A Very Scary Night…

My husband was on his way home from a business trip last night. He called just as I was getting myself ready for bed.  My daughter answered the phone, and when she brought the phone to me, she simply told me that Daddy needed to talk to me. I knew right away something was wrong.  His voice sounded agitated and scared. He proceeded to tell me that he drove into a white out (sudden flurry of snow that makes visibility impossible), lost control of his car, and rolled into the median of the highway….Panic ensued.

“When you say roll, do you mean you actually rolled the car?” The answer was yes. By this time I was screaming, wondering if he was ok, where he was, if police had been called, and how I could get to him.

When he hit the white out he could not see the road.  He drifted onto the rumble strip that signifies you are going onto the shoulder of the freeway.  He jerked the wheel back to the left causing his car to spin out of control  He crossed three lanes of freeway, narrowly missed a guardrail, and then rolled over into the median.  He couldn’t tell if he had rolled into oncoming traffic, so he began to panic.  Within seconds, a trucker who was going the opposite way on the freeway and witnessed the accident, banged on his window asking if he was ok.  When Andy said he thought he was ok, the guy busted the right passenger window out, and Andy had to crawl between the front seats on the roof of the car and out the window. 

The kids and I jumped in the van and took off for the accident site.  In retrospect, I shouldn’t have taken the kids with me.  I knew Andy was out of the car and safe, but coming up on the accident scene was one of the most horrific things I have ever experienced.  I could see the silhouette of his car in the oncoming headlights, and all four wheels were straight up in the air.  I FREAKED, and my poor girl got hysterical.  I couldn’t believe he survived this. Thank the Lord he was wearing his seatbelt.

EMS had come, but Andy thought he was ok, so declined an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital.  Given his recent health history, I was having none of that, so I drove him straight to the hospital once we had taken care of the car details.  He was put in a spinal collar right away.  They were not amused, given his history, that he was not brought by ambulance. They did an immediate chest x-ray because his airbag didn’t deploy.  He had a CT scan and other tests and everything came out fine.  He had some wounds they needed to clean up, but I was able to bring him home very early this morning.

This afternoon the trauma has hit all of us. What a scary night.  Tears have been shed, gratitude has been expressed to God for sparing his life once again, and we are very grateful to still be together the four of us.

We were told this afternoon that the car will probably be totaled. We’ll go take a look at it tomorrow and get all of Andy’s things out of it.  I’m very sad, as he LOVED that car.  But I love his life more, and I’m so glad he’s still with me.

Please pray for Andy as he deals with this trauma, experiences the impact pain, and is now dealing with a nasty sinus infection on top of it all. 

I can handle a sinus infection…so grateful I’m not planning his funeral…

I’ve shared this all on Facebook, but thought there might be those here that aren’t on my friends list there, and might want to know what has happened.  So I thought I’d share it here as well.  I’ll keep you posted on how he’s doing, and what happens with his car…

Jesus Has Overcome…And the Grave Is Overwhelmed…

Today is the last day of the most difficult week of our year.  About this time 17 years ago, I was sitting in a fairly full sanctuary, before a tiny casket placed on the church’s communion table (I hate that table, and I’m glad it’s stuck out in the foyer and not used anymore).  The table was filled with flowers and one tiny pink teddy bear, and a book of pictures for people to look at.

We listened to songs sung by a dear friend.  We chose a lullaby called “O Father of Jesus” by Michael Card, because I had listened to his CD while I was pregnant with Madison.  Another friend, in the Christian music business, recommended Twila Paris’s song, “A Visitor From Heaven.” I listened to it in the hospital, and really liked it….if you can like a song about your child dying.

My dear, brave, grieving husband got up and gave a lovely tribute to all of the people who had helped us that week, and to his daughter whose body was in the box on the table in front of him.  I’m sure he only could have done that by the grace of God.  I sat down in the front row watching him, thinking my collapse was imminent through the whole service.  There is no way I could have gotten up there.

Our pastor spoke to us.  I tried with all of my heart to listen to his words and believe them.  At one point he spoke one sentence that broke my already devastated heart, and I checked out from that point on.

When the service was over, everyone was dismissed.  Andy and I sat in our seats staring at that casket, knowing the next few minutes would be the hardest of our lives.  When the sanctuary was empty, we rose and walked toward our little girl.  Our precious funeral director was there to assist us, and helped us each take a hold of Madison’s casket.  We were her pall bearers.  We walked slowly down the aisle with our sweet girl, and you could have heard a pin drop when we got to the foyer.  All of the chatter stopped, and people just stared at us.  I had trouble with the stairs, so Andy held Madison by himself until we got to the bottom.  We walked to the limo, and were able to place Madison’s casket between us on the seat for the ride to the cemetery.

