Her Story - A Surprise Appearance

We got married, and sure enough, a few months later, we were expecting. I told my husband who was initially in shock and then spent the rest of the day telling everyone he knew and some who he didn't.

I phoned my parents, and since this was their first grandchild, my mom couldn't believe it. (She did have a few kids, so she should know how this works!). My dad was thrilled. Nine months later, some of my family flew out to Europe to wait for this new arrival. We waited. We waited. And then we waited some more.

Do you know how hard it is to have group of people staring at your tummy and hinting that their ticket runs out pretty soon? If I even moaned slightly, the entire house jumped and watched my belly like a chicken was going to hatch out of it any minute. I was ready to kick them all out - along with the baby who had determined to never show up.

Eventually, two and a half weeks late, my tiny son made his appearance into the world. He was perfect. Minuscule. Hungry. He ate like a vacuum cleaner on attack mode.

About two months after his appearance, I started to feel strange. I was not getting back to normal. In fact, I felt pregnant. We had guests visiting, a mother of three teens who also was a nurse. I told her that I suspect I am expecting again. She just smiled and said I wasn't used to my body's changes, that's all.

I was used to my body. So used to it, in fact, that I already knew.


A month later, I flew back home for my brother's wedding. The day after I arrived, I bought a pregnancy test and confirmed what I already knew. Another baby would be born before its brother's first birthday.

I told my husband, and after a few moments of shocked surprise, he was excited. The two babies would be good friends. I told my family, and they were less thrilled. There was almost no response from them. It bothered me slightly, but I assumed that their minds must be taken up with the wedding plans. Maybe they didn't quite believe me. It was so soon.

So many times over the years, my mind goes back over the events of the next few months, wondering. Was it this, was it that? Was it the day I decided I was fed up with not having caffeine and had two cokes? Was it flying? Was it because an tense member of the wedding party shoved me angrily out of the way and I fell? Was it because my little brother didn't come home one night when we had traveled together to see old friends, and I stayed up all night pacing and worrying? Was it because of being tired after waiting for my brother, that I got a really bad flu from the kids where we were staying? Was it because I was exhausted staying up caring for my baby who also got the flu? Was it because for several days, I couldn't keep food in, but had to keep nursing since he would not take a bottle?

One event during that time stands out. When I took my son eventually to my old family doctor since he was so sick, I mentioned to the doctor that I was also pregnant. He looked up quickly, and said, "uh oh" in a worried voice. He changed the subject when I asked what he meant. Did he know something I didn't? Was this particular flu bad for unborn babies?

Questions and more questions. In the immediate crisis after she died, I had to learn to put down the questions. God knew the answers to them, and He chose not to tell us. I choose to trust. The questions still come, but I choose to set them down again unanswered.

It has become enough for me that He knows, and I can rest in that. I chose to believe the things I knew in my head about God, and one of those is that His way is perfect, even when it is not easy.

Her Story - a prolouge

When I was a teenager, I babysat for a family with two lovely girls and one little boy. The boy had the most unusual nickname "Buzzy". When I was in their home, I noticed the photo of one baby girl on the mother's nightstand.

Interesting, I thought. Which baby would rank the right to be there alone?

I asked the girls who that baby was. "Oh, that is Sarah."

Sarah? None of them are named Sarah. Who is she?

Sarah was their sister. She died of SIDS when she was only a few months old. Buzzy was born after Sarah, and he was put on a monitor to watch his breathing. He stopped breathing so many times that they nicknamed him "Buzzy" after the monitor's buzz which woke them so often.

Several years later, in nursing school, I picked the topic of SIDS for a pediatrics presentation. Besides the few basic facts and research into preventing SIDS, there was little to present from a nursing standpoint. When babies come in after SIDS, they are dead. There is little we can do.

