Sleep is hard.
And around this time every night I find myself doing a dance between wanting to go lay down but knowing that I really can't because the dark will meet my thoughts and I in the center of the ring and I'm ill prepared for battle. There's a certain kind of mania that transpires between 11 pm and 1 am. Now, if I fall asleep just exactly at the right time, the time where I feel my body relax and my mind wander toward nothing, then I am usually free to sleep, captive no more to the darkness (at least for that night.) If I miss the few-minute window, though, I am trapped in this awful place where PTSD induced insanity takes over and the night becomes wicked. The dark and I argue while the bed and I wrestle and it's worthless. The entire thing is worthless.
I try really hard not to write when it's late. Actually I've been trying really hard not to write at all lately. But there have been so many things happening and life has been so busy that there just hasn't been time. And also, the thought of trying to emotionally process through all of what has been happening, is currently happening, and is about to happen and then try to write about it-well that just seems impossible if I'm being totally honest.
So I've put it away somewhere inside instead.
And sadly, I feel ok about that for now.
Because I'm coping and living and grief just has to wait.
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I'm completely in love with my nephew.
He is at home on oxygen (like I mentioned before) with a couple of heart defects that leave us hanging from week to week, wondering what each appointment might bring and what each new echo may show. His life has thrown me back into this sort of fight-or-flight mode that I had forgotten I was capable of living in. His mama, my sister, is doing incredible and I am so proud of her. She is learning and giving herself so much grace and looks so beautiful doing motherhood.
Being on this side of it all is hard.
But I always knew it would be and quite honestly, I think any of the girls would tell you that they heard me say multiple times in Mabel's life, "I just hope I never have to be on your end of things, watching one of you watch me in pain..."
Because that's just a whole new kind of hurt and helplessness and it's really quite tormenting in an indescribable kind of way. I already *knew* that and basically begged God throughout Jeni's pregnancy not to put me in that position because I didn't feel that I would be strong enough to be good enough FOR her. But apparently I was wrong as usual because He is God and He knows all and He controls our lives so...
Anyway.
I'm remarkably proud and honored to be part of his story, wherever it lead us.
I wondered for 9 whole months how I would feel when I saw him.
Would it be too painful? Could I love good enough for him or would the ache for my own baby be too big, too strong, too consuming?
But ultimately, the wild and wicked truth of this life is that you only ever work toward healing your own broken heart by choosing day after day to 'love on' time and time again, despite the fear of loss, the vulnerability of death, disease, sickness, or whatever else will come in this life ... because it is going to.
So yeah. I took one look at him and I knew that this heart of mine COULD stretch once more. It had made room that I didn't know it had...yet again. I literally looked down at my own chest and basically said, "Thanks for pulling through, I wasn't sure that you were gonna do that." And it wasn't a choice. I just fell in love. But, I had done a lot of grief and healing work to get to a really good emotional place too, and I'm so thankful I had taken the time to do so.
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Gus' heart has made me think a lot about my own heart.
The holes in it, the narrowing and the shape of it. The literal and metaphoric meaning of it all.
God is using him to stretch me, like maybe the Dr's will have to do inside of him in the future and I'm learning every single day something from this baby who is just now 7 pounds.
I look down at him and I know now, regardless of what his life looks like, how healthy he is according to this world's standards--he was created for a purpose and he is already living it out.
August is living out his life's purpose now and he will live it out fully no matter what.
I can see everyone that way now.
Now that I know that my own baby did so.
Now that I know that in 4 years 10 months and 29 days she lived out every single moment of her intended purpose on this earth, FULLY...I know that each of us are doing that the second we are born.
And that....
THAT is extraordinary.
August Sawyer is extraordinary.
And complex.
And handsome.
And lovely.
If you are up late at night like I am sometimes and you happen to think of him and his sweet mom and dad, please just say a prayer over them.
Specifically? That he would continue to grow well (which he is!) and also that both of his arteries would begin to do so as well!
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Thank you for your kindness, as always. We appreciate your love and support for our family. Over and over again in the last couple of weeks I have heard things like, "Gosh you guys just can't catch a break!" or "Oh my, why you guys? This is just so much for one family!"
And you're very right. It IS alot for one family!
The old me would have very much felt the same way, but when I look into this babe's eyes all I can think now is, "why NOT us? We get to have these perfect souls sent straight to us and that is the most incredible and humbling gift I could ever imagine!"
I feel so grateful.
And my goodness, I just love him.
And my goodness, I just love him.
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