Missing him.

I was at work today and I turned on my computer and somehow I found myself looking at this picture. It made me smile and it made me sad all at the same time. While I was sitting at work...and then I got teary eyed and I remembered my last post about the book, "If you have to cry go outside." And then I started to laugh. Strange emotions to have all at once I tell ya.

So, I thought in this post I would let you all know how I am doing after four months since Isaiah passed away. I feel like I need to write about it today, so that's exactly what I am going to do. I hope this helps any of you who see me out and about and are scared to ask me how we are doing, or wondering if you should bring "it" up or not.

After four months it still hurts like h-e-double hockey sticks. Sometimes it feels like fresh hurt and sometimes it doesn't hurt as bad as it did the day before.

At first I wondered if I would ever really be happy again or ever really laugh again. And then, one day you find yourself really really laughing, a real laugh, where your face hurts and you think about how long its been since you laughed like that and vow to do it more. Then you thank God for that moment.

Someone will ask you how you are doing and you say you are doing OK, and you really feel like you are doing ok, then as soon as you are alone you burst into tears. And after a good cry, you actually feel a little better and wonder why you held it in for so long. I am so grateful when someone asks me about him. I love talking about BOTH of my boys. It feels good to talk about both of them. And if I cry when I talk to you, I cry. And if I don't, I don't.

There are Sundays when I don't want to go to church. Since Isaiah's memorial is at our church it has scared me to go back there and I don't want to open up a wound when I don't have to. Then, there are Sundays that won't come fast enough. I have been to church the last two weeks and am overwhelmed with how comforting it is to just be there. It's like he's there with us wrapping his arms around us and I feel his love.

I have some nights when I can't fall asleep because I am thinking about him and some mornings when it takes all of my strength to push forward. But I do. And in the mornings, during the half-second between asleep and fully awake, I feel the dreaded feeling that something is wrong and it then it hits me all over again: he's gone.

But..through it all, I am grateful that God picked me to be his mommy. I hold his picture sometimes and kiss it, remembering his soft skin. I will find a shirt or a blanket of his and try as hard as I can to smell him and then cry because I can't. I sometimes play his videos on the computer and ache to hold him one more time. And then I wonder if I am crazy, and then feel better because other moms tell me they have done the same thing.

I am so humbled by the prayers offered up to our family from people I have never met and grateful for family and friends who have loved us through this. I pass people, in the grocery store, at the soccer field, at the gas station, and I wonder what sadness they are carrying around that no one knows about. I pray now for people as my day goes on. If someone pops in my mind, I pray for them. You never know who needs a prayer at any given time.

There are days when I am full of questions. What if this, or what if that, or how come this and how come that. But then I remember that God's soverign plans are perfect and Isaiah's days were appointed before he was even one day old.

Most of all, I am grateful for Isaiah. Grateful for his short life. I know that if given the choice between not knowing him and not knowing grief or knowing him and experiencing a grief like you have never known before...I would pick him. Over and over I would pick him.