I decided I would make this report more personal, and I phoned up this mother and asked if I might interview her about their experiences during and after Sarah's death. She very graciously agreed and I learned much of the suffering and accusations that families can go through after an infant suddenly dies. I did well on the presentation.

My only one thought through that was, "wow! I could never live through the death of one of my babies." If I had one prayer going into motherhood, it was that - don't let me have to live through this.

God does not always answer prayers the way we would like. I learned that the hard way. I also learned that in the times we think we will not survive, He will step in and carry us through it in ways we never thought.

Today, when I look back at the death of my daughter, I look back to a time of immense pain, but also to a time of immense comfort.

(no this is not a photo of her - we never got one)

Mommy, it hurted!

I sat in the doctor's office today. A routine allergy shot. A nuisance in a full week. Or a calm half hour on my own - depends how I look at it. Some days, the room is full of cheerful conversation between us "regulars". Other days, it is quiet - people reading books, dozing, nursing cups of coffee.

Today was a quiet day. No sounds. No restless kids. No chatting patients. Silence reigned in the office. Three quiet women and one young mother with a sleeping newborn sitting. Then from the offices, came a little girl. She couldn't have been more than two years old, tiny and petite. Every detail on her was fine and small, like a painted porcelain doll on a shelf. She turned towards the mother with the baby with a troubled face, "Mommy, it hurted!" Tears rested in her eyes, but not one had trickled down her face. We had not even heard one noise from the back rooms. She must have had her allergy tests - involving many little pokes and red itching.

Her mom looked up at the dad and down at the little girl. She stood there while both parents whispered to her that she had done well and they were proud. She stood brave and quiet with no tears initially, but as she moved closer to her mom, her bottom lip began to quiver and one lonely tear snaked down her cheek. The mom leaned over to put her head on her daughter, her hands full of the new baby. As soon as the mom touched her, more tears followed down the path of the first. It was all over, but the crying did not come until there was comfort again.

Still the girl was so well-composed for a tiny tike. She then crawled up in the chair beside the mom while the dad fussed over her quietly whispering to her, producing the inevitable chocolate bar that had been promised as a treat, and gently putting on her boots and mitts. The dad did an amazing job with her - to walk her through that doctor's visit on his own. He impressed us all.

But she sat in the chair beside her mom while her boots were being tied and looked up once more at her mommy. "But it really did hurt, mommy."

In the waiting room, we all watched. We all smiled at her. We all wanted to reach over and give her the hug her mother couldn't with her arms full of baby. This tiny specimin of humanity trying to be so brave.... she was adorable.

As they walked out the door, I thought "that is exactly how I feel." For the last few weeks, I've been scolding myself for not feeling more happy. Why do I feel like crying at odd moments? It is all over. The worst is over, and things are so much better. I should be happy. The hurt is done. But I feel like crying still so often. My lip quivers when I look up at God, and I still am saying, "that really hurt!"

What I noticed today was that none of us in that room felt like scolding the little girl. There was no negative reaction to her at all. It would have been a crazy response! We all, unanimously, wanted to comfort her, to scoop her up and hug her - "you've been so brave. It's all over. You did good. I know it hurt. I'm proud of you."

Yet I scold myself for those very same words. "It hurted."

It was just a little lesson in God's love. He is not sitting there telling me to "get over it" and "get on with life" or to "feel happy now, it's over". He is sitting there waiting to comfort me for the hurt. It was tough. It hurt. It is over now, and I made it through, and it is ok to cry.

I think, too, one of the difficulties in being a mother is that when you go through rough times like this last year has been for me, you have to focus so much on your kids - are they alright, are you strong enough for them, are you doing all you can, are you protecting them? It leaves little time to process your own feelings. Now my feelings come. Now because I am safe. Because I can relax.

And when I walk in with my lip quivering and tears swimming in my eyes, God is ready to scoop me up and hold me.

Her Story

I knew that one day I would want to tell her story.

