Fleeting glimpses

Darling Tavish,
It has now been a month since you were born. In a few days, it will have been a month since we said goodbye. In the past month, I have been blessed more than I can express. The friends your dad and I have, have been amazing. It has been a rough month, but with God's help, and the support of the people around us, we have survived.

We had your celebration of life service a little over a week after you passed away. It was beautiful. We sang Christmas songs, and told people al about you; how brave and strong you were, and how thankful we are that we got to spend the time with you that we had. It was good to be able to share you with everyone. There's no better way I can think of to celebrate who you are, and I feel very certain that it was exactly what you would have wanted.

A few days after Christmas, your dad and I went on a short trip. We went to Fredericksburg and walked around all the cute little shops there. We also went wine tasting at a cute little winery not far from our hotel, read books, and went to a ranch. There were so many animals, and we got a lot of good pictures of them! You would have loved seeing all the animals. There were normal safari animals like giraffes, and zebras, and wildebeests, but there were also several I had never heard of before (and sadly can't remember the names of 😞). I do wish I could have shared that with you.

Today, I finally felt like i could handle watching a show called "Call the Midwife." I'm taking a break from work for a few weeks, so I have a lot of free time right now. That show is one I had avoided until now because I didn't want the depiction of lots of pregnant women with healthy, happy babies to make me sad. It was a little hard, but God also used part of the story to make me feel a little bit better.

When your grandpa Tom passed away last summer, it was really hard for me. I loved my dad, and losing him made me really sad. I was really angry at God. Then, we found out you had Trisomy 13, and that anger got worse. I couldn't understand how a loving God could let so much bad stuff happen to me so close together. No one really has an answer for that kind of question, so I figured I would just have to get over it eventually. The best way it was described to me was that my walk with God was like a cloudy day. I still believed in him, but I couldn't see, or feel his presence in the situations that had occurred, and that was really hard for me. I wanted to, but didn't know how. That brings us to today.

In part of the story, one of the characters loses someone very close to her. She is hurting, and even says "I can't see God in this, how could I possibly?" Then one of the nuns responds "God is not in the event, but in the response to the event. He is in the people that surround you and support you through the event."

That was the most comforting response I have ever heard. When people try to tell me to look for the good in your passing, I can't. How could I? It's not a good thing that I lost you, and I don't much care about the good my response to it has done for other people. I want you back, and its not fair that I can't have you. But. I can see the good in how people have supported us, helped us to make it this far after your death. And I can definitely see God in their responses to us. It's not easy, but it does give me a slight ray of hope that things will get better. One of the other lines in the show said "You will not always hurt as you do now. You must simply keep on living until you feel alive again."

I miss you, my darling boy, and I will never stop loving you, but I also know the pain of your loss will lessen over time. As it does, the sun will begin to shine again. Until that happens, I must simply keep on living. It will get better, and today has given me a fleeting glimpse of that possibility.

Love,
Mom.