TOTHEUNTAMEDHEART.

You never forget, you know.

It’s true. Even as I lay face to face beside my precious baby with his full belly, so full of joy & light because that’s the very thing he’s brought into our lives, joy & light, I can’t forget.

The truth is, in the late of night, I’ve been seeing him & thinking about her. The one who was a year ago who wasn’t after seven weeks in the womb. The one I know was a she because I had that dream where I met her, the same night we lost her. & you could not believe me for being as gullible to believe I truly met my baby in a dream, & you could laugh at the credibility I’m holding dreams to, & I wouldn’t really know what to tell you, other than that I found out I was pregnant with little Luca the morning after I had a dream where I heard I was pregnant. & another one several times of my little boy, only to come to find at eighteen weeks when the balloon popped, dusting blue confetti, that that was exactly what we were in for- a sweet boy. So I’m a believer in dreams & I think of my sweet baby girl & how we planned to name her Tula before God reminded us she was his. & if I’m honest with you I still feel sad, thinking about how those couple days seemed to stand still. Her face etched in my soul with a little body that would never be held. That kind of pain, the kind tethered within your heart, that kind is so much worse than the physical pain of birthing Luca. & though he was conceived weeks after, he, nor any other child, can ever erase that emotion from when we walked through the fire,, the freshness that is embedded deeply within us. Because she isn’t him & he isn’t her & she was just as real as he is. I am not ungrateful. He has brought our family a new light & joy, but he hasn’t taken the place of the weeks she marked our days. That was never his job.

& I think we’re wrong when we think healing is the lack of sadness. The ability to look back over a situation that has left a gash in our hearts, & not feel any pain. & I’d fight to say that we’re confusing healing with dehumanizing. Because losing your grandpa was never supposed to feel good. & thinking back to the day your momma sat you down on that floral sofa & told you she has stage four cancer wasn’t ever supposed to feel good. & finding out your baby was only meant to make it through seven weeks of your life, seven weeks within you, that was never supposed to feel good.

Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t know. But I like to think not (on a lighter note, just ask my husband). I like to imagine Jesus when he knew that Lazarus would live, & despite knowing there would soon be nothing to be sad about, he still cried with Mary & Martha, because of how there hearts were so broken for the new memories that would no longer contain their brother. In compassion, he wept.

& I’m not saying every year when the calendar strikes January 28 that you cry your way through the day. Maybe you do. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe Jesus is right beside you, hand on your back, escorting you through the hours with tears dripping down his cheeks. But even on the occasion you do, you are not broken anymore. Because you may cry but you aren’t going to be paralyzed by your grief on a couch, trying to figure out how to eat when you’ve lost the thing that had been growing inside you & arousing your hunger. You’re not still wondering how to think about it in the way that was not your fault, when your body was the thing that fought off new life, as if the babe was no different than the flu. You’re not still wondering why he would even let you conceive to begin with if it were only to cause pain & an empty hole. Because you are different now, love, & you haven’t forgotten but you are not still broken. Because whole people cry, too.