Resurrection Tuesday

There's this nail in the tire of my van.  It's not a wimpy little common nail, either.  It's the giant, designed to stick in there for 20 years, roofing nail-type.

We haven't pulled it out yet, because - by some miracle of engineering - the very fact that it's in there so snugly is preventing the tire from going flat.  Once we pull it out, or once it wiggles its way into a large enough hole, whichever comes first, not only do we have to replace that single tire, but the other three as well.  {Conspiracy, I tell you!  Somebody alert the presses!}

Each and every time I get in my car, I check the front tire, just to be sure that a) the tire isn't flat and b) there hasn't been some kind of major melt down in car mechanics owing to this nail.  I'm pretty sure there's only a .00003% chance of this actually happening, but I'm reminded that I'm paranoid every time I hit a bump or go around a corner during our drive.  Because sitting on the side of the road with small children and/or hulking up and changing the van tire like some 'roided out prego body builder both seem like super fun ideas.

There is a lot of driving to do this weekend, too, since two important dates happen to coincide on the calendar this year: the first is Easter, which, incidentally happens to fall on the 15 year anniversary of the Columbine shootings.

It seems fitting, though.  "Coincidence" it may be, but somehow the fact that these two dates overlap is highly appropriate in my book.

Maybe not on the surface; Easter is supposed to be a day about family, togetherness and celebration.  On April 20th fifteen years ago, the world as I knew it was torn apart.

It was the firecrackers that alerted us that something was wrong.  I mean, really.  Who brings firecrackers to school?  But when we turned around to seek out the source of this lunch-time disturbance, it wasn't firecrackers.

It was paintball guns.  Because... that was the only explanation that made sense to our otherwise preoccupied teenage brains.  We certainly didn't go to a school where another explanation was immediately obvious.  Sure, we'd heard about school shootings in other places, but we didn't go to such a school.  Ours was safe, so the words SENIOR PRANK flashed through our minds, even as our eyes began to provide evidence otherwise.  Besides, the completely expressionless faces I watched point and fire those guns at random had to mean they weren't out to harm anyone.  After all, they were letting fire rain down upon their fellow students; surely that would evoke emotion?

Two dropped.  Hard.  I'd come to know later it was actually three, but the third one was out of my field of vision.  At least two more were already down, victims of the popping noises we'd heard initially.  But it was watching those two fall to the ground that snapped me out of my delusion: this was no senior prank.

Standing so close, we concealed ourselves by crouching behind the tire of a car.  Interestingly enough, in my mind as I recall it all these years later, the car was white.  Looking at the photo now, I see that must not have been the case.  The things I do remember are etched forever in my memory: watching a friend get shot.  Hearing the sickening thud as her thin body was impacted.  Seeing her crumple and fall.  The smoke from a pipe bomb which landed so close to me I could have thrown it back.  The explosion that somehow, miraculously, didn't touch me.  The boy who ran, clutching his bloody leg.  And the bodies.  The ones I knew lay motionless outside, even though I didn't know to whom they belonged.  The ones I feared were mounting inside the school. The ones I ran desperately, hopelessly to try and protect as soon as the shooters moved inside.

Help them was all I could think.  It filled my whole being and spurred me on.  It seems silly now to look back and remember how strongly I felt that it rested with me to sound the alarm, to call the police and get help as soon as possible.  We may not have had cell phones, but there were many phones in the school, much more easily accessed than by me sprinting half-crazed across the football field, jumping a fence and practically breaking into neighborhood houses in my desperate attempt to get!them!help! already.  It was pretty naive, but it was the only thought that filled my brain.

When I finally got to a phone, 9-1-1 was busy.  Oh the significance.

That sign read "Good Luck Band" for months.  We were supposed to be going somewhere - Kansas City? - for a competition that weekend.  We didn't exactly make it.

How much we were in the dark as we watched helplessly while the events at our school unfolded on TV.  The rumors.  The reports.  And finally - though if I recall correctly, it wasn't until a full 24 hours later - the names.

