The Joy of the Lord is My Strength

A Special Place for Grieving Mamas

2008-08-25T03:12:00.001-06:00

Discovering Widgets

2008-08-25T02:44:00.004-06:00

Don't EVER EVER EVER Shop at JCPenny's

2008-08-20T14:56:00.001-06:00

Finances and unemployment have been the family stress factors as of late. There are some hopeful prospects around the corner, so we're laying lots of prayers at the Lord's feet.

I've moved up to the next level in my PSP class. I've learned so much and am eager to learn more. I've spent the better part of the summer organizing all my psp, jpg, gif, png, and ttf files--many many many long days & late nights to get that project finished. Now I have several thousand emails from my PSP groups to sort through and discard. My goal is to be done with that by Labor Day. I'm not so sure I'll make the deadline that I set for myself, but I keep my fingers crossed.

My aim is to start this school season with my head less cluttered and more on task for accomplishing something. Additionally, I've discovered digital scrapbooking. So between that and my PSP lessons, I'm feeling confident about finally finding something to succeed at.

I'm also trying to find time to get back into my quilting, but it's hard to find the motivation. or inspiration. The fact is that I really do need to finish the quilt I was working on when Abigail died. It was the Christmas of 2002 that my friend bought me a block of the month club. She bought a club for her too, and thus we were bound to each other to keep up with each month's blocks. We worked all through the months of 2003--that summer was especially productive. We did most of the block-sets for the quilt during those summer months.
We finished the very last set of blocks in November. December was the final task, which consisted of border and backing. We were on our own for getting the final queen-sized product quilted. I had only hand-quilted before that, so this was my very first machine made quilt. I was setting out to get my border pieces put together when we found out that Abigail's heart had stopped just days before her due date.

All these five years later, I've not yet been able to get back to finishing the quilt. I also have fleece that I bought to make Abigail a winter bunting bag, but she died before I could get it done. I guess I could say that my summer has been spent going through my goal planner and getting myself set up for getting back into my pre-baby-death interests & hobbies.

It hasn't been easy, and I often wonder if I'm ever going to be able to have a life again. I like to think that I'm doing my best, and that in due time I will have accomplished a lot more than I give myself credit for. Somehow I trust the Lord to work it all out for me; that He never leaves me or forsakes me.

Other dramatic things this summer: garage door broke some major parts and nearly fell off it's tracks and onto our car. We couldn't get the car out for a week while we waited for the mgt company to send a garage door guy out here. The guy came and took assessment of the damage so he could write an estimate for the mgt company. They have to approve all the parts and services, and the guy can't get back here until next Monday (assuming mgt approves it all). The guy did help dh get the car out of the garage, but now it has to sit out in the scorching sun--don't like that idea much, but we'll cope.

Then our son got fired for ordering me some bath mats. He works (or at least he USED to work) at JCPenny's catalog center taking orders. They had sent me a free shipping coupon in the mail, and it expired on the 18th. So I cluelessly sent my son to work on the 17th with list and coupon in hand, asking him to place the order for me. During his break, he put in the order for my stuff and then went out for a cigarette. When he came back in, the supervisor sent him home and told him he had to go to Human Resources the following day.
The next day he went into HR and told them what happened. They actually fired him--all because he made an order for some bath mats for his mother. Neither of us had any idea that such a simple thing carried such a stiff penalty.

I know this much and that is I'll never ever ever shop at Penny's again--and I'll tell everyone I know from here to the Netherlands not to ever shop at Penny's. I mean, what a crock of crap! It's not like he was stealing either time or merchandise. I feel bad--really bad. I got my son fired. I just had to have those stupid bath mats, and they waved a free shipping coupon in my face. I figured Penny's would be glad to have another sale. NOPE. To be certain, the world has gone stark raving insane!

Oh well. We live & learn. He went in today and applied at the phone center for Victoria's Secret. He wasn't home an hour, and they called him for an interview. He goes in next Tuesday to jump through their dog & pony hoops. He's also got applications in with the phone centers for Sprint and T-Mobile. We'll see what comes of it. Saying lots of prayers for my boy...

Checking In

2008-08-12T01:42:00.004-06:00

How fast a month will zoom by. I've been absent from writing. I'll catch up with that soon enough. I decided to dig deeper into this PSP graphics thing and really make a go of it. I've worked countless hours sorting gobs of jpg, gif, png, tub and psp files. I bundled some of it up and moved it to my other hard drive so I could ease up the load on my main drive. I can't believe how disheveled everything was. I had so many zillions of images that needed sorting &/or deleteing. Now that I'm relatively caught up with that, I've got another zillion emails that I've saved with the intention of gleaning more images to save. I'm sure most of it will get dumped, but I'm determined to get through it before the Labor Day season change embarks. Come hell or high water, I WILL get organized and more on task. Depression's a bitch, but I'm determined to battle it like a warrior of Salvation. God will NOT be mocked, and I'm determined with my whole heart to prove His Victory to be True!

So I've beem MIA from many of my watering holes; unable to say in words all that befalls us. We're in a very bad patch whereby every aspect of our lives are being attacked. Nevertheless, I am fully persuaded that what He first began, He will see through to completion. Be Back Soon...

