July 25

Three days from now we will have a first birthday party for Will. Three days from now, one year ago I gave birth to two baby boys, Will and MJ. But we only celebrate one of their birthdays. July 25 of each and every year has to be a celebration, and it has to be about Will and only Will. We have to celebrate the life that God has allowed us to see each and every day. And that really just breaks my hearts a little.

I don't really want to celebrate just one of my son's lives. But that is how is has to be. We cannot be sad and cry (although I know I will want to, and I just might) on their birthday. That day has to always be about Will.

But I don't know if I can do it. The days leading up to this Sunday are getting harder, I find myself wanting to cry a little more each day. The tears and the sobs are getting stronger. I try not to really think about it, but it almost seems as though my body knows how sad my heart is, even though my mind tries to veer away from the heartache. The littlest things bring the tears these days. The grief is just all coming back.

It's just not fair. There is really no other way to put it, but it's simply not fair. It's hard, truly hard to know that there is still so much life to live without MJ. Sometimes the thought of it is just so incredibly overwhelming. To know that each and every day is yet another day I have to live without my son. But then again, each and every day is one day closer to when I can see him again.

This weekend is going to be hard, the 35 days after that are going to be hard, knowing that at that time last year, MJ was alive and fighting, and enduring so incredibly much.

Sometimes I just want to shout out to people I AM A MOTHER OF TWINS, MY SON LIVED, HE LIVED, AND HE FOUGHT SO HARD TO LIVE! But some people don't care, and that hurts so much.

For some reason this morning I was think a lot about two family members who choose not to acknowledge MJ. They didn't come to his funeral, they didn't call, and it really just feels like they don't care. And because of what they choose, they will never know Will either. That is a decision that Willie and I made, and I am very glad that we did. But it hurts, it hurts to know that they think of us as a family of three, that they think we only have one son. We are a family of four, and we have two sons. The rest of our lives, no matter how many children we have, MJ will always be included. Any family or friends that choose not to acknowledge both of our sons just can't be apart of our life. Its very plain and simple to us. But it still hurts. But that is our life, forever we will miss MJ, but he will forever be apart of our life.

A Time to Grieve

Ecclesiates 3:1, 4
To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the Heaven . .  a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance

Recently I came aross the book, "When the Will of God is a Bitter Cup" by Dr. Don Woodard. (Thank you Desiree for recommending it!) I put it down a few weeks ago and decided this morning to pick it back up again. I think that I get the most of out a book the second time I read it, especially one on grief.

These past 11 months or so of my life have been filled with weeping and mourning and grieving. I finally feel as thought I am ready to laugh and ready to dance. Ready to enjoy life again. And it's okay to be happy. It's okay to smile and laugh and dance again. And I have to be able to do those things. I cannot miss out on watching Will grow up.

But sometimes I struggle with this. I struggle to know when the time is right to laugh and when the time is right to grieve. Somedays I can be okay and know that it really is okay to be happy. And then the sadness hits me out of nowhere, like when we were getting Will's one year pictures taken two days ago. It hit me when we were reviewing the photos and I thought, wow there should be two this cute. Or today when we were at the grocery store and Will was being fussy so I was carrying him on hip. We ran to the next aisle and got an economy size thing of toilet paper. I had Will on one hip and the toilet paper on the other hip, and I wondered what it would be like to have two babies on my hip. So many little things like that just hit me and then the waves of grief surround me.

So when is the time right to mourn? Or dance? Or weep? Or laugh? I don't think I will ever stop grieving. But I do think that the moments of weeping will be fewer and further in between, and  the moments of laughter and dancing will be longer and my happiness will come back.

Grief Changes You

Today we went to Children's Mercy Hospital to attend a Living with Grief Support Group meeting. It was so nice to be there, especially so close to the boys' birthday. It really is an incredible feeling to be with people who just 'get it'. To be able to talk about MJ and hear their children's story's, and then talk about the day to day struggles that have rocked my world the past year. It's a feeling that I can't really describe, being in a room ful of people that have had to say goodbye to their children incredibly too soon.

Maybe it's being back at the hospital that MJ lived and died, or maybe its going through those emotions and thoughts all over again, or maybe it's just that we are so close to their first birthday, but the whole day today has just been a little harder. The tears come just that much easier and the motivation to do what needs to be done is entirely gone. Today is a down day in this rollercoaster of grief. I suspect there are going to be many down days in the next few weeks as we go through our sons' birthdays and MJ's death day.

Maybe I am too hard on myself and should just live in the moment. But I want to be in a place in my grief where I will feel okay. Not quite good yet, but okay is what I am looking for. Most days are okay, but those days are coming fewer and further between.

It's strange, really. The first months after losing MJ I had no yearnings for feelings other then devastation. And then I started having good days, and the guilt swept in: guild that I could actually live and be happy without my son. And then I started having more good days then bad, and really wanted those good days. The past few days have been pretty hard, and it seems like they will get harder before they will get better. Grief really is a rollercoaster of ups and downs and everything in between.

And it changed me, it changed everything I knew and everything I thought I knew. I realized today how comforting it is to be around people who have walked in your shoes, and know what it feels like to lose a child. I haven't felt that comfortable in a room full of people in over a year. Sometimes I feel like I am more comfortable in tragedy then in joy. But don't misunderstand me, there was joy today, we laughed and we remembered our babies, and it was a comforting few hours. We all understood what its like to live your live with a broken heart.

While we were there we donated two memory boxes, one girl and one boy. We are planning on donating 35 at the end of August, one for each day that we were blessed with MJ's life. We wanted to bring two today to make sure that everything in them was okay to include. And everyone there just loved them. It was a good feeling, knowing that we can offer a little bit of comfort during such an incredibly hard time. Here are a few pictures of the memory boxes. They include in them a baby blanket, broken heart pendant with a poem, a wisp of hair bag with a poem, a disposable camera in case the parents don't have one, a baby cap, a stuffed animal, and a picture frame with a little baby angel on it.