Saturday, May 8, 2010

Mother's Day


I am angry today. It is the day before Mother's Day and I have so many conflicting emotions going on inside of me. I could explode! I don't like being in my skin or in my life. I feel like I am trapped inside a vice that continues to tighten it's grip on me. I am living a nightmare that won't end. Somedays are good. Many moments are good, actually, but each moment is haunted with reality. If only there was a way out of this.

I really didn't think much about Mother's Day coming up. I rarely look more than a day in advance. I am surviving one day at a time. That's all I can do. This week has been really hard though. I have had a rollercoaster of emotions tossing me this way and that, jerking me around, and leaving me feel confused and disoriented. I'll think I can handle something, and then realize it is way more than I can bear. I have felt so far away from Ashley this week. Wishing badly that I could talk to her on the phone or something...but there are no phone lines to heaven, there is no skype, or email. I have the hope of seeing her again, but I don't know when that will be. I know that Heaven is the finish line, but I can't see it...I don't know how much longer this race is. I found myself missing specific things about her. Things that made her unique...that no one else could be. As I enjoy each one of my kids, it also provides sorrow knowing that they are not like her...they are who God made them...it's that part of creation where God makes each one of us special and unique..there is no one like us. I see things in my children that remind me of Ashley. I love that so much! I am so thankful for my three...that God has given me to enjoy...but, I never feel complete...there is always a piece of the pie missing. I am always uncomfortable.

So, I know it's not just Mother's Day. It's spring...heading into summer. The weather has been nothing short of beautiful. I love to be outside, and to keep the windows open and feel the breeze through the house. Everything is green outside, and the sun is warm. I have often regreted the fact that Ashley didn't have her own room. Not because it wasn't "fair" to share a room with her sister, but because I feel like I don't have a place that was "all Ashley's" to leave the same way she left it...and be able to "be" in her space. When spring came I realized that her room was never that important to her anyway. The outside was her "space." She lived for any moment that she could be outside playing. She loved to be barefoot and in a sundress. She loved to imagine things and then she would play it. Usually, she played her "indian game." I even had to make her a deer skin dress. She was die-hard! She worked hard in her play...doing the things that indians did to live life. She wove baskets from reeds, and pounded field corn into fine corn meal. She gathered herbs and dried them....I just have to laugh at all the work she accomplished while she played! So, the change of seasons is comforting in a way, because it brings me closer to her. Every inch of this place was touch by her angel feet.

Coupled with the comfort of summer...comes the setting of the stage. With each leaf that arrived on the trees, and each day that the sun gets warmer, the flowers, the grass, the motivation towards summer activities....the stage is being set for us to relive the nightmare of our lives. Each moment is one day closer to THAT day. (Even though we are a year farther away from it, it is as real and fresh as the day itself.) I love summer and hate summer at the same time.

I was so thankful today for an email from not only a friend, but a mom who KNOWS this life I now live. She affirmed my pain, my anger, my sorrow. There was no sugar coating. For her it is 17 mother's days without her son, for me it is one. The pain of the day is still sharp even for her. I am encouraged to know that life will get better. There is joy to be had. The God of all comforts will always be my comfort. But, I realize that I am also strangely comforted in knowing that the searing pain of separation from my child will never go away. I don't want it to. I HATE this pain, I despise it! But, I don't want it to ever leave me...it is all I have...it is my daughter's presence in my life.

I remember my first Mother's Day. Ashley was "here", but not born yet...I wanted to hold her. She was a part of my life and I looked forward to seeing her. Well, Ashley is a part of my life now...except I can't hold her, hear her, or see her. I can only wait for heaven.

6 comments:

  1. You say it all so well. I love you, Wendy.

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  2. crying for you Wendy and begging God that the "finish line" is closer than we can even imagine.
    love,
    Melanie

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  3. crying tears of longing for you tonight, Wendy. You are an amazing woman and I am so thankful that for the short time Ashley spent on this earth she got to have you as her mother.
    Love,
    Laura

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  4. Oh Wendy... I've been thinking a lot about you as the season is changing and it's getting closer to "that day". It leaves me with such an aching for you.. I will continue to pray.
    Love,
    Kelly

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  5. you write so beautifully. I am sorry for your pain. You have the pain of a lost child and I have the pain of a lost mother. I can tell you that after 10 mothers days without her is still so hard. we were very close. Hoping with you that the finish line is near...very near.

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  6. Sometimes I wish Ash could come back to Earth from Heaven, sometimes I think if I had one wish thats what I would use it for. Then i think about Ash a little more and I realize that she would be happy to see us, but compared to Heaven, Earth is torture. She is as happy as she will ever be, and in our Heavenly Fathers arms, who wouldn't be? :)

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