My Toad is Turning Twenty Two

2008-07-16T15:39:00.002-06:00

My baby boy is turning 22 on Saturday. Where has the time gone??? When he was younger I affectionately called him my little toad because he was a prince that had not yet come unto his own. I have a little blown glass frog with a blown glass crown on his head that's very special to me. Over the years, Ben's gifted me with a variety of frog items--mostly for the flower garden that we had to leave behind when we moved last summer.

As he grew, the frog became more important to us. Fully Rely On God (FROG) is a motto I did my best to instill in him. I did all I could to teach him that if he trusted in the salvation of the Lord, then he too would be a crowned prince in the Father's Kingdom.

At the moment, my toad is walking the path of the prodigal. Once he joined the workforce, he found that the allurements of the world were just too inviting. My fervent prayer is that he will grow weary of being in the mud with the pigs and return to seek The Father's heart. I'm fully persuaded that God will finish that which He began. Of course that's not to say I don't have a mother's worry. But I do trust that God is in control and won't make us endure beyond what we're able to bear. A faith without testing isn't really faith.

So a new chapter of my life is about to unfold. I'm 46 with an empty nest. The world is my oyster. I'm curious to see the next pearl that the Lord creates for me. I'm sure that if I trust & obey, then it's sure to be a beautiful gem. Trusting is getting easier; it's the obeying part I struggle with-- LOL

Missing My Little Junebug

2008-06-13T16:30:00.003-06:00

As the heat of June settles in, I feel her in the air. I'm taken back to her 2-month check up when she too had her shots. She didn't even cry. She just had this startled look on her face. I was so proud of her.

We showed her off around the hospital where her pediatrican, obgyn, and NICU family knew her well. And then we took her out to a little neighborhood kitchen for Mexican food when we were done. She sat in her car carrier and dozed while dh and I had dinner.

We stopped at the Walgreen's to pick up a replacement Rx for her heart medicine since hospice had taken the other one. There was also an Rx to help with her constipated tummy.

It was a few moments when I let my guard down, and for a fleeting fragment of time I let myself believe that I got to keep her. To my dismay, only a few hours later she was dead in my arms. It caught us completely off guard. Once again our frail illusions were shattered.

I was such a zombie through the rest of that summer. We've not been back to that neighborhood kitchen since that day--there's been no reason to go all the way across town in that direction.

As the heat of the season starts to bear down, I'm reminded of that
frazzled,
reeling,
exhausted,
overpowering sense of suffocating anguish
--gasping & flailing through the heavy darkness;
--grappling with how I'd make it;
--groaning under such incredible weight of sorrow...

I miss her like crazy--all the coos she made; the beginnings of purposed smiles; and omgosh the grand strides she embarked on as she sought to be in control of her own head. I miss how the crook of my arm would get hot & sweaty from holding her so long--how her unruly hair would get matted and damp.

Yes, she was so very sweet. And I said it the day after she died and I'll say it again, "I have no idea what I'll do without her." I guess I'm still trying to figure that out...

Remembering My May Bee

2008-05-14T14:25:00.005-06:00

So much of May reminds me of Anne--the weather, Mother's Day, the blooming flowers--all part of her short time with us. The weather is such that I can almost feel her absent presence. And the blooming iris & bleeding hearts will forever be for her. Three years ago we spent Mother's Day in the NICU, and a couple days later we got to bring her home. May 12th was her homecoming day. I remember feeling so nervous, and so sad that Abigail didn't get to come home with us at all. The chilly spring nights remind me so much of Anne--those middle of the night feedings that I cherished. How I miss holding her bitty warm body. In the midst of my sadness, I've been watching out for butterfly kisses and angel blessings. There have been many bitty white butterflies that have flittered across my path. I like to think of them as kisses from heaven...

Pondering a 3-Year Old's Absence

2008-05-06T11:35:00.003-06:00

She would have been three. It's hard to believe it's been three years since my sweet little girl came into my life. April, May & June are for Anne--my sweet little May Bee that didn't get to stay. She was my rainbow of hope after Abigail died. But then she died too and all the colors of the rainbow faded to black.

It's hard to explain such grief to those who haven't had one child die, let alone two. Having the rainbow baby die on top of a full-term stillbirth is no small thing, and yet how many the people are in my life who brush her off as inconsequential. It's been very difficult to live through.

Thankfully, I've managed to stay sober (though getting plastered has been a temptation on more than one occasion). I've been riddled with fibromyalgia this last couple of years, so I can't really say that the grief didn't impact my health. My body went into pre-mature menopause, leaving my hormones to fight & struggle within me. I finally had to succumb to anti-depressants just to survive. I owed it to my family to be at least somewhat functioning.

I would have liked to have been stronger as I walked this road of grieving, but alas a person can only take so much. It's not that I'm entirely against anti-depressants, it's just that they don't really work as good as one would hope. They barely take the edge off, but I suppose that's all I really need for them to do. I can't exactly expect a pill to bring the joy & beauty if my girls back to me. But the pills do help with that chronic wishing for death to overtake me. The medication helps keep in check those dark emotions that keep me from functioning. Heck, I made it through Anne's third birthday, and I'm proud of that.

I did much better this year than last even though my heart misses her more now than ever before. I never realized what a challenge it would be to stack up so many birthdays in the cemetery. I'm having to come to grips with the fact that cemetery birthdays are all I'll ever get to have of them. It's a rather gruesome prospect to consider; not for the faint of heart.