Each fell sickeningly on our hearts, every name a memory and a blow.

Isaiah.  I'd talked to him in the hall just that morning.

Cassie.  Who burned brightly with her love of God.  I'd never hear her laugh at youth group again.

Steven.  From science class.

Corey.  My friend's brother.

Kelly. Kyle. John. Daniel. Lauren. Matt.

Coach Sanders.  Who didn't know him?

Someone's daughter.  Someone's son.  Someone's brother or sister or friend.  Someone's father.  Blow, blow, blow.

And finally, Rachel. Dan. I would come to find out that those belonged to two of the crumpled bodies we'd left behind.  Rachel who was kind to everyone.  Who was brave and sweet and loved God.  Dan who was my age and, though I didn't know him well, a friend of a friend.  Surely, surely God wouldn't have allowed these thirteen to go.

I remember darkness for the next year.  There were moments in the sun, of course, but we all faced so much that seemed unlivable.  But somehow, we did.  We already had, and we would fight not only to regain our lives, but to make them mean something. For ourselves and for those we love who no longer have that opportunity.

This year - fifteen years later - I will celebrate Easter with two little humans who call me mom.  I will smile, laugh and feel this tiny one in my belly as it kicks and celebrates along with us.  There will be remembrance and tears.  But mostly?  There will be joy.

Wherever you are, but particularly if you are a teen: we all must face these Columbine-moments.  Your battle may not come in the form of two broken boys with guns, but not one of us gets out of this life emotionally and physically in-tact.  Whatever your personal tragedy looks like, I beg you to hold onto the fact that there can be healing around the corner.  Mourning is for the long-term, and you will never be the same, but you must hold on.  You must have the strength and courage to face your demons.  You must find acceptance, forgiveness and grace.

Healing is much like that nail in my tire.  You don't have to fix it.  You may even be able to keep driving, keep moving forward without noticing much of a difference.

For a while.

There's no getting around the fact that eventually it will rip you apart from the inside.  Sooner or later, that very real hole is going to start to show, and - probably when you least expect it - you'll find yourself stuck on the side of the road, unable to push even a single step further.

The only way to truly fix the problem is to dig in.  To face it.  To pay the cost and fix the broken pieces of your soul.  Like my car, healing fully may mean addressing not only the single damaged point, but everything else connected with it as well.  It may be hard.  It may be costly.  You may hate and resent every second of the process.

Do it anyway.  Do the work.  Find the strength.  You are worth it. 

You're never fully the same; never exactly as you were before - and part of coming to grips with tragedy means accepting that the normal you thought you knew is gone.  Forever.  The prize in all of this, then, the reason to keep going, is that you have no idea what awaits you fifteen years down the line.

When it seems the world as you know it has ended, the real journey has only just begun.  Trials are never senseless.  Life is never wasted.  The important question isn't what happened,  it's what happens next? 

We can live by example, because someone has walked the path ahead of us.  We are not bound to live in the tomb, encased by grief and sorrow and death.

We, too, can rise.  And amazing things await when we have the courage to do so.

Happy Easter, and so very much love to my entire Columbine family.  May you forever be Rebel Strong.

Letters to Claire

I couldn't help it.  The news this afternoon put such heaviness on my heart.  Claire Davis, 17, died of her injuries received during a school shooting.  I'm not a bandwagoner, and I'm typically not a letter writer.  But something about her being the only victim touched me; the only family to deal with such a tragic loss.  When we had nothing else, we always had each other.  And so I wrote the following letter to her family, which I'm recording here simply for me to have.  God knows I hope it may bring a tiny ray of comfort.

Davis Family,

Although we have never met, the scene that unfolded at Arapahoe High School is one that is all too familiar to me.  I was 14 years old when two gunmen opened fire one April morning and changed my life forever.  In the weeks, months and years that followed, we were the recipients of a world-wide outpouring of love and support I've sadly seen a few times since.  While so much of it was generous and heart-felt, I was always troubled by a bumper sticker that read, "we are ALL Columbine."  Though I appreciated the show of unity, the words seemed to intrude on what I viewed as a private tragedy, one which belonged to my classmates and me - those truly affected - alone.

