A New Season

The first half of this month was hard emotionally. I was prepared for some of it and other times, as always, it would just surprise me. I think that's when it was the hardest. This past week has felt different. On Friday I woke up and went through our normal morning routine but somehow, I felt something different. I felt hopeful. I felt like a new season was beginning for us. I felt joyful and excited about our next child coming to us and really thought for one of the first times that all would be well. Not perfect but that, like I just wrote, a new season was upon us, a season of joy and new hope.

A friend sent us this scripture recently as her prayer for herself and for us. I think about it all the time: "And now, God, do it again - bring rains to our drought-stricken lives. So those who planted crops in despair will shout hurrahs at the harvest. So those who went off with heavy hearts will come home laughing..." Psalm 126:4-6.

The weeping mother

I cried more today than I expected. Everything just hit me in that way, and maybe because it is the one year anniversary of his birth I allowed myself the liberty to feel it all and weep, no keeping it together or carrying on with normal life, just stop and cry. I kept thinking of an image another mother who lost her son gave to me, the image of how we build a room onto our emotional house and in that room is the weeping mother. Over time, we go in that room less often but she will always be a part of who we are. Today it felt like I opened the door for her and she walked all through my house.

Tonight, I found myself sorting laundry in a desperate attempt to ground myself in something very mundane and ordinary, something necessary and functional, something non-emotional. I am very tired and emotionally drained. I thought I would want to relive each day of Sully's six days but I told Brad tonight that I don't know if I have it in me to take myself there each day. We relived so much today, so many memories. It has been good but very hard. We are grateful to the dear friends in our lives who have shown us particular tenderness today with cards and calls and beautiful tulips. You have been Love surrounding us once again...

Surround Me

Brad put on the music that he made Sully's memorial movie to last year. This was the second song and it fit so well then and seemed to even more now. As I heard the gentle guitar and then these words I just lost it. Everything came rushing back so vividly, with the same force of the ache that I felt then, that I feel now...

Surround Me
Ben Taylor

Love surround me with all your reach, now while we're here alone
Now our bodies our ocean our beach, blessings of waves and stone
Floating a lonely sound you found me
Now that the tide is finally down

Surround me, surround me
Surround me

Love, move for me, roll beneath the sky
Shadows and silver cross your face, pools of moonlit night
Weak from standing on sandy ground, you found me
Now that I'm finally fallen down

Surround me, surround me
Surround me

Love surround me while you can till these waves get cold
Gone too deep I can not stand, I burned before I froze
Running to save my life and leaving you
And now in the heat of this dreadful dry
I'm needing you

Surround me, surround me
Surround me

The gift of Sully

One year. I feel like I'm in a time warp. It seems like a life time ago that Sully was with us. Other times I can hardly believe that it has been an entire year that he came and went. I told a friend the other day how disappointed I am in myself sometimes. So much fell away while I carried Sully and in the days surrounding his life, all of the meaningless struggles, the stupid cares that sometimes could cloud my vision. I thought that I would forever be changed after Sully, that I would never again struggle with some of the things I had before he came to me. But, a year later, I am still just walking through daily existence with the same tendencies and proclivities towards sin that I once had. I still lose my temper at times with my children, I still struggle in certain relationships, I still feel overwhelmed by dishes and laundry. A year later, I still am just like everyone else. But Brad reminds me that while we haven't been made perfect, we have been forever changed.
We will celebrate Sully's life tomorrow. In the morning on our way to school, we will take six heart balloons to his playground and tie them on his swing. Ella and Zane want to take their Sully picture books to school to share with their friends. After dropping them off, Brad and I will go together to find our Sully tulips, this the final journey finishing a year of my monthly quest. Then, we will head to the beach where we last said good bye to our boy. I think I am looking forward to the solitude of the beach at this time of year, to the magnificence of the ocean reminding me that Sully is a part of something so much larger than I can comprehend. We've promised the kids a celebratory lunch and so we will pick them both up at noon and head somewhere fun (they have voted for either McDonald's or Moe's - kid's are so easy to please - me 8 months pregnant not so much). Zane and I picked out a rainbow cupcake mix and Diego cupcake liners the other day for us to make on Sully's birthday afternoon. After dinner, we'll take out his candle holders and light them in honor of his life and dive into the sweet treats. At some point during the day, we hope to look through our special book of Sully's photos and remember our favorite moments with him.
I think it will be a good day mixed with tearful moments, but even those will be good to have. These seem like small activities that we have chosen for the day but the quietness and simplicity of it all feels right for our family. What I want most is to celebrate the gift he was to us and the ways that he did change us for the better.