It was a private interment service, that was all I could take.  We had invited family and a few of our closest friends to go with us.  We placed Madison’s tiny casket on top of a very tiny grave, and sat in the two chairs designated for us.  Our friends and family gathered around behind us. We heard final words of comfort and hope from our pastor, sang one final lullaby to our sweet girl, and then we sat there as everyone walked back to their cars.  I had purposely put copious amounts of lipstick on in the limo so that I could leave one final kiss on that casket before I left.  I had to practically get down on the ground to do that, and getting back up was extremely difficult.

As we got ready to walk away, I looked over and saw one of the funeral directors standing there.  He stood with his hands folded watching us.  I wondered why he stood there after we left.  Many years later, my dad (who now works for that funeral home) would tell me that the funeral director is required to stay there until the grave is sealed.  For some reason that was a comfort to me.  We were not allowed to stay…I think that would have been too much for me.  But he stayed with our girl until the deed was done.  I did send Andy back to grab the little pink teddy bear before we left, and it remains in my hope chest after all these years. Morgan occasionally will ask to sleep with it.

It was so very hard to walk away from her grave that day.  I held my husband’s hand, and I had the distinct feeling that something had changed inside of me, and I was never going to be the person I was before, again.

Later that evening, Andy and I went for a drive.  We drove around with the music from the funeral playing, and neither of us spoke a word.  We were numb.  For some reason we decided to go back to the cemetery, and that was not a good idea.  When I got out of the car, I was greeted with a mound of dirt strewn with already wilting flowers, the Mommy banner that had been on top of her casket, and it just looked so final, and like death to me.  I fell to my knees in the dirt, and sobbed the loudest and longest I had all week.  I had sincerely tried all week to keep it in for those around me, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer.  My daughter was DEAD, and her little body was in that ground.  I don’t know how I was able to get up…I sincerely wanted to crawl in with her.  I furiously stomped on all of the bugs that were crawling around, and wanted to sit there with my umbrella to protect her from the weather that would inevitably come.

We ended up back at my sister’s hotel room, surrounded by nieces and nephews who wanted to love on us and comfort us…they were so darling.  That is the same outfit I wore in the bassinet picture just a week before…only that smile was gone.  The happy was gone.  My heart was broken, and the baby bump that filled that outfit before was gone too.  What I felt in the cemetery that morning, was intensified here.  I don’t even know what we were watching on the tv.  I was numb and so very very sad.

17 years have gone by.  Nine of those years were spent in the worst hell of my life.  When we walked out of the cemetery that morning, my husband walked out clinging to the grace of God, and hope.  Me…not so much.  I lived in a numb sort of state for 3.5 years as God brought two more little ones safely into our lives.  Then when Morgan was about 6 months old, I had a breakdown that took me down a very very dark road….one that I would not come back from until the summer of 2005.  Nine years of horrible pain, anguish, fear, anxiety, and no trust or faith to speak of. The only link I had to God during those years was my music…which I continued to play in church.

Thankfully God did not leave me there.  He brought me out of that time (with the help of a wonderful, dear pastor, and another godly mentor and friend), and little by little has restored my faith, my trust, my belief, and has allowed me to rest in His sovereignty.  I have hope that we’ll see our girl again, and that will be a great day! The joy we once had in our marriage (this happened to us just after our first anniversary ) was restored, and God put us all back together as a family.  All four of us had gone through very traumatic times.  Now we are stronger than we have ever been, we love more deeply, and we have learned to forgive and extend grace beyond anything we ever did before, because it was given to us.  God has proven His faithfulness to us, and has given us a peace like we never had before.  The days are still painful…there is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my girl.  But God brings comfort through amazing friends, and brings music and Scripture to mind that is a great help to us.  We don’t wallow, we are not in the depths of despair.  We cling to the One who has conquered death, and who holds our daughter in His everlasting arms.

If this song had been around when Madison died, I would have loved to have had it sung at her funeral.  I have since sung it at a funeral myself.  It’s so beautiful, and the words have brought me so much comfort…

Seventeen Years…

On this day seventeen years ago, I gave birth to a sleeping little girl.  She was a full-term baby weighing in at 7lbs, 150z.  She was 21.5 inches long.  I labored for fifteen hours….half of which were horrific, until an angel came into the room (anesthesiologist) and administered an epidural.  It had not been on my “birth plan.”  I had intended to give birth as naturally as possible three weeks later.  I discovered that birth plan in my bag on a trip to the bathroom, and ripped it up.  That was the day I learned the hard way to “hold loosely to MY plans”.  Suddenly all of those interventions that so many people scoff at, hate, and avoid, saved me from horrific pain, and unnecessary suffering.  When the back labor was so bad that I was screaming loud enough for the hospital to hear, I didn’t hesitate for one second to take advantage of those things that I believe God gave us for our help...when needed. 