In March, 2010, my husband and I welcomed our first child.  On the anniversary of the shooting, I walked through the Columbine memorial with that bundle of new baby girl in my arms.  As I read the words of survivors, teachers, parents and community members, it hit me for the first time what a terrible, terrible fool I had been.  The words that resonated with me on that day were those of the parents, as I saw "my" tragedy through new eyes.  At 14, I had failed to understand the unmatched love of a parent for a child, love which would gladly lay down its own life if it meant protecting the other.  Only as a parent myself could I finally understand the depth of their suffering.

To say I am sorry for your loss sounds hollow, and fails to convey my horror and heartache that another life has been lost in this tragic way.  So instead, let me pass on something I have carried with me these 15 years.  These words were written on a sign placed next to the crosses memorializing those we lost.  It read:
             When you lose parents, you are called an orphan.
             When you lose a spouse, you are called a widow.
             When you lose a child, we have nothing to call you, for there are no words to describe such a loss.

There are no words.  But please know that you are not forgotten, and neither is Claire.  Her life mattered in ways and to people you probably never imagined possible.  I hope the stories of those she touched will bring you comfort in the difficult times ahead.

May you also feel the love and support of thousands of unnamed voices, just as we did.  Among them, I am certain, are our angels, who surely were there to welcome Claire with outstretched arms.

We are all Columbine.
We are all Arapahoe.

Much love and deepest sympathy.

If you're so inclined, letters are being accepted at
Littleton Adventist Hospital c/o Cards for Claire
7700 South Broadway, Littleton CO 80122

On YOLO and a post-4/20 world

My 8th graders have a new saying this year: YOLO. 

You Only Live Once.  As in, Oh man, I got an F on that test in math.  Oh well, YOLO.

For the record, I really despise this particular acronym.  (I also despise the word SWAG, as in Hey Mrs. Strassner, those shoes are really swag.  I got rid of it in my classroom by using the everloving crap out of it, because if there's one sure-fire thing that will make adolescents think something is totally uncool, it's when an adult adopts it as their own.  YOLO.)

Much like it's early predecessor, carpe diem, YOLO is all about the live-for-today attitude, but without the redemptive, inspirational undertones.

It's difficult to express to a teenager just why this phrase is so darned obnoxious to me.  Perhaps because I know firsthand exactly how true the sentiment is. 

YOLO wasn't a saying we adopted.  It was laid out for us as teenagers.  Right there, smack-me-in-the-face obvious.  And at 14 years old, the question of why some of us did and some of us didn't (live, that is) was never especially clear.

The last several months have been tough on that front.  It feels to me like we've been hit numerous times with tragedies - tragedies I can't help but take extremely personally.  There were shootings at a theatre in Aurora, there was the all-too awful elementary school shooting, and, at the beginning of this week, bombings in Boston. 

I spent a lot of time after that day 14 years ago thinking about who I was in light of what had happened to me.  Many hours were devoted to figuring out who I was and how I wanted to deal with the cards I'd been dealt.  The truth was, I didn't want it to define me.  It was something that happened, and it was very sad.  But it would not become who I was and what I was about. 

I wasn't naiive enough to think that I could get away entirely unscathed - I absolutely spent the next two years searching out exits in every single building I ever entered.  It got to a point that my brain could monitor that without me consciously thinking about it (which is why, ironically, I've always had a fear of movie theatres.  No exit in a mass-shooter type scenario.) - but I saw the obstacles that lay in my path as a result of Columbine, and I doubled my efforts to consciously overcome them anyway. 

As a teen, I went to see movies, even though there was never a single time that I didn't carefully monitor every person that walked in from a bathroom break, just in case they might actually be a shooter.  Sounds paranoid, right?  That's what trauma does to you.  The point, though, is that I went.  I never let the fear get the best of me or stop me from doing something that would have been easy if my life hadn't included Columbine.

