12-19-1987, Me and Auntie playing in the floor.

This weekend Auntie (you have to say it Ain-ie) passed away.  It was a real shock since we just saw her on Tuesday.  She had been in and out of the hospital a lot over the last year or so, but at our visit she was feeling great, looking great, and still as sharp as a whip.

4-20-09, Auntie seeing Britt for the first time.

Auntie was an amazing person.  She and Uncle Hoyt were technically my great aunt and uncle, but they were so much more.  We all use to take turns going over to their house in the summer time.  We would cross the river leaving Decatur, and on the way back to their house we'd stop at the grocery store where we would get all sorts of things that Mother and Daddy never would have bought us.  Once I remember getting Reese's Cup cereal. While at their house, we'd sleep in, make forts out of blankets between the chairs and coffee table.  We'd watch the Home Shopping Network with Auntie, who loved to tell us about the jewelry.  I use to look forward to walking next door where a couple of my second cousins, Jennifer and Jamie, lived and playing cards with them.  They were older than me, and sometimes had summer jobs or other plans, but I always looked forward to seeing them.  The best part was staying up extra late and getting a midnight snack before bedtime (around 10:30).  She'd have several kinds of ice cream and every kind of topping you could imagine gummy worms, nuts, syrup.  The best dessert though was her chocolate pies.

6-26-11, Auntie with Ruth

More than my memories of what we did for those amazing summer weeks though, are my memories of her.  She had the biggest smile, and always was laughing about something.  She loved to aggravate and get us kids going, but never in a mean way.  She absolutely hated her first name.  And like most of the family went by her middle name.  Just on Tuesday she about had a fit with the nurse on the phone who she told "you should know by now my name is not Myrtie!"  She loved jewelry and Uncle Hoyt always found her the most beautiful pieces.  She was such a lady with her hair done, her clothes just so, her jewelry, and nails.  She was an Auburn fan and loved basketball, but went to every kinda sporting event everywhere she could.  She the kindest person, who loved her family.  She and Uncle Hoyt never had children of their own, but adopted all of us great-nieces and nephews as their grandkids.  And later, they both would light up any time I came home and brought my own kids.  Most of all I remember that smile and laugh.

11-25-2013, Britt showing his mammoth to Auntie.  He talked and talked and talked to her about it.

11-25-13, Auntie holding Rebecca.

Auntie was I'm going to miss visiting her on our trips home, and I wish we had thought to get a picture all of us together last Tuesday.  But I'm so thankful I had a chance to see her, to hear about the cousins and their kids, to listen to her give folks a hard time and laugh about it, to give her a hug one more time.  And to be honest she probably wouldn't have let me had a picture anyway, she wasn't going to get her hair done till Saturday anyway.

Tonight I finished Abigail's stocking, 219 days after I began it. The cross-stitch turned out beautiful, stunning even. The felt backing not quite so much. It was a project unlike anything else I have made. And there is a sense of having accomplished something very meaningful, and yet I am sad about finishing it. Much like picking out, paying for, and seeing her stone after it was placed. A finality of feeling there is nothing else to be done for her. Other loss parents talk about the difficulty in parenting a child who is gone, and the truth is you can't. But the great irony is that the need to parent doesn't just disappear with them, it remains a very present feeling.

This project has been a way to grieve as well. I have worked on it when the sadness has been too overwhelming to do anything else. I have worked on it when I have been happy to have had her in our lives. I have worked on it when I was alone, when I wanted to be alone, when I wanted to be with others but felt out of sorts, and while having a good time with those we love. I have talked to God while working on it. I have worked through some anger. And I have had some of the most peaceful moments since her loss while cross-stitching.  Working on it I have settled on the answer of how many children I have - four.

I have thought a lot about our family while working on it. In the three geese flying, I see our three living children. A male and female cardinal reminds me of Gary and me.  The Church resembles both of our two Churches - Old Carroll and Little Union.  Most of all the sled in a snow bank against a tree has from the very beginning seemed to me like a tombstone.  I obviously look for too much symbolism. In my insanity I had to reverse the pattern so that it would hang like the others we already had. And I used Mother's gold thread to add something extra to the hanger. Gary tells me that her stocking will make the rest of ours appear shabby.

I am glad I made it for her and for me. Now I suppose I will find another project to work on. I am thinking I am finally read to start writing all those thank you notes from Abigail's funeral that I couldn't bear to do at the time.

Rebecca is definitely her own person. Not at all like our other two children. She has strong opinions and her own peculiar sense of fashion. She is fiercely independent, and as such can be ornery and difficult or the biggest flirt you have ever seen. My favorite moments with her these days are first thing in the morning. She gets up before anyone else and climbs in my "big bed" and she sucks her thumb and cuddles. She has turned into a real cuddle bug since last summer. Sometimes she just lays there.  Sometimes she talks to me in Minion.  Mostly she gets real sweet and starts her morning negotiations for Mickey Mouse on my TV or permission to play the iPad. She's a rotten, but well loved little thing.

We went Ka-Warlo with Ahna and Grumps.    It took a long time to get there, it was so far away, but it was a fun trip.  And Flat Stanley comed with us.  When we got there we go-ed swimming in the sea water.  The sea water looked blue and kinda green and bluer the deeper.











Momma and I went for a walk on some rocks around where we went swimming.  We saw a sign that said do you want to swim with the dolphin.  There was a tank to get in and swim with the dolphins.  We didn't do that though, cause Ahna didn't want to swim with the dolphins.  She was afraid she would get her clothes wet.