Not many people know how awful that birth was for me.  Madison had a condition called shoulder dystocia.  They did not know this until she was already on her way out.  Had we known, I probably would have been taken to surgery for a c-section (and had I known the terrible pain the next 6 weeks would involve, I would have gone willingly). Basically she got stuck.  I believe with all of my heart that God took her when He did to spare us the utter horror of possibly losing her during birth. It took the work of my OB and two nurses to get her out, and not without horrible battle scars for both of us.  They x-rayed Madison after birth to make sure they didn’t break any bones .

The minute she was born and our doctor announced that we had a girl, the silence and calm of the room was replaced with a flurry of activity.  I felt my head spin and pound, I got short of breath, my heart pounded and raced, and I had one of the first and worst panic attacks of my life.  I was SO afraid to look.  I felt them place my daughter on my belly, and I heard voices telling me to open my eyes and look at her.  Andy whispered in my ear that I should look…she was lovely.

The truth is, death is not “pretty”.  She was a beautiful baby, but she was dead.  Her coloring was dark, her nail beds were all dark, her lips were the darkest I had ever seen, and every time her head leaned back, her mouth would open as there was no control to close it.  I had to make sure I held her in such a way that her mouth stayed closed….but I fell in love.

From the minute my eyes opened, and I got acquainted with that precious girl, I could not take my eyes off of her.  I never stopped looking at her as the nurses and my mom got her dressed, and I watched her as family members held her throughout the night.  When the few hours we had with her came to an end, I didn’t want to let her go.  It was one of the most painful moments of my life…the moment they wheeled her out of our room in her bassinet to take her to pathology.  The only moment that topped that on the pain scale was the moment I had to get up and walk away from her grave knowing that the minute I left, they were going to put her little casket in the cold dark ground, and that was FINAL for this life. Actually, I went back that evening and fell to the ground in a heap of tears when I saw the already wilting flowers, and the “mommy” banner that had topped her casket laying in a huge mound of dirt.  It literally broke my heart…

This is the reality of my experience.  I left the hospital with no baby in my arms.  She was our first, so I went home to an empty apartment.  I closed the door to a nursery we had just finished the day before, and moved a ready bassinet back into that nursery from our bedroom. An apartment I had LOVED, suddenly became a place I hated, and I couldn’t stand to be there anymore.

There was something about all I had experienced in that week that changed me forever.  Holding a dead child does something to your psyche.  I knew that I would never be the same person I was before that week.  One day I’ll share exactly where this experience took me, because it was a very dark and awful road I never want to repeat.  I did not reach out for those hands that hold my daughter, and did not cling to that faith I once had.  I let hurt, anger, bitterness, and the lies of the evil one consume me and take me to a place I never want to go again. 

This is an awful story.  There were some lovely, beautiful moments intertwined with the horrific ones that awful week, but for the most part it was a heartbreaking experience for both Andy and me.  Thankfully He clung to his faith, grabbed onto God with all of his might, and he became the instrument of grace that God used to carry me through and bring me out the other side.

We are not in the depths of despair.  Our grief, though a lifelong journey, really only causes us to struggle this one week of the year, during holidays, Mother’s/Father’s Day, and times when she is missing out on times as a family.  God has restored joy to our household, and we are TRULY happy.  We have two AMAZING children that God has gifted us with, and we can’t imagine life without them.  They are at the ages now that we can share Madison’s story with them, and it is a beautiful thing.  They both have the most caring and sensitive hearts, and I believe it is because of all we have been through as a family.  They never met their sister, but they were surely a part of the aftermath of her death, and experienced as little ones the horror of all that their momma went through as a result.  It was sin…plain and simple.  It’s ok to grieve, but not the way I did.  I almost took my whole family down with me.

But God…He has “restored the years the swarming locusts have eaten”, and He graciously and lovingly put us back together.  He has healed my heart and my mind, He has forgiven me for those dark years, and has given me another chance as a wife/mother/daughter/sister/friend (well 3 out of 5 maybe…for some, what I did was too much to forgive).  He has given us HOPE, and though we continue to grieve, and it will be something we do for the rest of our lives, we grieve with that hope that we will see our daughter again…so it doesn’t consume me as it once did.  What seemed to us to be for evil, God has made good.  It’s not EVER a good thing for your baby to die, but what God has done in and through us, and for other people because of Madison’s life….that is the good.

We were leveled by that frowning providence God took us through.  It very nearly destroyed us.  But God only let us go so far before He reached in and pulled us out of that pit.  He set our feet on a rock, and gave us a new song to sing! And though that song will always have a hint of sadness and grief behind it, it is also filled with great JOY for all He has done for us, and given to us.  We will never “get over” that loss…it was horrific.  It is a part of who we are, and we are stronger, more loving, and more grateful people because of that experience.  Those lessons we learned in the dark, have made us the kind of people we are in the light, and we love more deeply, trust more deeply, forgive more deeply, and worship more deeply because of them. God is good…ALL THE TIME.  He can be trusted, depended on, and we can rest knowing He is the sovereign God of the universe…in control of every aspect of our lives.

