Hard stuff and Beautiful stuff

I must admit that yesterday was hard ... I am a mom of many and life must carry on ... no days off, so calling in sick. All week I've been remembering that a year ago we were joyfully expecting a baby and then on May 4th, 2011 we learned his heart was no longer beating. That day began a very sad and lonely time for me. Not many people know what to say when you lose a pregnancy ... many don't even think you have lost a "baby". But he was my baby, he was loved, he was being knit together inside of me ... I could not "forget" or "move on" as many suggested. Perhaps they were well intentioned suggestions, from people in my life who wanted to see me OK again.   Many people are simply uncomfortable with grief and sadness ... since they don't know how to walk through it they are quick to suggest ways to avoid it. But I needed to grieve, I needed to miss my baby, I needed to name him and remember his short life. I've learned from past experience that avoiding grief and sadness, is really not the answer ... it doesn't really go away that way, it just gets stuffed away in some corner and delayed, it eats away at the rest of your life. Walking through it and dealing with all its ugliness is hard, its heart breaking, but its also healing. I had to avoid the people in my life who did not want to hear my sadness, who only wanted to suggest ways to forget what was happening and then there were the many who avoided me ... my phone, my email got very quiet. It was a lonely place to be. But God works in pain, in sadness and in hours of loneliness. He led me places I never dreamed and introduced me to other moms who were walking through their grief, just like me. I have been blessed by many women this past year. These are just a few that God blessed my life with:

Sufficient Grace Ministries
Star Legacy
Anchored by Hope
Grief Journeys
Babies Remembered
Missing Grace
I.R.I.S.

 So, yesterday, on the one year anniversary of Journey's death I remembered and I visited his grave and felt such a peace ... not something I can describe on a blog or in writing,  but truly a peace.   I do not intend to "forget" ... I have 5 babies in heaven and I remember each of them, their names, their due dates, the day they passed ... but I know where they are and I know the God that comforts me and has walked this road with me holds each of them in His hand.  I will meet them one day.  I will not forget their short lives any more than I will forget the lives growing right in front of me every day. 

  And at the very end of the day ... we were blessed with a beautiful sign from above: