Born of Flesh And Spirit...

There are more birthday pix in my Yahoo album link in the side bar. It has truly been an emotionally challenging week. But no matter how badly I sorrow for missing her (and her sister), she will always be one of the most fabulous gifts that God ever gave to me. She patiently waits for me (not a virtue that I can claim as my own); I will have her back one day in the not so distant future. Until then, Jesus keeps my little lambs safe in His Pasture.

Fear Not Little Flock...

The Biting Truth of the Bottom LIne

...my entry tonight is a lame cut & paste from an email response I sent to an inquiring acquaintance. I'd sent her (along with many others) the info on Anne's legacy page with the Trisomy Foundation--99% of those family & "friends" I contacted never even bothered to email me back or sign Anne's guestbook. I was shocked to hear from this one acquaintence. I got the typical, "so how've you been..."-- To candy coat my reality to spare her any discomfort (in light of the fact that she's all but vanished during my darkest hours of anguish) seemed so futile and dishonorable to the reality of my existence....

And not much for me. Tax season has kicked me hard. Last year we had Anne as a dependent; this year not. It's like it's so final. Plus DS is no longer eligible to be a dependent, so for the first time in over twenty years, DH & I filed just the two of us. It's been so hard. Not to mention I'm in the throws of the season of Anne--she would have turned two on the 28th. Now until we commemorate her burial just before my birthday in July tends to wreck havoc on my heart. The weather and spring flowers bring back vivid memories of her being here with us. My mind can't help but travel down the corridors of my memory in an attempt to recapture the final weeks of pgcy, and the two wonderful months we got to have with her before she died. I get out of bed each day and tend to my duties, but inside I'm a corpse. I cry every day for missing them.

Unfortunately, I had so much criticism to "get some help" that I finally gave in and started an anti-depressant. What my ignorant "advisors" failed to understand was that I'd been working closely with my dr on the whole A/D subject. In light of my peri-menopausal diabetes issues, we both agreed that it would be better if I held off on A/D use until I'd at least worked through the biggest parts of grieving. After all, grief in such circumstances is VERY natural, and to medicate it away with medicines that can have harsh side effects isn't necessarily the right route for everyone. But the blackness wasn't getting much brighter and those IRL who judge & criticize more than they support finally pushed me to give the A/D a go. It's an older A/D that they prescribe for fibromyalgia, PTSD, chronic fatigue/pain and sleep disorders.

I don't know if it's helping or not--it's a pretty raw season on the grieving time table right now, so I could overdose on Happy Pills and still be pretty depressed. I'm rather convinced that there really is no magic pill to make this "go away"--let's face it; it doesn't go away--all I can hope to do is get better at enduring it. We find things to busy ourselves so we can take our minds off it a little bit, but it's always a smothering force in our lives. Time has to run it's course, and what most people don't get is that there isn't enough time on the planet to "get over" putting two babies in the cemetery. Plus, with only three years into it since my first baby died, I'm still in the pre-school stages of being better at coping. It doesn't help when family support just plain sucks; all my friends have totally evaporated into thin air; those who are left are quick to dismiss the life-altering impact we've endured, and to top it all off my health has started heading south in no small way...

April's Anguish of Anne's Absence

The winds of spring have been oppressive today. Even indoors the gusts have disheveled my concentration and focus.

Outdoors, if it wasn't battened down, it's gone. The mountain elevations got some of Denver's snow yesterday, so the winds have been cold in spite of today's sunny deception. Yesterday brought overcast & rain, and today it was gusting winds--welcome to spring.

Of course we had to check the children up the hill and make sure they were battened down good (an artform that I've nearly perfected--Martha Stewart Graveside should be my claim to fame.

Anyway, Abigail was fine with nary an issue, but Anne looked like a whirl wind (dirt devil without the dirt) had touched down right on top of her--her yellow spinner had come apart & was smashed to bits; every chick & lamb tossled over, and Brian found her bouquet of flowers all the way down at the corner--still intact and bundled together, beaded wire butterfly & all. The wind had to have been astonishing cuz I've got both the girls' bouquets bundled with heavy duty rubberbands and weighted with several fishing weights--and then if that's not enough, the flowers are then held down in their vases with a pick that I hang a little (heavy) stained glass butterfly ornament from. There's no way those flowers are going anywhere unless they grow legs & walk.

All we can think is that a dirt devil must have spun them out of the vase, and then they must have rolled like a tumble weed through the parking lot and down to the corner where the military folks are buried. We found the butterfly pick half way out in the cemetery driveway along with several pieces of shattered yellow spinner. In our three plus years managing weather worthy embellishments in the cemetery, we've never seen such upheaval. At first we thought she might have been vandalized, but we put our Sherlock Holmes instincts to work.

Ironically, no one else in the cemetery was bothered--even little Edward's bulky, awkward, non-weather worthy spinner held it's own and still stood up straight (he's buried right between Abigail & Anne). One of the babies not too far from Abigail had a small plush bear & a greeting card left for her over the Easter holiday--even the card held on for dear life with nothing more than a half ounce bear for it's anchor. It was totally weird.

But we've seen weird stuff there before. One day the first spring Abigail was there, they were cremating in the crematorium right there by the baby garden. A plume of smoke and transparent whirl wind came bursting out of the chimney. It whirled right in front of us and touched down like a dirt devil (with no dirt). It touched right in front of Dionna to the left of Abigail. It picked up everything on Karlee's grave one over, and literally threw it all into the mesa--over the fence and across the road. I sent Ben after it all, but none of it was to be found--nothing else was touched. Oddly, there's a small ankle twister sized hole in the lawn right where it touched. It's was the most bizarre thing we ever witnessed. We all just sort of stood there and looked at each other--no way that just happened... I'm telling you it was astonishing.

After that I worried about what manner of demons might come out of the crematorium. I still do if I let myself go there. I spent a lot of time after that asking God to post His best angels there for extra protection. I guess I need to make that my bedtime prayer yet again this season. Of course, the winds have calmed now, but will most likely return tomorrow. Hopefully, we tucked Anne back in well enough.

I worked on Trisomy Foundation tasks today--several new legacy pages to review for publishing. I even reviewed a page for a precious little seven year old--sweet & blonde and missing her two front teeth... I cried for joy that she was so precious; I sobbed in sorrow that she wasn't mine...






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