They say it comes in waves. I truly get that now. I have watched it hit us all at random times. Last week the house was slam full and noisy. Matthew and I were cleaning up after dinner and both turned towards the window and I felt him take a breath to speak and then he froze. When I looked at him his gaze turned towards me and his eyes were full of tears. He was going to yell at everyone to quiet down before they overstimulated Ky. He said- I forgot for a second, I haven’t forgotten in so long.
It feels like forever since we have held his little body, kissed his juicy lips or cared for him in anyway, and in the same breath it feels like yesterday. We don’t go in his room as much, and we can’t decide if that feels good or bad.
A new gift of anxiety has come in waves as well for me. I am the most non anxious human you will ever meet. Parker was gone from home a few weeks ago, riding backroads with Bryson, she gets that from her parents. Her location stopped for an hour at the same place, and the place I KNOW drops location. I knew exactly what roads she was riding because I did that for hours on end before I had kids. I convinced myself she had been kidnapped and murdered and gah I could not get it together. I scared her to death with my calls and texts, and I cried so hard after. Full of guilt for reflecting onto her, full of tears because I felt the depth of losing a child. I love breaks from the littles sometimes, but right now, when they are gone from me, I feel it, I am so nervous.
Last week Dillon was just sitting in the living room, and she turned around full of tears and said I just feel so heavy right now mama, I miss Ky so much I feel it on me. I told her I knew that feeling. You will just be doing any random thing and it feels like a literal blanket, a weighted one, that wraps around you, and it’s of sadness.
Yana asks at least once a week “where is Ky?” She knows the answer, but it’s almost as if she just needs to make sure it’s real. We all feel that I think.
In the same breath we are still so full of joy. I told someone this week that holding him, singing him into Heaven, caring for him, it was all such joy. If you have never experienced God speaking to you, it’s hard to explain. When He tells you to do something, almost always, it’s uncomfortable at best, at worst, impossible. When you ask Matthew about caring for Ky, he will tell you a thousand times how “easy” it was. And it was. We walked around on 3/4 hours on average of very interrupted sleep but were not tired. We survived on one income. One of us made every activity the other kids had. We had no sickness we couldn’t manage at home. And our power only flickered off once during a storm. ALL of the things we feared, God made a way. I never mastered sputum or trachs as a nurse in the hospital, and I don’t do gross, I am a paper work nurse. But not only did I, but Matthew, Dillon, and I learned ALL of Ky’s care and provided it with ease. Yana and Sophia knew how to give meds and water flushes as well as hook up a feeding via a feeding pump. We had nurses that not only didn’t mind our chaos, but that LOVED our babies and our home. That joined us in prayer, in our worship, in our everything with gladness.
Parker told me this week that the week after Ky died when she went back to school God was so good to her. She didn’t want to leave us, or home, but she’s in a very competitive program and can’t miss days. If you know her, you know sunsets and sunrises are her favorite thing on earth. It had been dark every morning for her drives up and every evening for her drives home for months. But that week she got a beautiful sunrise and a hand painted sunset every day that week. She said she knew He did that just for her.
So the waves of grief do come. But also the waves of God’s goodness, mercy and grace too. This morning I sat in our rocker, where I held our baby last and I opened up the pages of my Bible to scripture after scripture that showed me that God is alive and His word is relevant to my life. His words have brought me so much comfort the last few weeks. I know that everything we have been through is to grow us and others closer to Him. I know that nothing we do for Him returns void. I know that our grief and pain here is nothing compared to the joy that is coming. God makes all things new, and He works all things for His good and glory.
Life's a Garden, Dig It 