Oh, how things change when you're a mom. 

Now I admit to the part where I let the fear rule: After Aurora, I don't think I'll ever go to a movie theatre again. 

Perhaps, maybe.  Sometime in the distant future.  The variable that's changed here is that I'm no longer living just for me.  I no longer feel the need to do something just to prove that I can.  I've dealt with the parts I need to deal with for myself.  I've been tough and strong. 

Walking this road with kids is, like, a thousand times more difficult and complicated than it was when it was simply my own heart I was protecting. 

The irrational part of me wants to snatch them up, stick them in a closet and keep them there until... well, until the world isn't so crazy, unpredictable and dangerous.  So, forever. 

To keep them S-A-F-E.

Unfortunately, S-A-F-E literally requires me to lock them up in a closet for forever.  And that's not even close to the life I want for my kids. 

Because it's the moments in life where there is much at stake that character is forged.  It is these experiences that teach us the greatest of life's gifts: compassion, empathy, wisdom, love, beauty, faith, determination.  So often they are borne out of trial.  They are borne out of struggle.

Sometimes we make a friend who betrays us.  Sometimes we bet on the wrong man.  Sometimes we go to school or the movies and get shot at.  Sometimes we get picked on.  Sometimes our parents disappoint us.  Sometimes we get sick.  Sometimes we lose people we love.  Sometimes we end up as sobbing heaps on the floor because of the cards this world deals us.

But the kicker - the most important part of all this unpredictability - is that it isn't about what happens to us, it's about the choices we make as a result.  The life we choose, the people we decide to be after the world falls down around our ears. 

S-A-F-E isn't realistic, because if they are safe, they never have a chance to grow.  They never have a chance to choose.  They never have the priviledge of falling down - and the lesson that comes with knowing that they are capable of picking themselves up.

It is here, I would tell my 8th graders, that I take issue with your casual and cavalier use of YOLO.  If you're justifying outrageous and stupid things with the rational that it doesn't matter since you only live once, you've missed the entire point. 

The lesson is: You only live once.  One lifetime to become our best selves.  The lesson is: keep a careful eye on your choices, words and actions, because it is these that will one day make up the tapestry of your life for better or worse.  The lesson is: Life doesn't just happen, passively, to any of us.  It is a series of choices we make for ourselves that determines our character, even in the face of events we can't control. 

The lesson is: Live the life you've imagined for yourself, take chances when it's worth it - even when you are afraid.  Even when there is much to loose.   

My worst nightmare revisited

I couldn't decide whether to put this down for the record.  I've been on and off, and on the fence again as I hemmed and haughed over what to say.

Because there is so very much I want to say - and yet it's all too horrible for words.

So for the record, I didn't find out until about halfway through the day.  My 8th graders were testing, which meant that I didn't have access to my e-mail until about 12:30.  When I opened it, the school had sent out an e-mail which contained the two words that can send me plummeting: School Shooting.

I typically have to leave it alone.  I just can't go there; it's simply too painful. 

But this time, I read the words "Elementary school" and I was caught.  Sickened.  So I clicked the link, and completely broke down sobbing as the truth that was too awful hit me again and again.

Babies.  Precious.  Tiny.  Innocent.  Just a few years older than my own tiny ones. 

It touches places in me that I can't even begin to describe: my own horror about what the inside of that classroom looked and sounded like.  The heroism that was the staff, using the only weapons available to them to shield those sweet babies, even when it cost them their very lives.  The parents, whose lives are absolutely, fundamentally changed in ways they can't even begin to process yet.  The awful weeks and months that are ahead of them, full of news coverage and memorials and funerals. 

And then the deafening silence that follows, in which they have to begin to piece together what is left of their world.  To define what normal looks like when your everything is torn apart.

It's too horrible for words.

