This box of tissues is almost seven years old and has been under the seat of my car this entire time. It started out in my hands on the longest drive home in a red minivan, then moved to a red escape, and is currently under the seat in my silver escape.
My husband hastily emptied the contents of my red escape before selling it, and I found it sitting on top of the garbage can. My heart gave a small lurch, and I snatched it up. And then my heart gave an even larger contraction as I looked down at it in my hands. That hospital visitor sticker with a room number written on with a sharpie marker looking back at me with its sad and smudged little life.
Every time I see it, I think – throw that damn thing out!
But I cannot. I just can’t.
Truth be told, I’m not even quite sure if I could use them. Maybe for an extreme emergency situation… a bloody nose perhaps with no fast food napkins in sight. In a time of tears, yes, that would probably pass. But a sniffle, a snotless sneeze, ketchup on a finger, probably not.
I will look at you and say – Sorry, we got nothing! Knowing I would carry that lie with me to the line of judgement and confession at the pearly gates when my time comes.
That little box of tissues was on the bedstand beside that damn hospital bed I was in for less than twenty-four hours. A labor and delivery bed, in the labor and delivery wing of the big hospital in the city an hour and a half away from the small town we lived in.
The labor and delivery floor where all the other babies that day were born alive.
But not ours. No, not ours. Before we had even arrived we already knew she was not going to be born alive.
Hours earlier we had gotten the anticipated, yet still unexpected and totally horrible words… “I’m sorry, but there’s no heartbeat.”
We knew at some point it was coming, but we had no idea when. Would it be before full term, would it be during the delivery, would it miraculously be maybe an hour or two after her birth before she would be snatched away into the heavens? The million dollar question that haunted me and kept me from sleeping, kept me from sanity and all normal rational during that entire time of my life.
I heard those words, and as “prepared” as I thought I was, I was not at all prepared, and I was not ready. But I am more than sure NO ONE is prepared or ready when their child is placed into the arms of Jesus.
I’ve written about that moment before in great detail. (Click HERE in case you’re interested in knowing our whole story) and I don’t think right now I’m at a point where I can really go beyond just looking at this box of tissues, and just knowing of its existence beneath me over the last seven years.
Hours earlier we had gotten the anticipated, yet still unexpected and totally horrible words… “I’m sorry, but there’s no heartbeat.”
We knew at some point it was coming, but we had no idea when. Would it be before full term, would it be during the delivery, would it miraculously be maybe an hour or two after her birth before she would be snatched away into the heavens? The million dollar question that haunted me and kept me from sleeping, kept me from sanity and all normal rational during that entire time of my life.
I heard those words, and as “prepared” as I thought I was, I was not at all prepared, and I was not ready. But I am more than sure NO ONE is prepared or ready when their child is placed into the arms of Jesus.
I’ve written about that moment before in great detail. (Click HERE in case you’re interested in knowing our whole story) and I don’t think right now I’m at a point where I can really go beyond just looking at this box of tissues, and just knowing of its existence beneath me over the last seven years.
I used those tissues when we first arrived as I cried in anger, fear, and utter anguish. I used those tissues during and after delivery. And I would clutch those damn tissues as we walked out of our room after being dismissed, turning down a hallway full of huge massive photos all over the wall of healthy babies. I wasn’t in a wheelchair, I walked. I wasn’t holding a tiny pink newborn tightly wrapped and packed in a car seat. Our baby had gone home earlier with our local funeral home director.
No, I didn’t hold a baby. I held… a freaking box of tissues as I cried the entire way out to our car. And all the way home. And from the hospital, we drove directly to the funeral home.
I would use those tissues a few days later as I drove from our house to the cemetery to say our goodbyes.
And then, I stopped using those tissues, but I knew they were under my seat. I knew they said “Angel Soft” (oh the irony, right?!?!) and I knew they held my husbands visitor sticker from when he left the hospital to get something to eat, because he was not allowed to order anything to our room “before” her birth. And after being told by a doctor we had never met before that we should expect to not deliver until sometime on Sunday (this was Friday night at 5pm) he had left to get something to eat. And you know what, my water broke when he was gone and stuck in line at some Taco Bell… and nothing went as planned after that.
Wait, nothing went as planned for any of it, I do say with a small smile on my face.
No, nothing went as planned. Nothing. Nothing went as we had hoped. Nothing went as we had prayed for… begged for… pleaded for…. ugly cried for.
And yet, for whatever reason, it was exactly as God had planned. #Godisgood #evenif. (Some days are easier than others to type / say / believe these words.)
So now, I watch with a smile and tiny tear as the children’s choir sing up front in our church and think, oh Faith would have been up there, in her pink sparkly dress and shoes, her red hair and blue eyes… but she’s not.
And I’m going to say it’s ok, because it is… but it isn’t. But there is not one thing we can do differently about it, because it was God’s intended plan for her life, and for ours. #aswejourneytofaith
So instead of driving our little one to church early on mornings like this, I simply drive to church with a little box of “Angel Soft” tissues under my seat, a box that’s getting tattered and torn, (kind of how I picture the state of my heart some days) that I can’t bring myself to throw away, because that one little tiny thing was there when our one little tiny girl celebrated her birth day, and it held my hand as we said both hello and goodbye.
No, I didn’t hold a baby. I held… a freaking box of tissues as I cried the entire way out to our car. And all the way home. And from the hospital, we drove directly to the funeral home.
I would use those tissues a few days later as I drove from our house to the cemetery to say our goodbyes.
And then, I stopped using those tissues, but I knew they were under my seat. I knew they said “Angel Soft” (oh the irony, right?!?!) and I knew they held my husbands visitor sticker from when he left the hospital to get something to eat, because he was not allowed to order anything to our room “before” her birth. And after being told by a doctor we had never met before that we should expect to not deliver until sometime on Sunday (this was Friday night at 5pm) he had left to get something to eat. And you know what, my water broke when he was gone and stuck in line at some Taco Bell… and nothing went as planned after that.
Wait, nothing went as planned for any of it, I do say with a small smile on my face.
No, nothing went as planned. Nothing. Nothing went as we had hoped. Nothing went as we had prayed for… begged for… pleaded for…. ugly cried for.
And yet, for whatever reason, it was exactly as God had planned. #Godisgood #evenif. (Some days are easier than others to type / say / believe these words.)
So now, I watch with a smile and tiny tear as the children’s choir sing up front in our church and think, oh Faith would have been up there, in her pink sparkly dress and shoes, her red hair and blue eyes… but she’s not.
And I’m going to say it’s ok, because it is… but it isn’t. But there is not one thing we can do differently about it, because it was God’s intended plan for her life, and for ours. #aswejourneytofaith
