Sunday, July 15, 2012

I Don't Want To Do Today

I woke up at 7:15 on 7/15, no small number for me.  I thought to myself as I have thought for the past week, "I don't want to do today."  I just want to be happy, and I don't want to think of what this day means in my life, in my history, in my story.  That is the most selfish thing I have done in a long time.  Today my boys turn 4.  I didn't make a cake with cute little African Animals like I have done every year for their birthday, I don't want to celebrate.  I don't know what is so hard about 4, but it is so hard. Maybe it has nothing to do with 4 at all.  Maybe it is just that I am so happy, I just don't want to be sad.  Not that I don't think of them often, daily.  I have their pictures up in my home and I see them all day long as I clean and take care of the girls.  I now see them when I look at Harper sometimes - which sometimes knocks the wind out of me and sometimes makes me smile. Life is hard, and it's days like today that remind me of just how hard life can be.  It's really the month of July that does that for me.  I hate July. I shouldn't hate it quite as much because I brought my miracle baby Harper home in July last year, July 23, 2011.  That should have softened July for me a bit. A lot of happiness and abundant blessings brought to a month so filled with loss for me.  It's not just the boys birth and loss that makes July hard for me. Next Saturday is another day I hate, the day Michael passed.  Then there's July 24, the day I buried both my husband and my sons, 4 years apart. And to round it all out, July 29, the day we lost my sweet, precious Grandma.  That one even hurts, probably just because I am wallowing in my sadness because it is very natural to lose a grandparent to old age.  She did die very suddenly, and no one got to say goodbye, but it was peaceful and in her sleep, we think. I'm just feeling sorry for myself, so just ignore my ramblings.  Thanks for letting me get it off my chest. Maybe I can try to celebrate a little today, the gift that Joshua and Caleb gave me.  Not just one gift, but many gifts.  They were so brave and so strong.  I can still see Caleb trying to lift his head to see me as they put them on my chest.  The doctor said it was just involuntary, but he couldn't see Caleb's eyes.  He was looking at his mommy.  Oh how I wish I could have taken the pain away for him, but thankfully his heavenly father did that.  I can't imagine what it must have felt like to not be able to take a deep enough breath to sustain life for longer than an hour and a half.  I imagine it must feel little like when I go for a run after having not ran in months - I can't breathe about 5 minutes into it.  My throat closes up and I wheeze as I struggle to get a breath. But if I continue to run, my throat and my heart and my legs and my lungs eventually figure it out about 15 minutes into the run, and I can then run for hours if I want to.  Harper knows what the boys felt like I bet, but she won't remember by the time she can tell us.  I don't want her to remember, that is one thing we kept saying as we watched her tiny little body struggle to breathe while the ventilator pushed breaths into her lungs - she won't remember any of this.  I wonder if Joshua and Caleb remember me.  I also wonder, as I do every day, if they are conjoined or separated in heaven.  I hope they remember me, and I hope they don't so they don't have to miss me. I hope they are separated, and I hope they are conjoined. I am so selfish.  I know heaven doesn't work like life here works, but since I can't really wrap my mind around that I have to put it in the schema that I do know so I constantly compare it to life.  But it is the life ever after, not life.  I am so thankful He took them home, so they do not know pain and they do not struggle to breathe, to eat, to live.  But I miss them.  So this year I am being selfish for their birthday.  No cake, no celebration.  We are going to go to church. We will go to the cemetery. We will cook dinner. I hope when I get out of this selfish funk in a few days I don't regret not celebrating their 4th birthday.  You don't get a do over with stuff like that.  There's only one 4th birthday.  That's OK, I am taking my chances.  I don't have a lot of regrets in my life so I am willing to risk this one. July 15 will come again next year, there's nothing I can do to stop it. Trust me, I tried this year really hard.  I don't want to do today, but today came anyway.

2 comments:

UrbanExpressions said...

I read something once about what time is like in Heaven. I won't go into the whole thing but it basically said that time moves much slower in Heaven, so it will be as if the blink of an eye. I like to think that is true, so that the ones who have gone before us don't miss us.

JC Stitches said...

I think I remember hearing that as a kid - "the blink of an eye." I think my grandpa actually used to say that about heaven. When I was a kid I thought he must have had a direct "connection" to God, that he was such a good, Christian man God heard everything he said, prayed, etc. Thank you, Sarah. That brought back good memories and gave me some comfort, too. I sure hope it is the blink of an eye for those in Heaven.