it's been 5 years since I kissed him goodbye...

March 30th.   A date that I do not like.  A date that meant tragedy for our family. 

My heart is heavy.  But  I will laugh today.  My eyes are sad.  But I will smile today.  I will playback the events of his death...hour by hour in my mind.  But I will cheer on my kids at their games and try to keep my head from "going there".  I will laugh...and I will cry.

Bittersweet.  The story of my life.

This week I had to submit a Kindergarten photo of Noah for an end of school project.  It was hard to look through those photos.  He was 5.  Nathan looked just like Noah.  I can only imagine that he would look like him now...

(SIGH)

I'm posting something that I was asked to write for a guest post on God's Angels Gone Too Early last October.  It helps me when I can reflect and see how far I have come.

Time

I am continually amazed by how different things are now as compared to after Nate died. In fact, I often refer to my life in two stages: before Nate AND after Nate. His death was a defining moment. It changed EVERYTHING.

After his death, I prayed for God to take my life. I wanted to die. Living was too hard. I didn't know how to endure the horrendous pain that manifested itself in both physical and emotional ways. I NEVER thought that it would get better. I couldn't think of life in terms of weeks, months or years. I had to take it day by day. Often times, hour by hour. I was simply trying to survive. No more, no less. Images of Nate's death played through my mind, over and over and over again. I watched him die a thousand times...maybe more.

We went on a long journey before we hit that 2 year mark that we had heard so much about. The supposed end of the grief cycle. Oh how we longed to get through the first two years. It’s not the finish line that we hoped it would be. It’s just a route marker on our life long journey. No more. No less.

It’s only when we looked back at the first two years that we could see what we wanted to see. Looking back revealed our progress. We could see how our joy returned and our sadness was minimized. The gray glob of gunk that hung over our lives blocking out the sunshine started to blow away. We began looking at the world with blue sky eyes again. Most days and through most circumstances, the sun was shining and the skies were blue.

Many people have told us that time heals all wounds. So many in fact that I can’t even count. Clearly these well-wishers have never buried a child. But, it’s just one of those things that people say in an attempt to make you feel better. We’ve learned firsthand that time heals nothing. I will say that again: Time heals nothing! The ticking of the clock and the revolution of the earth does absolutely nothing to mend hearts and heal grief. If that were the case, I would have climbed into bed and remained there for 24 months.

Rather, it’s what you do with the time that allows healing to occur. It’s physically walking through the darkness. Stepping out of the comfort of home and stepping into an unpredictable world. It’s coming face to face with the pain of what we wished our life would be. Looking into a sweet baby’s eyes rather than quickly looking away. It’s having conversations with people that disappointed us. Forgiving them for their lack of compassion and allowing our hearts to be mended from the rejection.

We’ve worked hard these past 4 1/2 years. I never realized how hard until I looked back. Before Nate died I would have never thought twice about going to a school event or walking into a grocery store. But those types of things were tremendously difficult for us for years. Not only did we think twice about it but we had to have entering and exit strategies. We had to emotionally prepare for the unexpected. We never knew when or where an insensitive comment would fly by and smack us upside the head. We never knew when we would step outside our door and become face to face with someone that abandoned us in our darkest hour. It would have been easier to move away to a place where we were unknown.Where we could live our lives without fearing these obstacles. But we didn’t. We faced them. Because we did that…healing occurred.

The past couple of years we are finding that we are not nearly as needy as we have been in the past. We were blessed with a healthy baby boy this past Christmas: our RAINBOW from God.

He didn't take away the storm or repair the damage that the storm caused but he brought the sunshine back into our home and restored the faith that rainbows are designed to promise. But I worry about him. Constantly. I know how precious life is and I know how quickly it can be taken away. I feel extremely vulnerable. Life is so very different now.

One thing that I didn't expect to happen was that people would start to treat us normally again. For 4 1/2 years, we were ignored. Completely and utterly ignored. As if we didn't even exist. After Brady was born, we were suddenly getting invited to parties and events. We didn't understand why. People that hadn't spoken to us for almost 4 years began talking to us again. It was awkward. We didn't know what to do with that. We desperately needed these people 4 years ago and they abandoned us. Now that we have a baby they want to be our friends? Huh? My amazing pediatrician told me this:

"They didn't know how to treat you when you DIDN'T have a baby but they do now that you DO have a baby."

It makes sense. I get it. Kinda. But just because I have a baby doesn't put me back in the "before Nate died" time line. I can never go back to that place. We just have to get used to our new normal...

It will take us a lifetime.