We played in the water alot, but after it was all over we go-ed home.  Grumps and Ahna sleeped over and had lots of fun.  The end.

I naively hoped today would pass unnoticed.  That it could be just another day, that the kids would wake me up before I was ready, that we would argue about doing morning chores before free time.  That we would eat lunch around 12:30 and start school around 1.  That it would either be a great day and they would work diligently and knock it all out, or that it would be a day where no one feels like cooperating, and I wonder what's so great about homeschooling after all.  A day where I get some things done around the house because I can't in good conscience put it off any longer.  A day where I eagerly anticipate Gary coming home, so the good part of the day can finally start.  We'd have supper, some reading or a movie or maybe play Go Fish with the kids, and then get under a mound of covers and go to sleep before rinsing and repeating tomorrow.

But today is the first of what will be many anniversaries.  May 4th of last year, I confirmed what I already suspected we were expecting our fourth child.  The two fours, and my joking with Gary that there wouldn't be any fun Cinco de Mayo celebration for us tomorrow, made it memorable.  Today, I woke up too early, and couldn't go back to sleep. It's gloomy and rainy looking down here. And Gary will be in West Palm until late this evening.  There will be the first anniversary of her first ultrasound, of hearing her heart beat, of Gary feeling her move, of her birth/death.  And maybe the saddest part is that I really thought we'd be pregnant again by now.

Today was Britt's final game, and Ruth had her last game, last Monday.  It has been alot of fun to watch the kids play ball this year.  Even though they have posted a few times about playing I wanted to write and share some videos from their final games.

Ruth started off the season, enjoying batting but not really caring to run and not attempting to field the ball.  She has complained endlessly all season about not liking the long socks or the tight pants.  She won't leave her shirt tucked in.  And she doesn't like pony tails, but does want her hair pushed through the hole in the back of her hat.  She is so particular about things.  However, by the end of the season, she was running more and said that batting and running the bases were her favorite parts.  She is trying to field the ball, and actually throws halfway accurately for t-ball.  I hope she will want to play again next year, she and Rebecca could be on a t-ball team together.


Britt though has been the most fun to watch.  He played rookie ball this year, which is basically just like regular baseball with the exception that it is coach pitch so they get 5 pitches no balls or strikes called.  Britt's attention span still wanders a lot when he plays any position but catcher.  But his throwing has improved drastically this year.  In some ways his batting is worse than last year, but over the course of the season, he has improved a lot in his stance and in tracking the pitch.  He loves baseball.  He loves his team, he loves the sport, he likes watching other games on tv.  It has been most fun to see his enthusiasm for the sport.  He is so sad that the season is over, and wants to know why it has to be so short.

I feel like I'm managing pretty well these days.  Tomorrow will mark 6 weeks since I've had a really bad day.  I still think about Abigail a lot, but it's not painful.  I still see her absence everywhere, but I don't imagine that often what she should be doing.  At four months old she should be babbling, not just cooing, giggling and paying attention to more of the world around her, she should be playing with her hands and feet discovering baby toys.  But I had to look that up, it wasn't just something I knew I was missing.  That part of grief thankful has begun to ebb.

I'm still unsure of who I am now.  I find that while I am more sensitive and patient with the kids, I no longer have the patiences to deal with others.  I no longer have any desire to play the games of social niceties.  I'm still not comfortable with showing emotion and talking about personal things, but they are no longer things that can be neatly packed away in boxes and only taken out when convenient and only with the people that I am closest too.  I can still have a good time, but it's more subdued now. No longer wild and free, like the line from "Brave," where Merida's dad impersonating her says, "I don't want to get married! I want to stay single and let my hair flow in the wind as I ride through the glen, firing arrows into the sunset!"  I don't find that the experience has left me with any greater maturity though, just an increased sense of anxiety and unease in my own skin.

I have tried my best however not to let it change the way I parent the kids.  To allow them as much independence as I can... at least for a 7, 5, and 3 year old.  I want them to still have as much freedom to explore and be kids as I can, despite my desire to tie all their hands to a string and attach them to me at all times, the way the kids are in "Oh Brother Where Art Thou."  The sad truth though is that their being in my presence all the time won't keep them safe, I mean it didn't work for Abigail.  And it would only hamper their ability to grow into adults who are capable of critical thinking and ability to persevere when faced with failure.

If I am honest, I also sometimes worry at the toll this entire thing has taken on our marriage. Gary is passed talked out, and we have no points in common.  He sees her as she was, I see her as she is.  I need to imagine who she is to fill the void, he finds it a pointless exercise since nothing he imagines can be accurate.  I hate feeling alone in missing her, he hates that I don't see his grief.  Despite the fact that we both lost a daughter, grief is a very singular journey.  We have been through unemployment three times, a gillion moves, Church problems, family issues, and all sorts of other hardships while married but nothing we couldn't talk about.  Nothing that has felt lonely like this.

Unfortunately the loss of a child isn't just a stop in the road of life.  It's not like a wrong turn on a trip where you end up broke down in some podunk town.  A horrible little blip that after you get back on the right road leaves bears no bearing on the rest of your life.  Grief isn't like that, it is the road, the journey, an abrupt direction change our life took.  It's more than just a stop, it is a part of who we are now, and it has a very lasting impact.