Happy Third Birthday, My Sweet TurtleBird

Mama Misses You Madly!

Loving My Jealous God

2008-03-11T15:07:00.007-06:00

Yikes! What a terrible blogger I've been! Even now I don't know what to write about other than the illhealth that's kept me from having gumption to write.

I've been struggling with depression and finding the right meds. Nothing seems to help. Oprah would say that I just need to wish it away--that I attract the depression because I don't visualize it away. I suppose if I had cancer that I could just visualize that away as well? I suppose she'd say that my girls died because via the "law of attraction" I actually wished them dead. Please! I've grown quite weary of Oprah's ivory tower ideologies. It's been a little too long since she's known what "real life" really is. I suppose it's a lot easier to visualize your problems away when you're richer than God.

I tried her online class briefly. First, I trudged through the book that she's plugging. As a Bible scholar, I had to be alert to those new age philosophies that are contrary to Biblical thinking. It was hard since the author clearly isn't Messianic in any way, and what snippets of Jesus that he draws from are often badly misinterpreted. I heard that still-small voice inside me saying, "are you really sure you want to keep reading such drivel?" But I did my best to have an open mind. I didn't want to miss the author's greater message just because he fails to understand the Judeo-christian worldview or what the Bible teaches. I looked forward to what the class might teach in spite of the book's remarkably buddhist perspective.

So the first night of class, I attended with text and notepad ready. The Internet broadcast lasted about 10 minutes and then crashed from the overwhelming attendance. So I turned on Oprah & Friends on XM Radio to listen to the rest of the class. Well, not the rest of the class....

In reality, I packed up my bookbag & pad and walked out of class before the hour was done. A student had called in to ask a question about how Oprah could reconcile the dichotomy of thinking between the book's buddhist prevelence and its conflict with Messianic thinking. The long & explicit answer made me not want to continue with the class, and it made me very very sad for all those who would be led astray through the book/class experience.

You see, my God is a jealous God. He's jealous for His Bride. He wants her to make Him her priority. He doesn't want her tramping around with a bunch of other gods. He's jealous for His bride to be pure in thought, word and deed. God is jealous for my safety & protection. He doesn't want me straying off into the World's mud puddles. He's jealous for my heart to remain true to Him. His relationship with me is not an open relationship where I can pick & choose only the comfy, feel-good things about God's goodness & love.

God, in Hiss relationship with His people, expresses His love for us through His righteous jealousy. Jealousy is a very very important part of who my God is. He expresses Himself as a jealous God multitudes of times in the Old Testament. Abram was called out of Ur because of God's jealousy. God called Abram out of the pagan culture of Ur in order to establish Himself as Abram's exclusive Lord. He later reiterates His jealousy to Moses when He instructs that we are to have no other gods except Him.

God's love and jealousy are one. To say you believe in God's love, but don't believe that God's jealousy is right or good is a tremendous misunderstanding of just how deep God's love is for His people. How sad to claim only part of God's love and reject the rest. I want my God to be jealous for my heart. I want Him to be my one & only Love. I want His jealousy to keep me focused only on Him. I want His jealousy to rescue me & chasten me when my heart & mind wander--and they are so prone to wander; so so so prone to wander!

What Oprah doesn't understand is that I want the jealous part of God's love. I love that He's so jealous for me that He took my place on the Cross and defeated my eternal death. Try as he may, the devil will never ever be able to conquer me simply because God is too jealous to let the devil succeed in his seductions.

Never before in all my years of Biblical study has Messianic thinking been so imperative to my life. Their use of the word christ in their awakening terminology is troubling. Clearly, they don't understand that christ is the Greek word for messiah. It's not something that you achieve or bring about; it's not a "state of mind." When they use the word "christ" as an awakening process, they illustrate that they do not understand the Judaic principle of propitiation. And why should they since they don't believe in the sin nature of humanity.

Rather than believing in the original sin nature of humanity, they believe in the collective consciousness in terms of "ego" making a mess of things--that if we just master our individual egos then collectively we will be an awakened society, ever evolving toward buddahood. There is no heaven or hell apart from what we create here. God is created by man rather than vice versa. Their premiss is that if we awaken within ourselves then we can fix ourselves by recognizing our egos that get in the way. Ultimately, they see no need for a Messiah. Who needs a Messiah when there is no impenitrable sin from which we need rescuing? At best, such rose-colored egoic thinking is delusional.

Thus, for as "awakened" as they think of themselves, it's sad that they still aren't truly awakened to who God is--the God who spoke the world into existence; the God that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah, Isaiah, & Jesus loved, worshiped and made personal relationship with. I pray that over the course of their "spiritual examination" the Holy Spirit will impart Truth upon their hearts and lead them out from the mud puddles they play in.

Of course, I'm sure they see my Messianic worldview as part of the problem rather than the only solution that there really is. Father Abraham taught us when he left Ur (in order to pursue his exclusive & jealous relationship with the Lord God Almighty) that Jehovah Messiah is the only way. Moses also shared with us from his own personal relationship with Jehovah Messiah that "I AM" is a name reserved only for God. For the Awakening text & class to instruct that we too are also "I AM" is greatly troubling and world's apart from a Hebraic worldview.