And I am again struck by what a scary world we live in.  How terrifying it is to allow your heart to go walking around outside of your body.  So vulnerable and treasured.  How many times over I would take my experience if it means my precious babies don't have to go through something like that.  How powerless I am to prevent it.

Aim the guns at me.  Hurt me.  Shoot me.  Kill me. 

I remember waking up that first morning - April 21st.  I remember vividly the way it felt to open my eyes.  For a single, blissful moment I was unaware of what had happened.  And then it all came rushing back and I wanted more than anything to just go back to sleep, to be burried in the oblivion and not acknowledge any of it.  I remember how it overwhelmed me. 

I remember forcing myself to fake it those first few days.  To go through the motions when all I wanted to do was stay in bed.  To chew and swallow.  To get dressed and put on makeup.  To move. 

I remember that people used to remark at how strong we all were for getting up and going on.  And I remember thinking, "well, what else is there?"

As a parent, I pray I never have to confront such loss.  Because I'm fairly certain that I would find out the answer, that I would flirt with and probably discover exactly what else there is.  I don't know how you face it.  Particularly when it is such a senseless and disgusting act of violence. 

And now I have to stop.  It's just too horrible for words. 

War Wounds: a post-natal PSA

We talk a lot after the birth of a baby about the joy and happiness that event brings.  And rightly so, because there is a lot of that to go around.

What we don't talk about is the other stuff that goes along with having that baby. And, my dear internet peeps?  The other stuff is a doozy (I'd substitute a word there, but I hope someday my kids will read this, and I don't want them thinking I used foul language.  But really, the word I'd like starts with a B.)

So for the sake of documentation, and just in case we have any fans of 16 and Pregnant out there who think childbirth is all fun and games (until somebody loses a vagina), here's a little look-sy at the Truth behind having a baby. 

We'll start with the easy stuff...

• TDAP vaccine.  The T makes your muscles a little sore and your two and a half year old ask why you're wearing a bandaid.
• Loss of skin from the tape they used to attach my catheter (oh yes, I'll talk about the catheter too.  You've been warned).  Seriously, I have like three little scabs on my inner thigh - because that's a tough part of your body - where that darn tape came off.  It actually bled.
• Bruise and incision point from first IV.
• Bruise in two locations along my spine from first and second Epidural point.  Oh yeah, and also two local anesthetic shots to go along with.
• Mystery pain in my abdomen where the epidural didn't cover.  Why it hurts now, I have no idea.  But it feels like an ongoing cramp right in that same section.
• Bloating of the entire body.  Yup, because they didn't get my catheter in all the way during labor, but they kept pumping me full of fluid anyway.  Turns out, all that fluid has to go somewhere.  After Logan was born, I kept saying, "I can't keep my eyes open!"  I thought it was because I was exhausted, but I literally couldn't keep my eyes open because my face had swollen so dramatically.
• Trouble going #1, because after they had taken the first catheter out, I was so swollen that I couldn't pee.  At 3 a.m. with absolutely no medication, they had to re-catheterize me, which was about as fun as it sounds.  (If you need a visual, picture a straw and then just start shoving...)
• A very messy undercarriage.  I'm not completely sure what happened down there, but I know it involves stitches and the fact that even my hemorrhoids have hemorrhoids.
• Bruises and a VERY sore stomach from where the nurse all but jumped on me trying to get my uterus to contract after delivery.  I bled a very, very long time due to the fact that my uterus was "overtired" and wouldn't contract on its own.  As it turns out, it was also due to the fact that there was so much fluid in my bladder that it was occupying the space my uterus should have been contracting into.  Good times.
• Not one, not two or three but four incision points from the failed attempts at putting a second IV in.  And a blood draw from my hand.  I mentioned this was 36 hours after being discharged from the hospital, right? 
• A return trip to the hospital after running a fever of almost 102.  Diagnosis?  A urinary tract infection and endometritis, an infection in my uterus.  (You did read all that crap they did to me, right?)  Logan, Casey and I stayed another 24 hours as I got a round of IV antibiotics to address all the fun we had during my "natural" labor.

