They had a table of resources, and I stopped and looked at a few things. I'm not a new grieving mom anymore, I'm double digits in to this thing ... this journey. What would I possible need off a resource table...
But there was a small child's board book about loss, and a devotional that I reached down to touch. I took them both home with me. I put the children's book on the shelf next to the board books we were given as the announcement we were going to become a grandpa and grandma - which was interestingly enough in the exact same place as where we told my parents about Faith. At the end of the kitchen counter peninsula.
I haven't thought about that before this moment. One was told quietly with dread and sadness, one was told boldly with smiles and laughter.
I also took home a devotional. Loved Baby, 31 Devotions Helping You Grieve and Cherish Your Child After Pregnancy Loss but Sarah Philpott, PhD. It's pink with little flowers on the cover. It has a little built in pink bookmark ribbon. I quietly set it on top of my Bible that had been sitting open on the kitchen table when I got home that day.
It's been several hot minutes (months/years) since I have regularly done any kind of devotions (or working out, or sleeping, or eating healthy). I do the weekly Bible readings faithfully that go with the church sermon series, but that is about all I've been doing.
Actually - I have a dear friend that for over a year now messages me every day with scripture, devotion and prayer for me and my family. I am beyond honored and blessed by this, and most days if I'm honest I'm left feeling so guilty, because I know I am just not at any place emotionally, spiritually or physically that I have enough within me to give in that manner to someone else. And yes, that is exactly why she does it. Because she knows I cannot, and she loves me.
The next morning after the 5K I pulled out the kitchen table chair and I read the sermon series verse of the day in 1 Kings, and then I picked up the devotional. I opened the devotional. I read the introduction. I took some deep breaths. And I read Day 1: You Are Becoming A New Creation.
I have been repeating this almost every morning since then. Granted I am leaving my open Bible and this devotional out on the middle of the kitchen table all the time right now - which also means, we are not eating at our kitchen table. Although if I'm honest, we stopped - or at least I stopped battling meal time a long time ago.
Mealtime is hard for everyone I am sure. I grew up in a home with every meal at the kitchen table, and every Sunday meal with the extended family at grandma's kitchen tables. We did eat at our kitchen table for years. And one day I just couldn't do it any more. The actual making of the meals on a timely manner when you're working full time, keeping the table clean on a daily basis, meal planning, buying the groceries... but most of all, I couldn't do the mealtime meltdowns and mayhem any more. I won't go into all the details, but at our table there is one of the fastest least picky eaters I have ever known, and one of the slowest and most picky eaters I have ever known, with control issues (not eating certain foods when made by certain people). And the mix of those dynamics, are exhausting, especially for the mediator and maker of all the food.
The time at our table was not filled with laughter and stories of our days. It was stressful and full of anxiety and disagreements.
So I fed one in front of the tv in the basement, one in front of the tv in the living room, and I ate by myself alone at the counter. And usually it was also three separate meals for each of us. On occasion right now if it's just Brian and I home for supper, we will sit together at the table, although we aren't great at waiting for each other to actual eat together at the same time at the same place.
All that aside, one day I realized I was also not reading my Bible regularly and not doing devotions, and I started getting out my Bible and just leaving it out and open, and trying to read it almost every day.
As I have continued on with this Loved Baby child loss themed devotional, I find myself reading and reflecting and knowing that most of the book is written towards someone who is fresh in their loss and grief journeys... And I'm beginning to understand that while I am ten years, double digits in to my grief journey, it has taken me this long to actually reach a point where I am ready to do something like this.
There are still unopened gifts that came home from the hospital with us on the day she didn't get to come home from there with us. I think they were little gifts to open on the hard days. I'm assuming maybe a little lotion or a little candle or a little something along that line. I have still never opened one of those gifts. They are still individually wrapped and together in a purple gift bag with study handles in the very back of my bathroom closet.
I am also at the same time reading through 1 and 2 Kings which encompasses its own amount of death and grief and loss and murders and death of mothers and children and so many others. I try and envision what living in that time and place must have been like, but I just absolutely can't imagine (although is it perhaps really all that different than the times we are currently living in?)
As I've continue to spend more time in silence and reading and intentional reflection with this daily devotional, I know much of the last few years I've been trying to keep myself closed off from the pain and loss of Faith, simply a survival mechanism I wasn't even fully aware of, while desperately struggling and trudging along through our current reality. And now, while I'm not fully back to that fresh level of grief and despair, I do find myself thinking about her more again, I've been reaching out a tiny bit more to some of the other loss mom friends I have that I haven't been very connected to recently, and I have even dialed in to a loss moms support call or two recently.
I am still drowning and lost in my current journey, but I am also feeling a small pulse within trying to remind me to not forget about Faith, not to forget about myself - who I really am, what I really believe in (which I honestly have absolutely no idea who and what I really even am anymore)... And my eyes have reopened and refocused just enough to realize how far away from everything I have allowed myself to be right now. Closed off, guarded, shielded, on a survival automation that has left me basically unrecognizable to myself.
It took me over seventeen years to get to this place, so I know I cannot reverse and recover anything with any speed, but perhaps someday there is a chance that I will be able to find a glimmer of hope again.
** {Previous blog post here: October Infant and Child loss Awareness }
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