Yet it is so hard to put words to it. Difficult to begin. Difficult to write. Difficult to end. Is there really ever any end? I have a patient who is in her early nineties. She forgets everything from the now, even if she ate supper or not while I am still clearing her dishes! There is one thing she doesn't forget. She tells me regularly. About her third son. He lived only nine months. Together, we pause in sadness and remember him. She wipes a tear off her wrinkled face and invariably says, "but he is in heaven, and I guess I will see him soon." She sighs, "It's been a long time."

So tell me, when does it end? The day we bury a body? The day we remember a year gone by without her? The day we forget to remember one day? When we have another child? When we have grandchildren? How about great-grandchildren? Or when we are 92 and pause at the nurse's station to talk of our child we lost?

Maybe it only ends when we walk into heaven, eyes finally opened for the first time, meet God face to face, and then (how do you say "then" or "after" in a place with no time?) look around and go running, running to gather them up in our arms finally, at last - oh, how I missed you! Does it end then? Maybe not. Maybe it only begins. I am still waiting for the beginning with my baby. The ending started before the beginning. Death before life. It is not supposed to be this way.

This is why I can not write this story. The tears come and block my view.

Book #6 - To An Angel Who Is New

I walked by this book the first time through the store, too. I'm not impressed with people who talk to angels or think we become angels.

I'll tell you why I picked it up the second time. The back says it is the letters of a man talking to his wife.... you mean men TALK?!?

So I picked it up.

It is an interesting book. Another one about someone dying. No, I am not typically morbid. I do often see death, though, so I do not shy away from it as quickly perhaps as others. I do not mind reading how others face death because I often stand beside people while they watch one they love die. I appreciate learning from people who are brave enough to write honestly.

This book is written honestly. The author is in the Netherlands and writes with the simple directness of the Dutch. The basic story is that there is a horrible accident and he and his wife and two daughters are badly injured. His wife ends up in one hospital and he and the girls in another. The book is the account of him telling his wife day by day what is going on. He tells of the pain, the decisions, the suffering, the beauty, the hope, the crushing realization of hope shattered. He comments on friend's actions, helpful and unhelpful.

It really is a touching story.

It made me sad. Sad because it is the story of people facing awful suffering without God. They use words like "hope" and "luck" and "destiny". They gather people together to "focus their good thoughts and try to radiate their good energy" and talk about her "moving toward the light, whichever direction that light may be". There is a deep sadness I felt as I read their attempts to deal with pain with only a general idea that there must be a light and a heaven, but without knowing God.

It encouraged me. Strange that it would, but it did. It reminded me that I do not grieve like this. I do not face life like this. I have a God whose name I know. He knows my name. I can talk to Him. I don't face things alone with a general hope and a sad acceptance of fate. I am a daughter of the King, and I can talk to Him.

I gave me a renewed desire to reach out to others. To see people suffer with so little to hang on to. I wanted to call into the book, "Wait, stop, listen - He's listening. You can talk to Him. He has a name, a heart, a purpose. He is not a general light, but a God who suffered a broken body Himself so you can know Him."

But mostly, deeply, deeply grateful that whatever I face, I face with God. My God who is daily, minute by minute, involved in my life in ways too small and infinite for me to even know. God is involved. He is. We do not grieve like those who have no hope. We do not face life without a Comforter. This book reminded me of God' deep love for me and His very presence in trouble in my life - not by its example, but by its omission. We do not face life like they had to.

And that reminder gave me hope and comfort. It filled my heart with thankfulness.

Only During Service - Help, am I losing my babies?

A new thing happened today. My kids were well-behaved! They sat fairly still, they stood, they sat, they didn't poke each other too much - well, my second boy came over to complain that my oldest boy was "breathing near him".... um, he's sitting near you, where do you expect him to breathe?! "Oops, sorry, I'm just going to step out to take a few breaths?"