And that, kids, is what it's really like to have a baby.  I mean, you know, probably not for everyone, but certainly for some of us. 

I'm writing it now because even as I'm writing it, it's starting to fade.  With my beautiful son sleeping peacefully on my chest, it's tough to imagine anything not worth going through to get him here.  The joy of having a baby truly is overwhelming, because it cancels out all that other stuff.  Which, in my case, is really saying something.  And there is zero doubt in my mind that, given the chance, I'll do all this again.

But I may well elect to have the c-section next time around, though.  :)

Hope in hiding

The feeling overwhelms met at moments, claiming my breath and nearly bringing me to tears.

But this time, it's not grief. 

It's that familiar feeling, that overpowering sense of gratitude I get sometimes when I'm feeling particularly happy or hopeful. 

I am notorious for crying not when I'm sad, but when I'm happy.  And I'm doing it again.  It's been a while.

There is an unfamiliar sense of peace coursing through me.  A knowledge that something is coming.  A certainty in my own motherhood; confident in this vision that lingers in my head of four.

Strength.  Perseverence.  Fortitude.  These things I have in reserve, although I'd very much like to keep them in storage for a while. 

Hope.

I've still got it.  It's just been hiding for a while. 

Some days are like that, even in Australia

It wasn't terrible.  It wasn't horrible.  It wasn't no good, or very bad.  It wasn't even kind of bad.  It didn't make me want to move to Australia.

It was a lovely day.  It was a fantastic weekend.  We started Music Together after a break for the summer, we ran errands, we mowed grass, we went to a fall festival that included a pony ride and petting zoo.  We had lots of Leah and Mommy time, because Daddy was working.  It was delightful.  Picturesque.  There was peach cobbler for desert.

Daddy did get to join in the fun for this part...

Most of the time, I think, "I'm fine.  There are tons of reasons to be grateful," even though things didn't end the way I wanted them to.  Most of the time, I genuinely believe that, and all I feel is ready for the next step, whenever that should arrive. 

But I almost lost it at our class.  All the babies, all the new mommies.  The lullaby that sang, "sleep, sleepy head, I will keep you safe and warm" and it reminded me that the little one I was trying to keep safe wasn't. 

There was a brief moment - a tenth of a second - where one of the other mommies asked me whether we were going to have another, and I almost told her we were pregnant.  It flashed through my mind for one joyful instant before reality sucker punched me in the gut. 

I have had to block more than one expectant mommy from my facebook page.  It's not that I mind the pregnancy stories.  In fact, there are several I am so beyond excited to hear, because I know bits and pieces of what it has cost them to make it to their pregnancies.  So of course, never, ever would I begrudge them that happiness. 

Besides, their comments are different.  They're just telling stories about being pregnant, and it's abundandly clear the gratitude they feel to get to experience even the worst, most challenging parts.  I get that. 

But the others.  The others are whining.  And I can't take it.  Not when a miracle is happening to you.  How do you find it in you to complain?  

Okay, so some parts of pregnancy suck.  Some are totally weird, and you feel like an alien has taken over your body.  I remember.  But all I really remember feeling is completely, beyond words inspired and awed that I should be that lucky.  It was a transformative experience in all ways possible, second only to the actual experience of motherhood.  It is one I can't imagine longing for and not being able to experience.  Just the thought breaks my heart. 

And yes, I recognize that I, too, am now whining.  One of the many things I feel is guilt over how much this has hurt me, and how much I wish I was just a little stronger; just a little more trusting and faithful.  I don't for one second take for granted how lucky I am, and how I have so very much more than I deserve already.

It's not the whole of my day, or even the majority of it, that I spend feeling this way.  I write because it's cheaper than therapy, and frankly, it's more effective.  I find safety and grace and catharsis in letting these brief moments of weakness pour out of me so they don't eat at me from the inside. 

So that's that.  One week down.

On being 1 for 3

Three pregnancies.  One baby.

