Happy 10 month birthday, Amazing Grace!

*I started writing this yesterday, so the very begining is not entirely acurate now!*


10 months ago, I spent the better part of the day trying to decide if I was actually in labor or not. Finally around 11pm I listened to my husband when he said "please can we just go to the hospital, I don't want to be the one to deliver this baby" thank goodness I listened because Grace was born seven minutes after midnight. So tomorrow she would have been 10 months old, but to me the 26th and 27th are both special.
Something that makes me sad is, when I see a 10 month old baby I cannot even picture that as her. In my mind I will never be able to see her as any older than 4 mos 13 days. Sucking on her fingers. It makes me sad because I know it's a total sign that the world is moving on without her as I know it obviously has to. Not a second goes by still that I do not think of her or she is not in my heart. She is honestly the best thing that had ever happened to me. Losing her was the worst. But someone said to me after she died, something to the effect of "i pray for the time to come when having an angel will bring you more blessings than pain" and it didn't make alot of sense to me at the time because I just could NOT see a day ever coming when I might be able to say anything other than how incredibly sad and terrible it is to not have that little girl in my arms. But somehow that is happening. In a way I cannot even figure out how to put into words, your grief DOES change. When Grace first died, I'd wake up and it would litterally hurt to be awake. Hurt to have to get of bed and do every day things like laundry, dishes, meal planning etc when every fiber of my being was screaming out, "your daughter has died" and all I'd want to do is cry. Everything moved me to tears. Watching my oldest son play soccer about a month after Grace died, there was a girls team playing in the field next to his and I was sitting in between them. Suddenly all I could hear was the girls coach constantly yelling "way to go Grace, good job Grace etc" (Grace was apparently a good player) and I could not stop myself and I just started crying, silent tears just running down my face because suddenly it hit me "my Grace will never play soccer". A song would come on that would just make me sob and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't stop. I felt like I was seriously walking around in a fog, or sometimes like I was just watching my life play out but wasn't really in it. I wasn't at all who I was and had no idea how I'd ever be.
But without being able to say when, things have changed and you never even feel them coming. I will never in my life stop missing Grace. I will never in my life look at my children and wish with everything I have that she could be lined up with them. But somehow? These days, grief is not slowly eating away at MY life anymore. Someone else's baby does not give me the extreme anxiety it used to. A song on the radio can make me miss her, but does not send me into hysterics, causing me to wonder how I stayed on the road..If next soccer season, soccer Grace is playing by Tyler, I'll be sad I won't have a pink cleated, pigtailed player but I'll be able to hold it together. Grief no longer feels like an Elephant who will not stop sitting on my chest. There are obviously still bad days, there will never cease to be bad days. But they are not nearly every single day. I can have an entire day where even though, yes my heart aches to hold her, the fact that I can't does not control my day. I remember a day not long before Grace was born, Adam had taken the boys into the backyard to play while I was cooking dinner. We'd only lived in our house for a month or so and they'd not really played out there since it was winter. I stood in my kitchen watching from the window and I was just filled with such joy, watching the 4 most important males in my life playing and feeling the kicks of the sweetest girl and just being overwhelmed by how LUCKY I was and feeling so THANKFUL to have this life I was given. After she died I would sometimes think of that day and wonder if I'd ever truly feel that way again. I can say that yes, I can feel that way again.
I say I have no idea when the shift happened and I don't. BUT I know without a doubt HOW it happened. I am surviving the loss of my daughter because of my God. Yes there are alot of people on this earth who are helping me survive as well but each one has been put in my life by God.

Psalm 34:18 says:The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;

he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. And it is so true. He has never left my side, He's never been closer to me than now. Of course I've had days where I did not want to admit that, where I just wanted to be angry and bitter and you know what? That is OK too, God knows I'm not perfect and He can handle any emotion I may throw his way. I cannot understand why He would give me the most perfect little girl to become so incredibly attatched to, to want to keep more than anything and then take her from me. But I do understand that though I don't know it, there is a reason for it. I will continue to believe and know that God is good, all the time even if it makes NO sense. There is a song, Blessings by Laura Story, and this one part stands out to me:

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

He KNOWS my pain. He knows the screams of my soul "please let me keep her, please leave her here, I love her" Every question, "why did you take her?" "why couldn't she stay" He knows. And He knows how it plays out even though I don't and so He reminds me that when I cannot possibly answer the questions to just trust Him, He knows what he is doing. He reminds me who I am. I still have alot to learn, I still have a long way to go and I am still not even close to being "ok" with my daughter's absence but I DO know that I named her Grace for a reason, I do know that my Grace and His grace have never left my side and, never will so I'm surviving and sometimes even thriving and I know that because of Him, I will continue to grow and "heal" (I will never truly heal but I believe someday my wound will not be open, it will have scarred and it will hurt but it will not be the same) because of the biggest lesson in grace He has ever taught me.
Happy 10 month birtday my beautiful girl. I wish I could hold you today but I am the luckiest mom on the planet to have you for a daughter. Thank you for blessing me with your life.