Guest Blogger

From the blog "A Baby Named Nathan"

Weary


Why do we fret over the unknown? Is there some unwritten law that says once you've suffered something as unspeakable as the death of a child nothing is ever supposed to feel safe again? Why is it that I can trust God with just about everything else but when it comes to the health and well-being of my loved ones I lose all hope?

I have spent the last several weeks digesting what has been happening with everything from anxiety to full fledged panic as my mainstay emotions. I have not felt one ounce of peace and I can't help but feel somehow I have distanced myself from Him. I choose worry over faith. I choose panic over peace. I do this not because I want to feel these emotions but because they somehow give me a false sense of control over the situation. I have begged, pleaded and cried for peace to wash over me but I feel it wont happen until I'm willing to let go of control. The last two weeks have been racked with such intense emotions. I may be worrying for nothing but the waiting has given my mind time to wander every possible outcome this pregnancy could have. I have seen when things don't go right. I have read other moms stories of what can happen, and I have seen tragedy strike a family more than once. I am no longer naive to how horribly wrong this could all go. If you had told me a year ago that this would be my reality I would have said; "not me, things like that don't happen to me" Not that I felt immune to such awful things but that in my mind it was so rare. And in fact the way Nathan died was rare. I am learning more and more that no one is immune, and just because you've been through the fire once doesn't mean you cant go through it again.

I can't seem to gather or rationalize a single one of my thoughts. Somedays I feel as though my head could spin right off my shoulders. I want more than anything to feel like I'm normal and not like
I'm on my way to a little white room with padded walls. I feel like I could just scream from all the thoughts running around freely in my head. Is this my new normal? Is this the reality of the rest of my life? Will I always feel this out of control of my thoughts?

This journey of grief has been a long, painful, and at times a very lonely road. I have taken a few detours here and there but for the most part I am still very much on the path I began eight months ago. There are days where I look up to see if God is holding His hand out for me, but instead I see a dark night sky reaching down to swallow me in hopelessness. There are days when I press forward that I get a glimpse of light shining through the branches that cover me on this path. It is on those days when I can raise my chin up and shut the thoughts out if only for a moment. I haven't seen one of those days in a very long time and I'm growing quite weary on my journey. Hope seems fleeting the more I press forward. Somedays I wonder why I'm even moving at all. I suppose I do it for the hope that one day I will reach a clearing in the path and the light, His light, will shine down on me.

Wow, although I have not gotten to this point in telling Mason's story, it is coming up really soon. This blog post I felt I could have written. It shows how grief is all consuming. It shows how you want so badly to let go, but just can't. What a powerful and emotional post.