We are Jedidiah.

I remember sitting and writing thank you cards.  I remember trying to rack my brain to make sure that I didn’t miss anyone.  Now, almost 11 weeks after Jedidiah’s birth and death, I cannot, for the life of me, remember who received a thank you card and who I may have forgotten.  If you are one of the folks that I meant to send one to, and I didn’t, I’m sorry.  I know that you all will forgive me; some folks even told me not to send them a card, but I want everyone to know how much their support, love, and prayers meant and still mean.  Yes, even those people who have said they could have kicked themselves for saying, “X, Y, or Z.”  🙂

Today, I am thankful for the moments that I had with my son.  I am thankful for his long fingers and short fingernails.  I am thankful for his adorable little pointed ear.  I am thankful for his big, puffy cheeks.  I am thankful for his toes and his feet.  I am thankful for the times of seeing his big brothers hold him and love on him.  I am thankful that Joshua was able to see past his little brother’s cleft palate & lip and sing to him, holding him and kissing him.  I am thankful for the warm kisses I was able to give him.  I am thankful for all his sweet, precious noises.  I thankful for the myriad faces he made, even while asleep.  I am thankful that he knows no pain or discomfort anymore.  I am thankful for having been blessed to be his mama, even for the briefest of time.  My life IS better for knowing him, for carrying him, for valuing him exactly as he was.  I am thankful for Jedidiah.

Truth be told, there are not many smiles that I have now that are not thought out first.  My mind is so often on Jedidiah that when I am with others, I have to remind myself that they need a smile, a hug, a warm thought or word–that my loss is not the only loss in the world–that if I choose to, others will allow me to cry and to scream as often as I would like, but how is that helpful to them?

I had a friend who wanted to comfort me, and she shared how she had lost her father as a teenager.  She then said, “I know it isn’t the same,” as if her grief of losing her father was somehow less than my grief in losing my son.  I know the “natural order” of things, but I can’t help but thinking how selfish I would be and what a horrible, self-pitying and self-indulgent thought it would be for me to think that my loss is more significant, more grief-inducing, more pitiable than the loss of someone’s parent or someone’s sibling or even the loss of an early miscarriage.  Don’t get me wrong, I often think, “How can this person possibly understand what I am going through?”  Yet, I know that each loss of a loved one is significant.  Each life that has been created is precious.  Those who lose someone need to know that their grief is real; it is important.

I dropped the children off at Alive Hospice’s Camp Forget-Me-Not this morning.  Since I was so overwhelmed with emotions on Thursday’s introductory meeting, I did not expect today to be hard.  But, it was.  The emotions, the questions, the confusion… all within me, all hitting at once.

I wasn’t sure that I wanted to give into the tears for fear once they began, I would not be able to stop them with no one around.  I would love to say that I prayed and asked the LORD for guidance, but I must admit that I did not.  Maybe I would have been able to see clearly what to do next if I had.  Nevertheless, I decided that I would not go inside the house and try to find a way to hide from my emotions, yet I would not let them control me either.  You see, I eat or read when I want to get away from overwhelming thoughts or feelings.  Of course, I also enjoy those activities when not stressed or emotional, so that is why I have been kicking myself at the end of many days.  With so much reading and eating, my body is sluggish and my time is consumed.  My coping choices are encouraging my depressed and negligent feelings.  However, being active seems to turn my brain on overdrive, so I feared that, too.

Knowing that I needed to stop with my regrets at the end of every day, I decided to mow the lawn.  Instead of letting my mind swirl, God let me just focus on the task at hand.  Of course, when I came to the Jedidiah tree (a gift from family friends), I thought about him, but then I began thinking about how I could safely transport it if we ever move, so I stopped the downward spiral.

No, thinking about my boy is not a downward spiral, but right now, I need to stay focused on what the boys and my niece will need when they get home at the end of the day.  There are times, and there will be more times, when I need to focus on my own emotional needs, but I truly believe that today I needed to be physical for me but open emotional for the children.  I pray now that I am right.

For a few weeks now I have been dealing with nausea, on and off throughout the days, often awakening me in the night.  I knew that I was pregnant with Jedidiah because I kept waking up nauseous in the night.  The first night this round of nausea happened, I began crying, remembering my pregnancy with our boy.  It might sound strange, but even though I knew that I wasn’t pregnant again, I felt that another pregnancy would be disloyal to Jedidiah.  I wondered, especially so soon, how I could possibly give my heart to another baby after losing my sweet Jedidiah.

Today–the 8th, two long months–lots of memories, lots of conflicting emotions…