Happy Birthday Madison Elisabeth…we all miss you, and love you so much! One day Daddy, Parker, Morgan, you and I will all be together again, and it will be for eternity.  No more tears, no more pain, just happy happy happy forevermore!

When I Have No Words…

Sometimes a song just says it better than I ever could.  “Yet Will I Praise Him” by Nicol Sponberg.  This woman has known the same pain, under different circumstances.  I love how she puts her heart in words.  It is a DAILY decision for me…I have to CHOOSE to praise when my heart has been shattered.  I can make that decision every day because I trust/rest in a sovereign God.  ALL of my affliction has been sifted through his hands, and the suffering is not meaningless.  It is all for a purpose, and is working for me an eternal weight of glory.  So I’m choosing not to look at what is seen.  I’m trusting in what I can’t see, but what I KNOW the Lord is doing through all of it.  And I am NOT LOSING HOPE…if there is no hope, I have nothing…

Here’s our sweet Madison girl, and some of the most painful moments of our lives…We will praise Him, even when our hearts are shattered…

Yet I Will Praise Him…

I have more I want to say, but for today, let the song suffice…

Sweet Sixteen…

Dear Madison,

Happy sweet sixteen, my darling daughter! Here we are at another big milestone without you. How I miss you. “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed”, but you are held in the everlasting arms, and have kissed the face of God! We had so many hopes, dreams, and plans for your life, Madison. A ring of promise would have been put on your finger today by your daddy. A promise to protect you, and help you wait for the beautiful man God would bring along to put a different ring on your finger. That ring has been tucked away to wait 3 more years for your little sister.

I have looked at your beautiful pictures several times in the last weeks, because I finally got up the courage to share them in a private album on Facebook. You were so beautiful! We were met with some insensitive comments, but for the most part friends were touched by those precious moments we had with you. I think back to it like it was yesterday. I remember how you felt in my arms, how it felt to kiss your cool forehead, your long beautiful fingers, your sweet nose, and dark lips. I remember passing you around to family members, but selfishly wanting you back in my arms the whole time. I remember the physical ache in my heart as I watched you get wheeled out of my room, knowing I would not see you again in this lifetime.

My precious girl, it seems that each day that goes by I am farther away from you. In reality, I am one day closer to you! I long for the day when our family of five is all together again, enjoying the pleasures of heaven! I know it is nothing like we could possibly even imagine.

Happy Birthday my sweet darling daughter, I love you with all of my heart, and am so grateful that God picked me to be graced with your presence for 37 wonderful weeks. You touched me in a way no one else ever has, and I will never forget you….

Love, Momma…

When the Night is Rough…

I had one of those nights.  It started with great sobs and feeling like the tears wouldn’t stop.  They did.  I could not sleep though.  I tossed and turned all night, and couldn’t fall into a good sleep. 

If you have had a night like that recently, or are going through things you never in a million years imagined you would, here are a few reminders that His mercies are new EVERY morning, and that in spite of what we’re going through, God is STILL good, and we should praise Him still…

Mercies Anew

Every morning that breaks there are mercies anew.
Every breath that I take is Your faithfulness proved,
And at the end of each day, when my labors are through,
I will sing of Your mercies anew

When I've fallen and strayed, there were mercies anew.
For you sought me in love and my heart you pursued.
In the face of my sin, Lord, You never withdrew.
So I sing of Your mercies anew.

And Your mercies they will never end;
For ETERNITY they remain.
And when this world's beauty has passed away,
Your mercies will be unchanged

And when the storms swirl and rage, there are mercies anew.
In affliction and pain, You will carry me through.
And at the end of my days, when your throne fills my view,
I will sing of Your mercies anew. ~ Sovereign Grace Music

 

When All Thy Mercies

When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view I'm lost
In wonder, love, and praise.

Unnumbered comforts to my soul
Thy tender care bestowed
Before my infant heart could know
From whom those comforts flowed

When worn with sickness, oft hast Thou,
With health renewed my face,
And when in sins and sorrows bowed,
Revived my soul with grace.

Through every period of my life
Thy goodness I'll pursue,
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew. ~ Fernando Ortega

 

I Will Praise Him Still

When the morning comes on the farthest hill
I will sing His name, I will praise Him, still.
When dark trials come and my heart is filled
With the weight of doubt, I will praise Him, still.

For the Lord, our God, He is strong to save
From the arms of death, from the deepest grave,
And He gave us life in His perfect will,
And by His good grace, I will praise Him, still. ~ Fernando Ortega