As one of the multitudes of children who decend from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I personally & spiritually know a great and astonishing God--a God whose righteous jealousy is merely one of the amazing qualities that He uses to show His deep & never-ending Love for His people. Certainly, any religion or "spiritual awakening" that would have me become my own god doesn't understand just what a fool I would end up worshipping!

Here's to You, Charlie Brown

2008-01-02T02:09:00.000-07:00

http://360.yahoo.com/vickiebacon

Lonely for Heaven's Princesses

2007-12-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

It's so challenging celebrating heaven's party from down here. I'm so jealous of my girls who get to celebrate Christmas every day--with the King Himself.

I'm always so mournfully melancholy when Advent is over. I hate for the season to end--putting all the lights and ornaments away for another year. The season of preparation is truly my favorite, and somehow all that I longed for during the season of preparation is so deflated once Christmas day arrives. I guess it's a vivid reminder of how it's really not about the beautifully wrapped gifts. It's not about the twinkling beauty of the lights.

It's about the sin nature of humanity and how we need to be rescued from it's ugly demise. In the end we celebrate Christmas because instinctively we know that we cannot make it out of this place alive. The gifts and lights and merry goodwill are merely simplified manifestations of our inner spirit which intensely longs for heaven's reality.

Christmas is a party that's really all about heaven--we're all invited; the invitation has no bounds. Oddly enough, many don't want to attend the party. They too experience that Christmas day let-down, and thus they bah-humbug the whole party. Others don't celebrate because they instinctively know that in reality, Christmas is about heaven's Son stepping out of His glory and into the manger. They know that the manger becomes a Cross, and they want nothing to do with any of it. Others only celebrate as a means to justify eating, drinking and spending too much. They're all too relieved to have the party get packed away when the New Year's champagne bottles are empty. They don't understand the manger or the cross--it's all just secular dross.

For me, Christmas has become a graveside celebration where in solemn stillness lay the bodies of my two little girls. We celebrate that the Manger directs us to the Cross, and that the Cross then gives us the gifts of forgiveness, salvation, resurrection, and eternal celebration with the King of Kings.

The deaths of my girls illustrates up-close & personal the incredibly profound need for humanity's rescue--that there is no salvation without heaven's King stepping into humanity's shoes. Without the manger there is no Cross. Without the Cross there is no Resurrection. Without Resurrection there is only death for all eternity. Life is finite and death is forever.

The reincarnationists make their rebuttal by saying that life recycles--eternally; that after we die we get to come back and live again. But if that's true then we have to die again too. I do NOT want to die again and again and again until eternity runs out. I don't want to keep the funeral industry prosperous forever. I only want to know death once, and then spend the rest of eternity clothed in pure life--celebrating Christmas with the King Himself.

Oh to finally celebrate the Manger without the Cross--that's the Gift His earthly manger has given us for Christmas. That's the eternal celebration I get to have on the other side of death simply because I accepted the Manger's invitation to the Cross. I can't wait to be reunited with my princesses--to celebrate Christmas with them everyday for all eternity.

Because my daughters are in the ground at Christmas, I glady accept heaven's invitation to the Cross--the place where the real Christmas presents are given, but also the place where we must die to ourselves. Because my daughters are in the ground at Christmas, the anguish of their absence is profound. But I take comfort in the solemn stillness of the manger, walking with the Babe all the way past the empty New Year's bottles and straight toward the Cross. It's in the Gifts of the Cross that my aguished sorrow comes to know profound joy!

Look unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him He endured the Cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2

Keeping Christmas is All I Have Left

2007-12-09T02:45:00.000-07:00

I've made the house festive in spite of my depressed and defeated mood. I keep Christmas for Abigail's sake. Not only is her birthday during the holiday season, but she is with Jesus celebrating every day. She would want me to know the joy of my faith, even if earth's drudgery often bogs down my heart. I've hurt so much the last -- well, I was going to say the last few weeks, but then it occured to me that those weeks have turned into years. It's been four years just since Abigail moved to heaven. That doesn't even count all the other things in my life's experience that I was already grieving before she ever even came into my life. Much of my life has hurt: phyically, emotionally, mentally; and yes, even spiritually. My love of the Lord helps keep my spirit salved; but to be certain, my mind, body and emotional state has taken a serious beating over the last 45 years of my life.

I wrapped holiday gifts yesterday and today. I made a few gifts and got them ready for the mail. I got all my holiday cards done. I did some online banking. I had a huge fight with dh. I'm quite certain that I'm falling out of love with him. In my sobs, I cried unto God for His help. How bad will it have to get before God finally intervenes?

I hate living my life always waiting for the other shoe to drop. What will be next? There has not been joy in my life since my son was born over 21 years ago. The joy I had when I was pregnant with Abigail was soon replaced with remarkable grief. I anticipated God's showering our lives with something joyous during the course of my pregnancy with Anne. Her death only crushed me into a finer dust.

The state of our family has fallen apart remarkably since the comings and goings of my daughters. I fear that I will only know a life's worth of sorrow & tragedy. I've often said that I am like Jacob who wrestled with God at Peniel; that I will not let Him go until He blesses me.

Do I dare anticipate that He will bless me? Do I really have the nerve to expect Him to bless me? In light of the sorrowed tragedy I've known for so much of my life, I don't know as if I'd recognize a blessing if He gave me one.