It's a darn good thing that one baby is so over-the-moon awesome, otherwise I'd probably feel a lot worse.  Yes, she makes up for an awful lot of her momma's heartache.

Still... one for three.  That's not a good batting average.  If I'm a football team, I'm the Detroit Lions. (Or the CU Buffs, but I don't really need to kick me when I'm down.)  Yikes.

It's a strange feeling. 

One minute, I'm kind of amazing.  I'm making a person with this incredibly bright future ahead. 

And then the path splits: there's the one I've seen ahead of me, full of ultrasounds and heartbeats and childbirth classes and maternity leave.  Somehow, the road I took veered off and doesn't much make sense.  This is the road where I don't have a baby in May, and I shouldn't even be sitting here writing this post, but that other road is suddenly blocked to me and I can't get back on.  ROAD CLOSED, it reads.

Two roads diverged on a Friday evening, and I took the one I never again wished to travel.  The one I've been worried about literally since we started talking about getting pregnant.

But here's the worst part.  The very, most worstest part of all:  I think I may have done this to myself.

Here's what I said in February: "We should start trying early, just in case I have a miscarriage."

Then again in May: "I hope we get pregnant soon so if I have a miscarriage, we'll still time to have two close in age."

Even after the positive pregnancy test, I made Casey go out and get another box.  "I'm going to want to test again in a few weeks," I sheepishly explained, "just in case."  My mom even joked that I just like peeing on the sticks.

I didn't want to write the 1 week-post-find-out letter.  The one I wrote to Leah.  It seemed too early and I put it off.  I did it of course, but more out of obligation, and I found myself wishing those were words I really felt.  Knowing that, when the baby turned out to be healthy, I'd be really glad I'd written them. 

With Leah, I had such confidence in the pregnancy.  Sure, I worried.  Every pregnant woman worries.  But I also bonded with her from day one.  I didn't this time around, and I think it's because I knew this was coming.  In some Shakespearean twist of fate, did I bring this on myself?  Was it simply a self-fulfilling prophecy?

So I'm mad.  And sad.  And kind of mad at God, because He knew this was what I feared from the beginning and still, here we are anyway.  When I get up there, we're having words about this.  Harsh words.

And I'm again struck by the sense that it's silly to grieve for something that never really was.  Have all the early abortions you want, people, because I've seen what's in there, and I'm telling you... it's nothing.  Physically, it's nothing.  Unless you really wanted it to be something, in which case it's everything. 

When that everything is gone... well, it leaves you sad, mad and cursing at God a little. 

One day soon, I'll count my blessings and have a reasonable person's perspective on this.  One day soon I'll recognize that we can have another baby, and this isn't the end of the road.  But for today, I'll stamp my feet like a toddler and cry, because I don't want another baby.  "I wanted this baby!"  I'll stubbornly yell, as if by yelling I could will it into being.   

And then, I guess, I'll pick up and keep going.  Because that's what the rest of the world will do.

Even though it feels like a little piece of my world has ended.

Party's over.

Those hard-won babies.  The ones that just don't come easily.  The ones who are cherished by their mommies, because the mommies know the long, painful and scary struggle it was to smell their pretty little heads and have their tiny fingers wrapped around our own.  The ones who heal the cracks in their mommies' souls purely by existing.

That is the baby I'll be waiting for.

Because this little one I've been treasuring in my belly is gone.

My life is priviledged in so many ways: I have a wonderful home, a job I love, safety and security, and of course, my absolutely adored 18 month old daughter.

So it is hard to find it in me to complain about the things I don't have.  But I also have this image of Leah as a big sister.  An image of her kissing my very pregnant belly.  An image of making Casey a daddy again. 

I know that picture isn't gone forever.  But I'm a little heartbroken that it's gone for now. 

So, my hard-won baby...  I'll be eagerly awaiting you.

A decade plus two

- 2010 -

Casey and I made the trip to Littleton this weekend to visit the Columbine memorial. 

