today wasn't what it was "supposed" to be...or at least what I once lived expecting it would be, hoping it would be.

At best, today was supposed to be a day of celebration that our family had just grown (whether today or recently), a day of blissful sleep deprivation, hopeful breastfeeding anguish or success (it could go either way), dozens of itty bitty diapers, and tiny tortellini socks in my laundry. So many things. Or maybe I would be in labor right this very minute, struggling to breathe through it all and see it through to the end drug-free again. Maybe I would still be wondering if the person I was working so incredibly hard to bring into this world would be my daughter or my son.

At worst, today was supposed to be a day of swollen ankles, sore hips, and labored breathing, waiting anxiously for Baby to decide to come join the party and finally make Ava the big sister she's been so eager to become. It wasn't supposed to be a day of sadness. It was supposed to remain my baby's due date for nine whole months. But it didn't. And I had to say goodbye to a person I never knew, nor would I.

That changed January 28, 2007, for me. I knew it would. I knew I would think of that baby today, but I didn't expect grief to burden me for the past week as well. This time last year I was remembering Challenger. Now I'm remembering a loss of my own. My child. And it was really just another day, like any ordinary Sunday. As it should be, I suppose. But try telling that to any woman who has lost a child. It's not an ordinary day (or week, it turns out). It's a week of ineffable emptiness, almost loneliness in some ways. But oddly, not consuming...just in occasional twinges. Like growing pains. It's there, but it only takes over your thoughts every now and then, sometimes becoming unbearable but then passing on to life's ordinariness once again. It came last week in the image of a father holding his infant daughter and speaking such sweet, wonderful words to her that you could feel his love for her. It came in falling snow behind the cross in the picture window at church. A picture of God pouring down bits of Heaven, or goodness, or love, or comfort for my sorrow...I don't know which. But He was there.

Sometimes you just have to succumb to your pain and let it pour out briefly, until the next round of overwhelmed-ness washes over you. It was as if the snow was God's way of telling me it was okay to succumb, to let tears pour out of me as effortlessly as it poured out of the sky with the beautiful backdrop of winter trees...of quiet solitude. I wanted all sound to cease so that everyone else could hear God as clearly as I could, or maybe it's more precise to say so that everyone could experience God's presence as tangibly as I was in that moment of sorrow. But I realize now as I knew then, that everyone hears/feels/experiences God in different ways. God knows I am a creature of sensory memory. He speaks to me in wind chimes and heavy snowfall. Both were used to carry me through legs of this life experience, and neither of them will ever cease being sensory reminders from God for me in this life.

Everything's gonna be okay.

Partly cloudy, sunny, and snowing!?

Craziest thing happened this morning. A lovely dense snowfall started suddenly on our way to pick up Ava from preschool today. We were very early to get her, so we just sat in the car and chatted, while enjoying the snow. It stopped as abruptly as it had started, and the sun creeped out slowly and set about dancing. We lamented that the snow had stopped before the kids were released but hoped that it would begin again. Sure enough, in a few minutes it started again as suddenly as before. (I mean, POOF! It was like someone cued the theatre crew to start the snowstorm.) When we got outside with Ava, the sun was shining brightly, but big, fluffy snowflakes were falling nonetheless. I heard Britt say to her, "Hey, look up. Where is that snow coming from anyway?" I looked up too, and there was just blue sky overhead!

Welcome, Winter!

There was finally evidence of winter here. This first "snow event" (as they call it on the local news) wasn't a nice snowfall, as we had hoped, but we went outside and played in the ice nonetheless. A bit disappointing for us grown-ups who are hoping for at least one more round of real snow before we move to ice-storm land. This is our last winter for the novelty of real snow. Winter ain't over yet! The little girl in me will keep hoping until Spring comes.

Recipe Books

This time last year, I had begun trying to cook one new recipe per week. But it had to be a new recipe from one of the many cookbooks I have on hand, in hopes of actually using all these books enough to figure out which ones should really get donated to the library before our big move. Well, that didn't work out as I had hoped. I just don't really cook using recipes much, and doing so really slows me down, costs more money, and requires more planning than the way I currently operate. So I still am no closer to knowing which books are really worthy of moving with us.

Ironically, I have begun this year with a search on amazon for a new cookbook full of bean recipes. Regularly eating beans would help us with two goals: 1) living as cheaply as possible and 2) eating more healthfully. Instead of paying for a new cookbook that I might not use, I borrowed a copy of Vegetarian Times Complete Cookbook from a friend, and I'm pretty excited! There are so many good recipes in there! And not just bean recipes but all kinds of recipes to get us out of our rut. Now it will just be a matter of finding ones that don't require too much planning, too much time, or too much money. The book's owner said she lived on its recipes during her most money-crunched life period (because you don't have to buy meat), so I guess it's possible to live cheaply on these recipes.

Coming up: Fruity Bran Muffins

Resolutions?

I don't have much affection for the tradition of making new year's resolutions, but I do make life goals from time to time, usually at the beginning of every new semester (as we have lived semesterly for our whole adult lives). And new years just happens to be (pretty much) the start of a new semester for us. So I don't know if you'd call them "resolutions," per se, but these are some of my hopes for my life habits forthcoming:

Eat more beans.

Drink at least 56 ounces of water every day.

Take the Beginning Swimming for Terrified Adults class that I couldn't get into last semester.

Spend at least an hour of focused time with Ava every day. Fill her days with fun things besides TV viewing.

Exercise for at least 25 minutes five days a week...and increase time once this becomes a habit.

Update blogs at least once a week.

Begin really FLYing. I can do it!

Get Ava's baby pictures in an album by the time we move, even if it's not modern "scrapbook" style. Just get them in there!!!


That's enough. :)

Happier New Year

We rang in the new year in West Texas watching the ball drop on a fuzzy cable connection. Why is it that watching the ball drop as a kid was so thrilling, and now it's just interesting to see what cool new technology they have added to the famous ball this year? (I'm sure it had something to do with being a kid awake at midnight, but I digress...) We had quite a conversation about the demise of Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest's acceptance of the Dick Clark torch. I thought this was a ridiculous change until we really considered all the ways that Ryan Seacrest is to our current pop culture what Dick Clark was forty (or fifty!?) years ago. He hosts American Idol, which is sort of today's version of what American Bandstand represented decades ago. And now you see him hosting all sorts of things...much like Dick Clark has done for, well, forever to me. (Will we still be watching Ryan Seacrest host stuff forty years from now!?) I feel sad for Dick Clark. He must love doing what he's always done, or he wouldn't still be sitting there struggling to speak in an understandable way, and that means he must be uncomfortable letting go of all he's ever known, succumbing to his mortality when he's always seemed ageless until recently. But enough about Dick Clark.

The ball dropped, as it always does, a flashing eternity and then, boom, it's a new year. In an instant, it's another year of opportunities, life changes, places to visit, inevitable and still-silent aging, marriage, laundry and dishes, back pain, family growth, spiritual formation...and so many other things we have yet to discover. 2006 was hard, and I gladly welcome another year of opportunities. I know it doesn't really change anything. Every day is the start of a new year, depending on how you look at it. But still, the first day of January just seems like a fresh start. Maybe it's because you get to take down one whole calendar and put up a new one. Change! And not just the current month to another picture very similar to the one before it...a whole new calendar, signifying (to me) permission to breathe a sigh of relief that the year is finally over. Those digits 2-0-0-7 represent HOPE that the next 365 days will be more palatable than the last, maybe even wonder-filled and exciting or at very least happy. And so I looked to the love of my life and meant a million things when I said, "Happier New Year," and he knew just what I meant.