My oldest - uh, oh... he's growing. His voice is changing. He stood so tall and sang so loud and well today. I was shocked. I complimented him, telling him his teacher would be proud of him. (His teacher also leads worship in chapel and is always after his kids to sing loud like they mean it!) He ducked and smiled. Later he told me that he has to sing loud now because if he sings quieter, his voice cracks, but if he sings loud, it doesn't.

Oh my. He was so tiny just yesterday. We had to put the socks on the outside of his newborn sleepers because he was too tiny, and only with socks on would the legs even stay anywhere near where they were supposed to be. He was barely six pounds when born - so tiny that he hardly hurt when he was born. I remember thinking, "What do people make such a fuss about birthing for?" (don't ever ask yourself that - you just might learn with the next birth!)

Book Review #5

The Christmas List - by Pete Nelson

This one is an odd one to categorize. Fiction. I think. It is the type of book that has you turning the cover over and over to read about the author to see if perhaps it was a true story. You want it to be true. Perhaps it is. I really don't know.

Christian fiction? That would be a bit of a stretch. Only if your idea of Christian is "do good things and go to church once in awhile".

Romantic fiction? Not really. There is the obligatory "fall in love and marry" in it - twice in fact. But it is not exactly a romance.

It is a good book. An extremely well-written story, yet one which doesn't read like a story. It sounds real. Real issues, real family, real people. And a warm story in the middle of it all.

Good book. Just not exactly one that you listen to the theology in, although the total sum of theology is pretty basic - man is good, and if we do good things, that is good.

Nice read, though. Cute story. Can move you to tears at times (not that I am a crying type!) simply because it sounds real.

Don't go on Amazon and read reviews on it, though. They spoil the book by telling the secret on their review. I hate it when people do that!

(I am putting a two book limit in place. Once you've picked your two, I'll throw them in the mail. For those of you too shy to ask - I really mean it that I am giving them away! Living a large part of my life where there were no new books means I know what it is like, and I want to pass these on. Just ask!)

Book Review #4

Stuck in the Middle
by Virginia Smith

This is the first book in a series of three. To be honest, I passed it over my first time through the bookstore. The cover looked a little too "teenage romance" for me. The back didn't really grab me, either, but on my second trip in, I picked it up.

This one is an easy read, a basic Christian romance fiction that lets you escape into another world for a few hours. Not any spectacular writing or deep themes. No suffering or answering deep questions.

Despite my low expectations, I was surprised by it. It is actually a decent book for its type. Instead of being set in a historical era as is typical with these, it is set in today, in a normal setting. No unbelievable events happen to make this story exciting and catch your attention, but the story itself is well-written.

Instead of the typical "boy meets girl, and one is not a believer, and they fall in love and the one gets saved and they live happily ever after" story line (which, by the way, is a huge problem to me with a book. Why is that fine in novels and bad in real life?), this book has a different version. In this book, the story between the characters is a deeper question. Less of basic salvation, and more on people's view of God, and God calling them to something deeper, out of their normal church experience. I appreciated the fresh take on it.

All that to say this book of which I had really low expectation ranked rather high in its class - what I would label "mindless Christian novels" (I know, I know, I am rather rude in my description, but what would you call this genre of book? The ones we read just to relax, not to learn, not to grow, but just to have a break?) Good thought, good dialog, and low on sappiness. No crazy plots, no over the top romance, just a normal life, normal family and an interesting story with some good Christian thoughts on the side.

It is yours for the asking.

It's a Boy! (And she IS a girl)

The ground could have opened up and swallowed me and I wouldn't have been any less shocked.

My daughter woke up New Year's day and began to play with her doll. My husband had taken the clothes off it when he was cleaning her room, and I had washed them. I sent her to put them back on the doll.

This doll has sat untouched in the corner of her room for four years. She played with it briefly only when she was 18 months old. It did play a part in one of the more tense situations we had on the field, so I had hung on to it, but it only sat at the bottom of the closet.