Goodness gracious, I've become so weary; spritually and emotional exhausted--and my body has barely survived any of it. What's next, Dear Lord? Please help me through it...

Another Birthday Four Abigail

2007-12-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

Happy Heaven Day,

Sweet Abigail

Mama & Daddy miss you and love you so very much!

Grateful for The Season of Abigail

2007-11-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

May the Fruits of the Spirit Overflow Your Cup

Missing You

2007-09-29T15:51:00.001-06:00

Heartbreaking
Originally uploaded by chicalookate

I'd love to know the cemetery where this monument is located. This statue captures the poignancy of a mother giving her baby back to heaven--I know the heatbreaking task so very well. The baby could very well be my own -- so limp & lifeless.

It's a busy, breezy, pre-autumn day. The wind captures all the chimes & spinners outside. I feel the presence of unity in the midst of the gusty torrents. My tears flow and cleanze my heart of it's heaviness. Like the statue, this mama has her blurry, watery eyes on the Lord--seeking answers for all the mysteries and riddles that don't make a bit of sense. He says, "Be still and KNOW that I Am God." Don't question, just obey. It's not as easy as it sounds...I'm so very grateful for grace.

Oh to see the rest of the statue--the anguished face of a broken hearted mother; the heavenly face of a precious baby...

Missing you a lot today, my sweet Babygirls.

Half Way to Fifty

2007-07-10T01:21:00.000-06:00

I'm 45 today. It's hard to believe that 45 years have gone by. They went so quickly. It's unlikely that I have 45 more waiting in the future. I'm trying to make the best out of what I have left--trying to salvage all the carelessness with which I pissed away the last 45 years. I don't expect to accomplish great things by the standards of the world, but I do so desperately want to hear God proclaim: "Well done thou good & faithful servant" when I inevitably come face to face with Him. He is my all & everything, and I want Him to shine through me. I want His presence to go before me. I want to do better at surrendering to His plan. I want Him to bless me and keep me; I want His face to shine on me and be gracious unto me; I want Him to lift up His countenance upon me and give me peace...

I Can't Believe it's Been Two Long Years

2007-06-29T14:07:00.000-06:00

June 29, 2005

It was no ordinary day. Our baby girl had passed away just minutes before midnight, and we'd been up half the night bathing, dressing, and making her ready for her trip to the mortuary. We laid her in her crib to lay in wait. She looked so peaceful. I was numb; in a fog; crushed into fine dust.

I called the hospice nurse somewhere mid morning. She came and gave our baby her official pronouncement of death. She completed all the required paperwork to submit for the official death certificate. She took many of the baby's medical supplies when she left--we wouldn't need such supplies anymore.

My mother came and took me to the craft store so I could buy ink to take prints of the baby's feet. They turned out lovely...

Later in the day we went to get something to eat. It was so strange leaving the baby alone in her crib. I fought the urge to take her with us. I just couldn't imagine life without her; she'd become our very lives. What now?

As the evening drew late, we came together as a family: Daddy, Mama, Benny and Anne. We prayed. We anointed her head with special oil as done similarly in baptism. I swaddled her in a blanket. And then another since it would be cold where she was going. I also put on extra socks.

Then came the dreaded knock on the door. They were here to gather her and take her away from me. Two faceless, black-suited men--undertakers. They handed us a moses basket not unlike the one she slept in at home. It was to be her designated transport.

I snapped a few photos and then reluctantly gave her over to them--the hardest transaction my arms have ever known save one. They settled her in the van and as they drove away, I sobbed great hard sobs into my husband's chest. His tears dripped into my hair. We stood embraced in the sultry summer air. To say we were broken and desolate wouid be an understatement!

We buried her July 5, 2005. We went to the mortuary several times over the long holiday weekend. They would carefully bring the moses basket out of their cooler and let me hold her for an hour or so. My first night without her I'd had a horrid nightmare--vivid and ugly. I dreamed that the oil we'd anointed her with had caused her face to go black and withered from the refrigeration--like when you put a banana in the fridge. I was beyond distressed. I remember starting to ask our funeral planner to prepare me for anything hideous; but before I could finish, she opened the door to the viewing parlor and there was my beautiful pink rose bud waiting for me in her moses basket. She was as beautiful as ever.

As morbid as it sounds, I took many pictures of her during our funeral parlor visits. I had this overwhelming drive to capture time and never let it move forward. I just wanted to be frozen with her; captured in silent stillness. I just wanted to keep time from moving forward. I didn't want her funeral day to come. Once she was planted in the sod it would be finished; I'd never hold her again...

Missing You Madly

2007-06-28T20:45:00.000-06:00

Anne Elise Bacon

April 28, 2005 - June 28, 2005

Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Fire

2007-06-09T01:36:00.000-06:00

http://isaiahtwentyeight.blogspot.com/

I had to have a rant; sometimes it's good to have a verbal rant as you process the horrendousness of grief. To articulate the intensity of passion through words and sentence structure is productive even if most of the world doesn't understand or agree with what is written.

I grieve that we're living in a time that takes so much of God out of the picture. Science is god in our contemporary culture, even they who call themselves Christian put the sovereignty of science over the sovereignty of God. Thousands of years of history and now all of a sudden the ultrasound has become the tool by which we define life & death ethics. And yet the level of reasonable doubt that remains... I'm just stymied by the fact that we put so much stock into machines that can be so wrong.

