Here's what happens to me sometimes, I get these ideas. And they are ideas that are so far from what I think I know that they were planted there by someone else, who wants me to do whatever that idea is. Let me preface this blog post by telling you I've been thinking about and dreading it all morning. I tend to share a lot, people tell me its a gift, I think people are annoyed and want me to shut up about my feelings. Most of the time. Every now and again though, I realize that maybe someone else needs to hear my stories. Maybe they need validation, or strength, or just to know they aren't alone. We praise those who step up and step out and speak their minds, right?
What I want to share today is deeply personal. It's my Art. From a very painful time in my life. It hurts, and it feels weird, like I'm inviting people to look straight into what God only sees. It deeply rooted in my faith, and centers all around the dates June 25 and July 20. It has to do with infant loss, miscarriage, what happened in my heart after that. It's my story, and no one's will be the same. Keep that in mind. Know that this is a hard issue, for many woman, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I need to write about this
now, when I'm almost 18 weeks pregnant with our second child. Lord willing the first baby we hold in our arms, but yes, our second child.
I found out I was pregnant June 25 2013, while serving at a summer camp. The day I found out, I made this in one of my art journals.
I express myself a lot through art, it's just the way things go for me. I need it, even during the times when i don't think I do. I remember one summer when I worked at a camp, we had a Bible Study based on art and our faith. We were given two sheets and asked to fill them, however we wanted, with a hard time in our life, and with where we were now. We were then asked to get in small groups and talk about our art. I ended up in a group with two beautiful humans who...understood when I started sobbing and couldn't explain. It was like my very soul on display. Talking about it...I couldn't. This just goes to show you that sharing these journal pages with you all, though it is not easy, is something I feel very compelled to do.
In the weeks that followed, I made more art for our little growing baby nugget.
I don't think that any person prepares for what they never expect to happen. I knew woman lost babies, I knew miscarriage happened, it just...wasn't going to happen to me. But the truth is that it did. On July 20 2013 I was in an airplane with one the best young adult woman I have ever known, on our way home from a conference. I got up multiple times to use the bathroom, and there is where this terrible awful reality came to fruition. While on the plane, I pulled out my journal, and wrote this.
What is says doesn't matter. Just know that in that moment, I needed to process what was happening to me. It was the hardest traveling day of my life. It's a terrible thing, when you want to save someone and can't do anything about it. I got home, my husband was gone for the week still. I called my best friend and she...was phenomenal. What she did for me that night I will never be able to replay. Never. Not...never.
In the weeks and months that followed I sank into this place of despair and to be very honest, doubt. How could this happen? Why did He, God, let babies die? What was the purpose of this? Didn't people tell me that He wouldn't give me more than I could handle? I couldn't handle this, I thought, they all lied to me. I accepted this water down concept that He said things would be easy. Never did. Not once.
So I did what I knew how to do, I made Art. I sketched and made cards for people. I stayed up late painting and drawing and creating. I cleaned and cried. I hurt. I called people and I begged them to give me answers they didn't have.
The biggest thing though, was that I felt like my faith had just run out. As though, I was Peter, out there in the ocean, holding my hand out to a Savior, knowing,
knowing, that He could save me. In that split second that it takes for Jesus to reach out His hand, it can feel like eternity. It feels like you are just drowning. I would cry and think, "What if I'm just like Peter? Where is my faith now?"
I listened to music on a CD that an amazing woman sent me. I particularly wore out the song "Doubting Thomas" by Nickel Creek. Over and over it played in my mind and my heart. If you know me, you know I have very strong beliefs, and I'm not afraid to tell people about them. It's part of who I am. This once though, I couldn't see, and I didn't know what to think. Me and God...Oh man...it's a good thing He forgives like He does.
I felt like a fool, and it all hurt so much. And I couldn't...losing our baby like that affected me in ways that I never thought possible. I continued to draw and paint and craft my way through the woods.
It took me a long time to be able to be in Church without crying. It took me a long time to be able to say, "I lost a baby." It took me a long time to be ok with the thought of ever being pregnant again. It took me months before I could look at my body without hating what it had done.
I guess I just felt the need to tell other loss moms that they aren't alone. That one day, one day, maybe not today, or tomorrow, or ever, will you be able to think about your baby without crying. We mothers love so intensely, from the first moment, we just do. I made all of these things from a place of pain and hurt that went so far beyond words that I need to paint and craft them out.
I don't know where you are in your grief journey. I don't know if you lost a baby two days ago, three years ago, or 30 years ago. I do know you carry a piece of that baby's life in your heart. I know that you think about that baby, at night, when you're sad, when someone else goes through this terrible awful thing. I do know that you don't forget, and that you just never will. And I know what the Art of Loss looks like. I know the anguish in your soul as you pour your heart in something, anything to make it hurt less.
I hope, Momma's, that you can look at this Art, and take courage. I hope that you can see that though this sorrow lasts for a while, it does sting less with time. I hope that you see the turmoil in these pages, the suffering that they came from. I hope you know you aren't alone. I hope you know that babies can and will be brought into this world, and I hope that you can still embrace that fact. I know your journey of grief and loss won't look like mine, but Momma's, let it out so that it looks like something more than bitterness and anger that affects the people who love you so much.
This is the Art of Loss. This is my story. What's yours?
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