August

August is hard.

August means an end is coming soon.

August means an end has already come.

August means change and transition. August means back-to-school. August means the return of stress at work. August means the end of quiet Fridays at the lake with my eight-year-old. And August is the month our little Faith MaryJo was due, had she been born full term. August was the month of unknowns and projected pain a year ago. It was the month that would hold the finality of our journey with her, if we hadn’t already said goodbye before then. August held an end.

We did say goodbye before then. The only heartbeat on the ultrasound was my own, and on that day I also faced the fear of my own death and the end of my own heartbeat as well. I survived her labor and delivery, I did not hemorrhage, I did not die. The fears and lies satan whispered did not become reality. But she still did not live. I don’t hold guilt with that reality, but I do hold incredible sadness.

August is the month we go visit the cemetery, wash off the black granite headstone, and quietly wonder who actually takes care of the grounds and mowing there (as its lack of tidiness suddenly seems to matter) instead of getting to plan an elaborate first birthday party full of pink and polka dots and glitter and sparkly tulle. We pick up broken, mowed over pieces of angel garden stakes and blown away garden flags instead of picking up smash cake frosting and crumbs from under a high chair.

I’ve been enduring the not-quite-so-hard of this August for the last eighteen days now. I am well into the change and transition with back-to-school and added work hours and responsibility. I am well aware of the ticking off of the weekends left at the lake. And I am also well aware of the return of the knot of stress and discontent in my stomach and inner veins.

This year I was somewhat prepared for the silent inner pain to not just visit for a day or two, knowing it would probably settle deep within for the entire month, which last year I was completely taken by surprise by.

Last year for months prior we had dreaded the month of August, but then after we had lost Faith earlier on, we had just stopped talking about August. But then it actually arrived. August 1st I sat on the beach and cried, and I wasn’t exactly even quite sure why. I had once dreaded having to miss vacation and the two day work Leadership Conference we attend every year, but then the time came and we went on our vacation and I got to attend the conference. I remember sitting there both days completely overtaken with unexpected emotion.

I was no longer just grieving what had been taken from me. I was no longer grateful the journey was "over" and our summer had been “spared” – I had been quickly catapulted out of the grief stage with the simple turning of the calendar page, and was suddenly blindsided with an anger and resentment for all that August never got to be.

When there is an end immediately attached to your beginning, it instantly takes away everything along with it throughout its middle core.

August never got to be the month of nursery preparation and baby showers. The crib never went up, the newborn baby clothes and diapers never bought. The car seat and stroller never even thought about. The daycare reservation and deposit never needed. August was never the month of anything pink, or little, or announcement related. August never got to hold the wonder, awe, excitement, and expectation of the arrival of a long awaited healthy baby girl.

I sit here not wanting to wallow, but I also don’t want to rejoice. I don’t want to dwell, but I also don’t want to forget. I’m sad, I’m angry, I’m busier than I want to be, I’m more stressed than I want to be, I’m still quite lost, I’m easily irritable, I’m often lonely yet wanting to be left alone, I’m still blindly searching for the meaning of life and for the me I somehow manage to lose every year over the long winter months away from the lake.

I see how somehow all of that leaves something inside in its aftermath, that is trying its hardest to deliver a constant prick of bitter poison… an incessant scratching ever-so-lightly upon the wall of my soul, echoing and seeping into the empty hollows within. I realize it and am aware of it, but I don’t always know what to do about it, or how to stop it.

Perhaps I am not supposed to do anything about it. Perhaps it’s not actual a bitter poison, but an odd healing salve from God to help me continue to look up and look ahead, to continue to help move me forward and help me not forget.

Perhaps He is trying to simply help me scar more beautifully.

I do not want this loss to define me, I want this loss to refine me. I do not want this loss to make me bitter, I want this loss to make me better. I do not want this loss to have only taken something from me, I want this loss to have also granted and given me something. I do not want this loss to leave me lost and invisible, I want this loss to help me find myself and be seen.

May God continue to cast His light into this returning darkness. May the difficulties of my Augusts somehow turn the page into something bigger and greater than I can currently comprehend. May I allow Him to turn my chaos into calm, my sadness into singing, my anger into contentment, and the simple telling of my story into a connection and entrance point into lives and stories of others also lost in the struggle of the everyday hard.

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