I have to admit that I love the memorial.  It is at once impossibly difficult and amazingly healing.  I'm not sure how those two go together, but that is always the experience for me.  I get a little anxious right before I visit, because I never quite know how much it will affect me.

It is funny how things change.  Until last year, I empathized entirely with everything written from the students' perspective.  Now, when I walk through the memorial, the words that strike me are the ones written by the parents and the staff.  When I read those words, they affect me in a whole new way. 

I wish I could go back and apologize to my mother.  To be kinder, gentler.  More understanding and empathetic.  She was so traumatized by what happened to me, and it was such a difficult thing to have to deal with her trauma, when she didn't understand because she hadn't been there. 

If only I had known how much easier it is to have the firing squad aimed at you, rather than your baby.  If I could have understood how many times over a parent would take the pain on themselves and off of their child.  But I didn't understand that yet.  I didn't know that I would face a world of Columbines and smile, rather than risk my own daughter. 

Our own lives simply aren't worth very much when we become parents. 

And I have to say... technology is a wonderful thing.  I am so fortunate to be connected to some wonderful, caring, supportive people.  Facebook was absolutely transformed into a sea of purple and white Columbines for the anniversary.  It was amazing.  And humbling.  And inspiring. 

It reminded me of the very, very much good that has come out of the past 12 years. 

- 2011 -

Obladi, Oblada

Eleven years ago today...

at about 11:20 a.m., I was crouched behind the tire of a white truck as two of my classmates began what is now an infamous rampage through my high school. I watched in stunned disbelief as students around me crumpled when bullets hit them, as pipebombs exploded literally so close to me I could reach out and touch them.

It was a day that altered the course of who I was and who I would become.

I recount this, not because I need either sympathy or praise for having survived it.

I recount this story because today, eleven years later at approximately 11:20 a.m., I was doing this:

I was posing for a photo with four generations of my family's women.

The significance and juxtaposition of the two scenarios was far from lost on me.

April 20th is always a day of reflection and remembrance for me; a day of very mixed emotions.

In addition to the loss of life - the people themselves, that is - part of what I have always mourned is the fact that my friends will never get to experience the wonderful things that I looked forward to in life. They will never graduate; never walk down the aisle into the arms of someone they love; never have the chance to experience that breathtaking moment when you look into the face of a newborn child; never grow old.

Today, though, I looked at from a brand new perspective; one that I could never fully appreciate before: the loss of life from a parent's perspective. It was a bit overwhelming.

When we were in the hospital after Leah was born, I did a lot of walking to help me heal from the C-section. I vividly remember walking past the doors to the NICU and feeling an immense sense of gratitude that we were on this side (the healthy side) of them. It was a sense of gratitude that could have easily dropped me to my knees and brought me to tears if I had let it.

As it was, I simply could not even go to that place... imagining what it must be like for parents whose children are suffering or in danger.

And I know that never goes away.

I look into the face of my sweet baby, knowing that there will be heartache and dangers in her life that I cannot protect her from, and it already breaks my heart. As much as I have come to terms with what I went through, I hope and pray that she will never have to face anything like it. In some ways, that is as much for my sake as hers.

I also wish that I had given my own mother more credit at the time. I felt like the tragedy wasn't hers in many ways - after all, she hadn't experienced it as I had - and I wasn't able to appreciate how much a mother aches when her children ache. I wish I could take some of that back now that I know better.

On the other side of the spectrum, though, I added an emotion that I have never yet felt on this day: JOY!!!

JOY because my day started with a series of smiles from my daughter - not her very first smiles, but the first time she has really responded that way to something I was doing. It was incredible, and perfectly timed!

JOY because life does go on, and renews itself in the most amazing ways.

JOY because I got to bring Leah to the Columbine memorial, and that act held enormous significance for me.

JOY because I know there is a purpose to what we all went through. Leah is proof enough of that!

JOY because I see divinity in the entire experience. I did then, and still do today, see God's hand at work in the direction of my life.

JOY because there is just so much to be joyful about.