Is Your House on Fire, Clark?

I don't know, Audrey, originally uploaded by 2QTsInHeaven.

I can't help but think of that line in the classic movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, where Beverly DiAngelo's in the kitchen looking for a match to light her cigarette. Her daughter, Audrey, is whining & complaining and DiAngelo responds:

"I don't know Audrey, it's Christmas and we're all in misery!"

For me, it's been a combination of being so stinkin' sick that I really might actually die, and then not having any little ones to make the season sparkly for.

I know that none of us loss moms ever get over our butterfly babies no matter now many siblings may follow, but it's especially hard for those of us without ANY to shop & wrap & get excited for. I mean what sort of crap is it when my only holiday solace is found in finally having gotten my angry, violent, destructive, drunken 23yo out of my house?!

Over the months, the kid has inflicted thousands of dollars damage to our rental house, but then the final straw came when he physcially assaulted me. It took calling 911 to finally get him out. And I'll tell ya, I never in a million zillion years expected that my graduation from motherhood would end up like this!!! I'm nearly 50 and have virtually zero success in parenting or career.

Thankfully, I'm finally able to get a few feet beyond my sick bed, but there's not a decoration in sight cuz I've just been too sick to even think of getting holiday stuff out. Abigail's birthday came & went without being able to take her a single flower or balloon; I've never NOT taken her birthday flowers. I've never NOT got out their nativities & decorated their headstones with all their little Christmas things. I know clueless parents who have never buried their children don't understand my angst, but in my world the cemetery is the only place I get to participate in loving my children. Not being able to even get that done makes me all the sadder.

To be certain, my heart is just a mass of jagged shards thinking that there's no one to have Christmas for or with. My lungs struggle to breathe & my heart strains to beat, and I'm standing on the edge of realizing that you really CAN die of a broken heart.

I don't mean to be such a "Debbie Downer" at such a joyous time as this, but I really had no idea that life could hurt so so very very badly. I guess that's why Jesus came in the first place, so He could grow up and save us from the wretched reality of the grave & to bring salvation into reality.

Nevertheless, as odd as this may sound I'd give anything to go back to those horrid early months after Abigail first died. It was so much easier then & she was so much closer in my reality, and somehow it hurt so much less than it does now. Since then I've added Anne to the grave and lost my son to the demons of drink, drugs & destruction. It's taken a critical toll on home, husband & health.

Anyway, I just needed to say that outloud. I'm hoping that I can express such angst without any chuckleheaded commentary from the peanut gallery. Somehow by the strength of His Spirit I'll muddle thru and tomorrow will be a different day, for truly when I am weak He is strong.

But just for today I just needed to bitch & whine like Audrey, cuz it's Christmas and I'm really really in a lot of misery :**(

Treasures In Heaven

December 3, 2003 - I went in for what would be my last routine NST monitoring before the baby arrived. Unfortunately, the monitor indicated that Abigail was in marked distress & needed to be delivered immediately. But through a series of incompetent decisions made by bullshit doctors & nurses they sent me home with instruction to return the next day for a followup.

At 39wks 4days gestation, our long-awaited Abigail was pronounced dead in utero at 11:30am December 4, 2003. After 2 days of anguished labor, her lifeless body was delivered at 6:18pm December 6th, and her oh-so-precious body was lain to rest beneath the sod at 3:30pm December 10, 2003.

Eighteen months & a full term pregnancy later, we added Abigail's younger sister, Anne, to the cemetery just kitty corner from where Abigail is buried.

It is with perpetually broken hearts that we watch & wait until The Day of Resurrection when they will come forth from their graves to Newness of Life.