Our sweet little man is almost four months old. He is really so happy and sweet. His giggles are deep and his smile is made out of his whole body. Its been a joy to get to know him and watch the ways that life makes him smile. But it has also brought with it a whole lot of emotions that I wasn’t quite expecting.
As each day passes and this little boy becomes more of a person in our home, I miss his big brother. I see those sweet smiles and I wonder what George Mason would have been like. I wonder if he would have made Harry laugh in the same way that Audrey does. I wonder if George would have been a sweet and caring big brother or if he would have been the rough and tumble type. (Its easy to imagine him as being healthy and happy, because we lost him before we could fully understand how sick he was.) I wonder what juggling 3 kids would really feel like. Would it be as hard as parenting two but mothering 3? Would the added body and personality in our home be harder than the grief that I carry with me every day? Then I wonder if this quarantine would feel so lonely if we had that middle link. Would Audrey be having the same social withdrawals if her 3 year old brother were here to play with? Would I feel as big of a need to get out and share this sweet boy with the world if our world at home felt more complete? And then I realize that a single smile sent my brain and my heart into a tizzy. A dark rabbit hole of grief that I have not really been able to process until now because we have all just been surviving.
Survival seems to be the theme of our last 5 years. I survived after my mama died and i had a baby 3 weeks later. I survived the first anniversary of her death as I planned a birthday party for our 1 year old. I survived those first few months of horrible morning sickness with a very busy toddler. I survived those last few months of pregnancy with George as we waited to see if he would live or die. I survived after his birth and the c-section that ripped open my abdomen. I survived after his death as I had to continue to parent my almost 2 year old. I survived in the waiting as I let my body heal. I survived through the fertility treatments and the disappointment month after month that our family still wasn’t growing. I survived the positive pregnancy test and the instant anxiety over the possibility of losing another child. I survived the nausea and the body aches and the insomnia. I survived the anxiety. I survived the broken ribs. I survived labor and delivery. I survived the isolation. I survived bringing home new life and not being able to share him. I survived masks in public and doing doctor visits alone. Somehow, I am surviving this pandemic and this new baby and all the emotions that have been held at bay just so that I can survive…. well they are all coming out of the woodwork. The dam has broken and I’ve reached a tipping point.
It has been 5 years of survival. That’s not to say there hasn’t been plenty of moments where we thrived in our circumstances - God is good after all - but its stressful to live this way. This baby boy of ours felt like a period on our season of survival. And instead it seems he was a semi colon. A moment for us to take a breath and soak in the joy of welcoming our third child. And then back to the reality of a broken world. Of missing big brother and missing Grammy. Of mourning what could have been.
As I sat in the nursery at 4am, feeding and rocking a little boy who needed me (and who hasn’t needed me like that in several weeks), I really missed my mama. In that moment, it felt like a hug from her would have just made all of the stressors of the world melt away. To watch her snuggle her grandson would somehow make the outside world less consuming. She was always the life of the room. Her smile would light up and everyone around her would feed off of it. I need her smile right now. I need the gentle way that she pointed everything back to God. She wasn’t exactly an eternal optimist, but her trust in our Heavenly Father was deep and wide, and because of that she was so easily able to find the good in the circumstance. I wish she could tell me the good in these circumstances. I wish that instead of masking up and only leaving the house for groceries and supplies, that we were meeting friends at the splash pad. That I was having brunch with my ladies and we were passing around the sweetest little boy to take in his gigantic smiles. The memories from this summer are certainly going to be weird.
2020 is a year that we will never forget. I just hope that the survival mode that our family has been in for so long is winding down. My mama would help me find ways to be content in this moment (although she would very likely be feeding my growing hatred of all things covid related… perhaps we wouldn’t have been the best team in this particular situation). She would point me back to God. She would open her bible and know just where to go for comfort and conviction. I don’t know exactly where she would have ended up or which verse she would have presented at just the right time, but I do know that I continue to find comfort in her very favorite verse. And it feels particularly fitting in this moment of frustration and almost self pity.
After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. Gen 15:1