She went up to her room, dressed the baby, and then proceeded to wrap it in a blanket and sing to it. Then she carried it around and informed everyone that they could only whisper since the baby was going to sleep. She burped it, fed it, and cared for it all day. By evening, she had decided that the doll's birthday was tomorrow, and carefully whispered in our ears not to tell him, but that she would have his party tomorrow. At night, I had to kiss the baby good night.

For the last two days, she has faithfully cared for the baby doll. She wants me to make clothes for him, since all her doll clothes are dresses and "boys do not wear dresses". You could sweep me off the floor, I am so shocked. She is really a girl.

Now, to be honest, she did put the baby carefully to sleep and run off to grab guns at a friend's house and chase their girl through the house shooting wildly.... but, she does have three brothers!

Today, she picked up another doll and has decided that her baby has a sister, and it is her birthday today. I guess I need to sew another baby blanket from scraps for a birthday gift for today, but hey, I'm happy to do it!

This one doll's former adventure was a sudden plunge into cold fear. It started out as a simple trip, simple enough, into a country near ours where it is always tense, but if you have a good cover and nothing forbidden on you, it was not too unsafe. Only this was a quick trip for two reasons - to say goodbye before we moved here and to carry in "stuff". The trip's "stuff" was more delicate and a larger quantity than other trips since we had to pass on things we were not taking with us.

We flew that time. Much faster and easier. Safer, too. Except that when you fly, they inspect bags both getting on and getting off the plane. I left my boys, but brought my daughter since it didn't cost any more to fly with her. My husband was detained with some paperwork in the airport, and I stayed near the bags, so he was nowhere near enough to see the crisis develop. As our bags went through the long process to go on the plane, they X-rayed them. Then they stopped the X-ray machine. I stood there watching our bags go back and forth in the machine while two guards discussed them. I knew that if they opened those two bags, our chances were not good.

Please, Lord, no.

Running through my mind, over and over again, was one constant refrain, "Why did I bring my daughter? Why? Why didn't I leave her safe at home?" Lord, no. Not with my baby here. I stood there knowing I had to look nonchalant and bored, so I jiggled my daughter who would not even have the decency to start to scream so I could indignantly insist that they were taking too long and she needed feeding. So I just jiggled her and began to squeeze the doll's feet and hands. This doll had four different sounds it made: a giggle, a cry, "mama", and "dada". We cycled through them several times quickly while I nonchalantly watched guards discussing my bags. I kept squeezing the doll's foot for the giggle like my life depended on it.

After an endlessly long few seconds, one guard looked up and called to his supervisor at the other end of the baggage area. Oh, no! My prayers changed from, "please, Lord, no." to "Let me get my baby out of here, please, just keep her safe." The supervisor wasn't looking, so the guard called again. Just then, an employee of the airline we were going to fly (a small charter) walked by the X-ray machines on his way to the bags, glanced at the machine and the worried guards, shrugged, and said, "it's just school books".

The guard's faces cleared immediately. They looked at each other and repeated, "oh, books", and hit the green button on the X-ray machine again, and the bags slid off into the loading area. (It wasn't even books at all this time, that is what made the comment funny.) Just then my husband came up smiling with his paperwork done, and said, "all set! Let's go."

All I could do was smile. I couldn't even tell him how close we came until we had landed and gone through another check and were safely in our coworker's home. I gave that doll's foot a few more squeezes on my way out to the plane to calm my nerves and followed out into the blazing sun on the tarmac.

Happy New Year!

Bells rang, whistles blew, people yelled and hugged, too much food eaten, tired kids going home. New Year has arrived.

Hoping, trusting for a good one.

Tonight, the sore throat I have been nursing for a few days has suddenly worsened. Yuck. Supposed to go visit people tomorrow, and I'm losing my voice, and my chest is tight and sore.

My daughter was so happy. "Finally, for the first time, I made it! I'm still awake!"

So, happy New Year to all!