And sadly, I doubt I'd care a single political jot if my babies were alive & well under foot, rather than dead and under the sod. It's only been the deaths of my girls and the obscenely inadequate medical care that have forced me to take stock of the insanity of where the medical & cultural ethos have turned in the world of pregnancy termination.

I'm at the summery portion of time when two years ago I had a precious little girl who was growing and smiling and doing so well. I can almost feel her in the warm summer night air. The days approach for what many in the world of baby demise refer to as her angel day; the day she died and went to heaven. My heart is weary; my health is fragile. And while it's been nearly two years, it feels as yesterday and I am still dropped to my knees for missing her.

It's not fair that she got to go and sit with the Master while I had to stay behind and attempt to make some sort of psychiatric peace with a world bent on evil and corruption; self absorption & self justification. I did not want to be a politician fighting for the rights of the preborn. I did not want to fight for the medical rights of the disabled: first, for their right to life and then, for their right to decent medical care.

No, I wanted to wash cloth baby diapers and wipe muddy patty caked fingers. I wanted to pick up toys and books and sing the same silly songs over and over & over & over. I wanted mama hugs and baby kisses and color books and bedtime wishes.

I got none of that, but instead was smacked right in the head with the fact that my first daughter didn't count as a legal person. And then I was smacked in the head again by the fact that my second daughter would have been eliminated by countless millions around the world who put more trust in termination than in God. It kills me that there are so many that wouldn't have even bothered to let her breathe, and yet she was so precious...

It's gruesome that in the midst of trying to comprehend such grief, I came face to face with the medical, legal, and cultural fact that neither of my girls mattered to this world beyond the realm of their parents. And yet they were of infinite measure to God who formed them in the secret parts... why He made them only to take them back is for Him to know, but certainly He had a purpose of great grandeur!

But in my quiet, broken corner of the world--the place where both my heart & flesh fail, I find myself missing them both so very much; so so very much. Truly they were both too beautiful for this place.

Run Run Run Run Run Run

2007-06-02T20:19:00.000-06:00

Mama's Lullaby for Anne

adapted from Pink Floyd's Thin Ice

Mama loves her baby

Daddy loves her too

What a sweet & warm little girl

With eyes sparkling blue

ooooh ooooh babe

ooooh ooooh babe...

While I repeatedly sang Pink Floyd's little lullaby to my tiny NICU baby, I never sang her the rest of the song:

If you should go skating

On the thin ice of modern life

Dragging behind you the silent reproach

Of a million tear stained eyes

Don't be surprised, when a crack in the ice

Appears under your feet

You slip out of your depth and out of your mind

With your fear flowing out behind you

As you claw the thin ice...

But I did sing the rest of it in my mind's ear becasue I knew as I beheld her preciously perfect trisomy 18 body, that my days with her were precarious. I'd gone out on a patch of thin ice for her; I loved her past the sane point, not only in healthcare & medical sanity, but in the depths of emotional love as well... The song is a beautiful song that I miss singing to my baby. Moreover, I often feel like I'm clawing the thin ice from the underside. Has God cast me under the bus?

As the 2-yr mark of Anne's death approaches, those around me expect that I should be dancing dandy. There aren't words to describe the isolated, lonely distress I've been under. They have no idea how much harder it gets as the years roll on; the abandoned neglect that makes the heartache deeper...

We live in an abortionist's world where babies are insignificant losses. The fact that I've buried two means very little to anyone (including my own mother). Apparently, I'm supposed to cheer up carry on, and act like all the rest of the heartless world that neither notices nor cares. It's not like I lost either of them in their older years, so in their eyes I haven't really lost anything. My mother & sister both express snide remarks about how motherhood's not all it's cracked up to be (don't I know it as my son screams radical profanities at me).

So I sit in our exchange of insignificant conversation during our weekly lunch outings realizing that they don't really grasp the depth or dimension of what I've buried. They totally fail to understand that my ill-behaved niece is 19 months older than Abigail, and while she drives her mother nuts with her whining & pestering, they all fail to grasp that I would give an arm to have even one of mine back. My own beautiful, dark-haired, sparkly-eyed child is not supposed to be a silent corpse under the ground. No one takes notice of my bleeding heart as my niece plays in the restaurant fountain or makes a mess with her milk. Which one of them even bothers to remember my children, let alone care what suffering the lunch time experience brings upon me?

Moreover, I often wonder if I couldn't have made better progress in the grieving journey if my son hadn't done all he could to make the trip so agonizing. He's heartless; compassion-less; cruel; insensitive... He reminds me that I've done nothing for the world but raise up another jerk. It's been sheer torture to grieve my daughters AND endure the incredibly hostile disrespect that comes from my living child. He needs to be put out of my home, but I know not how to make it so. Where would he go? He has no relatives that will help. He refuses to go to school. He refuses to get a job. He refuses to go see a doctor, pastor or priest. He refuses to contribute. He refuses to be kind. I refuse to keep living like this. My health can't take it; I'll be lucky to see 50 at the rate my health is crumbling...

