Of Broken Hearts

I am not there yet.

Which means that my heart thinks and feels awful awful things.

Mostly, jealousy.

Huge amounts of jealousy. Big heaping spoonfuls fed up to me on a barbed wire spoon, cutting me when I try to swallow.

I am jealous that you got to hold your new born after they were born. I am jealous of your hours old photos of siblings meeting one another, Daddy holding Mama's back. I am jealous of your breastfeeding pictures, your laments over cracked nipples and cluster feedings. I am jealous of your new born snuggles.

I am jealous that you take walks outside. That your child rolls or lays on their belly. I am jealous that you don't have to worry about g-tubes, or oxygen levels, or blue lips. I am jealous that a cold means a cold and not a hospitalization. I am jealous that you see your friends as often as I see nurses. I am jealous of belly laughter and smiles and cries that are simply cries.

I compare, I compare too much. I look at your life right now, as it is and I think about our lives right now, as they are. And because I am human and far from grace, I want you to hurt. I want to gather up the blackness and ugliness I feel and give it you.

But in the same breathe...I don't want you to hurt.

I don't even know how to articulate these feelings. Except to ask for forgiveness when I shy away from you. If I cry when I look at your child. If I have to hide your pictures and your posts from my eyes. If can't help but mention where we are and how different it is from where you are.

Large chunks of my own heart are still healing. It was torn open the day our son was born and I went to sleep without him. It was ripped just a little more when he was three days old and I gave my beautiful whole unbroken son to some nurses and got back a broken open baby that I barely recognized. It was stitched back up the day that I got to hold him again. Those stitches rip open every time we take him back to the hospital. Every time I give him a shot.

Be gentle with me, my heart is broken too.

And when I see you, and your whole baby and your whole family, the redemption and the rainbows, the scars in my heart hurt just a little more. Again. And I do not want you to know what this is like. I do not want you to know this pain, this deep seeded jealousy that threatens my sunshine.

I am glad that you got to nurse your baby. That you got to hold that little girl or little boy. I am glad that you never worried if their heart would stop beating. I'm glad you do not have to administer medications and watch for blue hands and lips. And at the same time, when I see these things I am reminded how different this story is.

My son is not the only one working on mending their heart.

God is working on mine too. Bit by bit picking up the parts that I thought I "couldn't" glue back in and doing just that. Each time that it feels like my heart will break from the loss, the pain, the jealousy, the anger, he gently threads His needle. And He says "It is sharp, it will hurt. But you will be Whole. You will be mended."

Be gentle with me.

My heart is being operated on too.