We recently had the joy of finding out the gender of our newest grandchild! Our daughter, Sarah, and son-in-law, Mike, are expecting close to Thanksgiving, which seems like a perfectly timed arrival for a baby. Not too many things in this world flood us with feelings of thankfulness more than a new little life!
There wasn't a big party this time around. Just a beautiful (and delicious) cake baked by my daughter, Ellie, and her siblings, nieces and nephews all excitedly choosing "team boy" or "team girl". We cut the cake before dinner because Sarah and Mike didn't want to wait any longer!
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| Daddy and Mama with big sister, Aurora |
There was a lot of excitement over the reveal! (And some tears. Five-year-old Ambrose was very disappointed because he "chose wrong"! It was cute<3)
After dinner and cake ... did I mention it was delicious(!) ... the littles were all hyped up on sugar, so I took them all outside to enjoy the beautiful summer night and let them run off the extra energy. I sat on our comfy swing and watched the action all around me. A roaring dinosaur and two hunters were running back and forth across the yard. There was one little boy who is walking a very fine line between the twilight of his toddler years and being one of the "big boys", just enjoying his own thing, pull-up clad but pant-less.(and very cute:) Three little girls toddled around, not sure at times whether they were chasing the boys or each other before they decided that the swings and slides were more fun than the boys.
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| Our littlest for the moment, Monica |
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| The (sometimes) crazy big boys! |
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| Our full of life, Aurora |
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| Our sweet Claire |
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| Our "insists he's a big boy" Charlie |
I felt very reflective as I watched all of these precious little humans and thought about the blessing of another little boy being added to the cousin crew. It's one of those moments in life where everything else fades away, and you truly know that the only thing that matters in life is family. It's a moment where all the hard fades away for a breath and the blessings of the present moment fill every available space in your heart. A moment where I lived fully without distractions.
I was living in the snapshot of a happy moment. If I had posted all the pictures in the moment on social media, it might give us the appearance of a "perfect family". But a single impromptu photo shoot can never show all the pain and struggle that surrounds that moment. Life tends to be filled with joy and struggle that don't always take turns and often overlap.
This new baby grandson is a blessing! He is also a rainbow baby. Just after the new year began, Sarah and Mike found out they were pregnant and miscarrying on the very same day. It was emotionally brutal for them to go through, and it was emotionally brutal to walk beside them and watch them go through it.
When you've lived through painful life circumstances, it's especially difficult to see the people that you love go through something similar. I know that my life experiences give me a greater empathy towards people going through a similar loss. I know that for those that are grieving, knowing that someone has gone through something similar and made it through to the other side can be hopeful. Understanding that the grief you feel is also felt by others who have gone through a similar loss or cross can help you feel less alone, which can be consoling.
And while I hope that my life experience in suffering the loss of a child can provide that for people, I still wish that it is a story that they never needed. No one ever wants to become a member of the grieving parents club.
When the people you love most in the world become members, it creates a special kind of heartache. I want to save them from the grief, save them from the pain I know is coming that they will have to endure. But I can't. That's a "God job," and I learned a long time ago that I always fail when I try to do what only He can do.
And as much as I wanted to save and protect my daughter (And my Goddaughter who lost her son, Ben, last year) from experiencing the losses they went through, I could not. I could pray for them, reach out to them, support them in whatever practical way presented itself. But I could not save them from experiencing their personal Calvary.
During the time my Goddaughter lost her son last year, I was in the midst of writing a book about Our Lady of Sorrows and how she reached into my life in a special way during the short life and death of our daughter, Therese. And when Sarah lost her baby earlier this year, whom she named Gabriel, I was waiting for the book to be printed.
It was a source of a lot of inner frustration for me that I have spent a literal three years on a personal story that I hope will be a source of comfort for others, and I wasn't able to just share it with parents who I knew were suffering. The desire to console parents who are hurting, especially mamas, is such a strong call on my heart. I just pray that my experiences and my journey will be, in some small way, a source of hope and encouragement for those carrying the cross of losing a child. Although when I began writing it three years ago, I never imagined that the grieving mamas would include the people that are closest to my heart.
My book, Journeying Through Infant Loss With Our Lady of Sorrows, written with Pauline Books and Media, has an official release date of August 21st. It's so surreal, but after years of 'mommy blogging' and 'grammy blogging,' I'm an actual author of a book! I'm sure I will have lots more to share in the coming weeks as the Marketing Crew...there's a marketing crew!!...let me know their ideas and expectations. It's been a wild and very loooong, slow journey to get to this point. But I'm excited to see what God has in store!
(But I'm even more excited to meet our new grandson in just a few short months!!)
