My name is Jamie and this is my blog! I’m just a wife, a mom and a follower of Jesus, who is learning how to live on this side of Heaven with a piece of my heart missing. Although my family and my world may feel incomplete - for now - hope and beauty can still be found. This is the space and the road I walk between here and Heaven.
8/9/19
Sweet Boy,
Another year has come and gone. My world has circled the sun seven times now since you first left. I have woken up 2,556 times without the ability to say good morning and kiss your sweet face. I have gone to bed 2,556 times without the ability to tuck you in and say our prayers together. I have missed reading you books, making you snacks, kissing your ouchies, watching you cruise around playgrounds and tickling your tummy until laughter filled tears rolled down your cheeks … more times than I could possibly count. Now take that unknown number and multiply it by a thousand. That’s the amount of times I have missed cradling your head in my hands, looking into your big blue eyes and saying, “I love you.” You are not in the world I’m in and I’m never going to be ok with it.
I feel like I am having to fight to celebrate you this year. I can’t even fully explain why. We have done our usual “birthday with no birthday boy” routine. The grief and hope dance is similar as year’s past, but something just feels … different. I feel like the further I get away from you, the harder I have to convince this world that you and this day are important. Why is that which is so obvious to me (seemingly) feel so foreign and excessive to others? Sometimes I feel like the world is looking down at us with a megaphone saying, “Ok. Time is up. Your "almost son” has had his moment. Stop fighting. We are tired of listening. Raise the white flag and move on.”
Don’t worry Logan … the world picked a fight with the wrong family.
My computer connects automatically to the wifi at St. Anthony’s Hospital. I find this really aggravating. A little and unexpected jab in my gut as I sit in another hospital room, watching my dad sleep in another hospital bed.
Apparently I come here often enough that even my computer feels at home.
Yes I realize it is super smart like that and remembers the wifi after just one visit, but it frustrates me nonetheless. I don’t like ANY piece of my life getting “comfortable” here. We have been in this hospital more times than I can count. I have seen my dad in this position … more times than I can count. Every single time I can’t help but wonder, “Is this the end?” Usually when that thought arises, I snap back and tell it to do something I dare not mention here (I’m not gonna pretend I’m the Christian girl with a completely clean mouth … I love Jesus, but He is still working on my mouth).
I don’t like the feeling of slowly becoming desensitized to another call of my dad being rushed to the ER. It used to send me into an instant panic. Now, I can still feel my heart race, just not at the velocity it used to. The process, in some way, has become … normal. This time around, however, after learning my dad was headed to the ER in an ambulance, my heart once again responded as it used to in the youth of this journey. I was driving through Nebraska when I got the call from my mom - six hours out, trapped in a car that could not go fast enough and feeling impossibly far away from my dad. My elevated heart was accompanied by a cloud of panic and very rosy cheeks. Longest six hours of my life.
But now, thank goodness, I’m finally here and sitting in a room that is starting to feel a bit too … comfortable. I’m in my usual spot in the corner by the window; legs outstretched on the couch, computer on my lap, coffee within reach. To the left - mountains. To the right - my dad. My mom is using her usual hospital voice and whispering something about dinner, while simultaneously digging through her purse. The - now - white noise of hospital equipment is all around. The beeping and churning of machines used to really bother me. I found the foreign noises to be harsh and quite unnerving. Now however, they blend in and I don’t notice them in the least. It has become normal, no longer scary and no longer irritating. It’s very similar to the way parents eventually learn how to tune out the noises that go hand and hand with children.