Ironically, he could live off of us forever if only he'd exhibit some sort of compassionate demeanor. But I am at my wits end for being thoroughly sick of his hostile abuse, but I don't know how to change it. His verbal abuse is killing me, and what's worse is I think he's doing it intentionally. I'm so very heart broken that two of my children are dead, and the third exhibits such ugliness that I can't stand to be in the same room with him.

What's more, he brings out the total coward in my husband. I had no idea I was married to a man with such inability to rescue his wife from the abuses inflicted upon her by our son. There are two fully grown men living in my home and both of them are like pathetic immature 14 year olds. My 22nd anniversary approaches and I look back over the years and ask myself, "what have I to show for any of it?"

It's no wonder I absolutely & completely anguish over all the sweet & wonderful girlie kisses that I planted in the ground; all the cuddles that are lost forever. Ben hasn't been cuddly since his elementary years--a very very long time ago. In fact, I haven't had a real life hug in so long I think I might shrivel up and die. I don't know what I did to make the boy hate me so much; I'd redo it if I could. He knows I'd do anything for him. He knows he's the only thing I get out of bed for. But he's just plain mean, and he just doesn't care. I mourn over his godlessness.

I beg God to give me answers and give me strength. And yet, I can't remember the last time God actually answered one of my earnest prayers. Ben screams at me that prayer is a waste of time. The events in our lives the last many years would prove his opinion correct. I mean, all those prayers for Abigail and Anne and look how they were answered...

So how do I convince him that God really does listen; that He really does care; that He really does love us??? How do I convince myself?

I'm sorry, but today's one of those days where I absolutely and completely hate my life.

Goodness Gracious You Were Sweet

2007-06-01T00:25:00.000-06:00

I called her my little May Bee. She was due in May; and as anyone who's endured a pregnancy after a full term loss can attest, there are a lot of maybes to get through before the pregnancy is done.

As it turned out, she came two days before May, and "maybe" took on a whole new meaning. She had a hole in her heart that they would not treat. She had a third 18th chromosome and they said that meant they would NOT treat her heart defect; they said it was pointless--infuriating political jargon that I refuse to accept. She was showing them otherwise; her fight was astounding--what was wrong with a little bit of medicine?

I do NOT understand why they didn't even want to try. Why did they brush her aside figuring she was good as dead? Medical ethics based on who's agenda???My gosh, what evil lurks at the foundation of their ideology! She had so much spunk; so much fight; so much vigor, and yet they left her to meet the challenge of life alone: no medicine for her heart, zero cardiac followup.

They called it "comfort care" brushing her off for dead for her to hurry up and die. Why couldn't they look past their textbook "ethics" and look more closely at her as an individual??? Could they not see her will to live? Did they not care about her as a person? Did they not care about how very little they really had to do in order to give that cardiac muscle a fighting chance--some simple cardio-pulminary medication would have made her battle a little easier--it worked wonders--until they took her off!

Why were they so quick to brush her off for dead? Why did they think that brushing her into the rubbish bin was better than helping her? How do they conclude that such a despicable verdict is "comforting?"

Every day throughtout the month of May we hoped & prayed that today would not be the day. Every single day, we prayed that "maybe" God would not take her; not today... And thankfully, all through the month of May God gave us our wish. He did not take my little May Bee in May.

Instead, He took her at the end of June--sixty onederful days following her birth. Her untreated heart defect just couldn't keep fighting. She tried; oh my gosh, how she tried. For the rest of my life I'll be so very proud of her. She accomplished more in her 61 days than any of those doctors will do in a lifetime--and goodness gracious how much more loving she was than the lot of them combined!!!

It's two years later now. I'm in a time warp of grief wanting her back. For this entire month of May I've nursed a profound sting to my heart; a wound left there by a most preciously sweet little May Bee. She did not mean to sting me. Like most bees, she was gentle & docile and oh so very patient. She only did what was forced upon her. I proudly keep her little stinger tucked deeply in my heart. The sting of her departure reminds me of her profound will to live--that she did so much without their help. I miss her sweet flowery pollen to the profound depths of my being...

Sixty Onederful Days...

2007-05-20T18:11:00.000-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6Njr-qkq0

Thank you Lord, for sharing such incredible beauty with me...

Born of Flesh And Spirit...

2007-04-28T13:13:00.000-06:00

There are more birthday pix in my Yahoo album link in the side bar. It has truly been an emotionally challenging week. But no matter how badly I sorrow for missing her (and her sister), she will always be one of the most fabulous gifts that God ever gave to me. She patiently waits for me (not a virtue that I can claim as my own); I will have her back one day in the not so distant future. Until then, Jesus keeps my little lambs safe in His Pasture.

Fear Not Little Flock...

The Biting Truth of the Bottom LIne

2007-04-18T01:33:00.000-06:00

...my entry tonight is a lame cut & paste from an email response I sent to an inquiring acquaintance. I'd sent her (along with many others) the info on Anne's legacy page with the Trisomy Foundation--99% of those family & "friends" I contacted never even bothered to email me back or sign Anne's guestbook. I was shocked to hear from this one acquaintence. I got the typical, "so how've you been..."-- To candy coat my reality to spare her any discomfort (in light of the fact that she's all but vanished during my darkest hours of anguish) seemed so futile and dishonorable to the reality of my existence....

And not much for me. Tax season has kicked me hard. Last year we had Anne as a dependent; this year not. It's like it's so final. Plus DS is no longer eligible to be a dependent, so for the first time in over twenty years, DH & I filed just the two of us. It's been so hard. Not to mention I'm in the throws of the season of Anne--she would have turned two on the 28th. Now until we commemorate her burial just before my birthday in July tends to wreck havoc on my heart. The weather and spring flowers bring back vivid memories of her being here with us. My mind can't help but travel down the corridors of my memory in an attempt to recapture the final weeks of pgcy, and the two wonderful months we got to have with her before she died. I get out of bed each day and tend to my duties, but inside I'm a corpse. I cry every day for missing them.

Unfortunately, I had so much criticism to "get some help" that I finally gave in and started an anti-depressant. What my ignorant "advisors" failed to understand was that I'd been working closely with my dr on the whole A/D subject. In light of my peri-menopausal diabetes issues, we both agreed that it would be better if I held off on A/D use until I'd at least worked through the biggest parts of grieving. After all, grief in such circumstances is VERY natural, and to medicate it away with medicines that can have harsh side effects isn't necessarily the right route for everyone. But the blackness wasn't getting much brighter and those IRL who judge & criticize more than they support finally pushed me to give the A/D a go. It's an older A/D that they prescribe for fibromyalgia, PTSD, chronic fatigue/pain and sleep disorders.

I don't know if it's helping or not--it's a pretty raw season on the grieving time table right now, so I could overdose on Happy Pills and still be pretty depressed. I'm rather convinced that there really is no magic pill to make this "go away"--let's face it; it doesn't go away--all I can hope to do is get better at enduring it. We find things to busy ourselves so we can take our minds off it a little bit, but it's always a smothering force in our lives. Time has to run it's course, and what most people don't get is that there isn't enough time on the planet to "get over" putting two babies in the cemetery. Plus, with only three years into it since my first baby died, I'm still in the pre-school stages of being better at coping. It doesn't help when family support just plain sucks; all my friends have totally evaporated into thin air; those who are left are quick to dismiss the life-altering impact we've endured, and to top it all off my health has started heading south in no small way...

April's Anguish of Anne's Absence

2007-04-11T01:47:00.000-06:00

The winds of spring have been oppressive today. Even indoors the gusts have disheveled my concentration and focus.

Outdoors, if it wasn't battened down, it's gone. The mountain elevations got some of Denver's snow yesterday, so the winds have been cold in spite of today's sunny deception. Yesterday brought overcast & rain, and today it was gusting winds--welcome to spring.

Of course we had to check the children up the hill and make sure they were battened down good (an artform that I've nearly perfected--Martha Stewart Graveside should be my claim to fame.

Anyway, Abigail was fine with nary an issue, but Anne looked like a whirl wind (dirt devil without the dirt) had touched down right on top of her--her yellow spinner had come apart & was smashed to bits; every chick & lamb tossled over, and Brian found her bouquet of flowers all the way down at the corner--still intact and bundled together, beaded wire butterfly & all. The wind had to have been astonishing cuz I've got both the girls' bouquets bundled with heavy duty rubberbands and weighted with several fishing weights--and then if that's not enough, the flowers are then held down in their vases with a pick that I hang a little (heavy) stained glass butterfly ornament from. There's no way those flowers are going anywhere unless they grow legs & walk.

All we can think is that a dirt devil must have spun them out of the vase, and then they must have rolled like a tumble weed through the parking lot and down to the corner where the military folks are buried. We found the butterfly pick half way out in the cemetery driveway along with several pieces of shattered yellow spinner. In our three plus years managing weather worthy embellishments in the cemetery, we've never seen such upheaval. At first we thought she might have been vandalized, but we put our Sherlock Holmes instincts to work.

Ironically, no one else in the cemetery was bothered--even little Edward's bulky, awkward, non-weather worthy spinner held it's own and still stood up straight (he's buried right between Abigail & Anne). One of the babies not too far from Abigail had a small plush bear & a greeting card left for her over the Easter holiday--even the card held on for dear life with nothing more than a half ounce bear for it's anchor. It was totally weird.

But we've seen weird stuff there before. One day the first spring Abigail was there, they were cremating in the crematorium right there by the baby garden. A plume of smoke and transparent whirl wind came bursting out of the chimney. It whirled right in front of us and touched down like a dirt devil (with no dirt). It touched right in front of Dionna to the left of Abigail. It picked up everything on Karlee's grave one over, and literally threw it all into the mesa--over the fence and across the road. I sent Ben after it all, but none of it was to be found--nothing else was touched. Oddly, there's a small ankle twister sized hole in the lawn right where it touched. It's was the most bizarre thing we ever witnessed. We all just sort of stood there and looked at each other--no way that just happened... I'm telling you it was astonishing.

After that I worried about what manner of demons might come out of the crematorium. I still do if I let myself go there. I spent a lot of time after that asking God to post His best angels there for extra protection. I guess I need to make that my bedtime prayer yet again this season. Of course, the winds have calmed now, but will most likely return tomorrow. Hopefully, we tucked Anne back in well enough.

I worked on Trisomy Foundation tasks today--several new legacy pages to review for publishing. I even reviewed a page for a precious little seven year old--sweet & blonde and missing her two front teeth... I cried for joy that she was so precious; I sobbed in sorrow that she wasn't mine...

http://isaiahtwentyeight.blogspot.com/