Today we celebrate Abigail's one month birthday. Life has slowed down since Abigail's birth and funeral, and not just for us. The whole world seems to be in the grip of the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic. Most of the traffic on our roads is delivery trucks. People are sheltering-in-place at home, whole families working from home. Not much changed for us, but the rest of the world seemed to slow down with us. I'm actually grateful for this, not the disease or the pandemic, but the quiet. It's almost like a moment of silence. Just a week before, I had been saying here on the blog and to my family that it felt like life should slow down. I didn't like how quickly she came, then left, and was honored and buried. The next step in that sequence is either for her to be forgotten or to be consciously remembered. We have been working consciously to remember Abigail.
The FedEx man brought Abigail's angel memorial statue on March 20. We barely dared to take it partially out of its packaging. The last step is to get it and the stone set in concrete with a flower vase over Abigail's grave. I'm eager to get it set. The process of burial just doesn't seem complete until this is done.
Bill and I want to thank all who donated to this memorial fund, from the bottom of our hearts. This has meant so much to us!! We want to remember Abigail in as many ways that we can.
On our way back from the hike, we picked up a sweet stella cherry tree from a local nursery and planted it in memory of Abigail Réileen. We'll be able to see it bloom from our bedroom window, though maybe not this first year. 🌸🍒
I really wanted to celebrate her one month birthday like this, so I'm grateful to Bill for making it happen, though we did the actual planting a few days before.
It is very up and down at our house. I think a lot of people are dealing with cabin fever. That can mean more opportunities for interpersonal conflict. One minute, we have this kind of teamwork to surprise Mom (sweet angels) and the next minute there's a war of words that escalates to physical conflict. Ay, me. We need more angels.
Our canvas prints from Costco came in the mail yesterday. It's so special to me to have these where we can see them all the time. This family wall is not done, but it's feeling fuller and that makes me happy. I want to put up a montage of all the boys holding their baby sister so they will remember their personal connection with her on that special day she was born.
I know that somehow we are made to be able to feel both grief and gratitude at the same time because it is happening to me all the time lately. I am sort of like a hurt child whose mother has her arms open wide to receive her, but I can't bring myself to surrender to her embrace. I felt God asking me today why I am resisting His love. I don't mean to do that, but I have to admit that by refusing to feel gratitude I am resisting the joy that comes only through that pure love of Christ. Maybe the grief and gratitude paradox is resolved in Jill Thomas's HOPE WORKS talk, "Seeing Green."
Yes, it's blue, and yes, it's yellow, but at the same time, it's something altogether different. I'm not at the peaceful place Jill seems to be when she gives this beautiful talk, but her words, and the words of so many other people who see green, have given me hope that one day I will.
Until that beautiful green day, I will keep giving love to my children, on both sides of the veil. And we will remember Abigail today and always.
Bill and I want to thank all who donated to this memorial fund, from the bottom of our hearts. This has meant so much to us!! We want to remember Abigail in as many ways that we can.
Our family has been self-quarantining like most everyone else. When we got too stir crazy, we took Saturday, March 21st to go hiking in Payson Canyon. We were going to do the Grotto hike but the road is still closed so we walked up the road for the same distance we would have on the hike and then turned around. Luckily, we saw several waterfalls along the way, and it snowed so we felt like we were in a snow globe, too.
On our way back from the hike, we picked up a sweet stella cherry tree from a local nursery and planted it in memory of Abigail Réileen. We'll be able to see it bloom from our bedroom window, though maybe not this first year. 🌸🍒
I really wanted to celebrate her one month birthday like this, so I'm grateful to Bill for making it happen, though we did the actual planting a few days before.
This arrived Saturday, as well. Now I can carry a lock of her hair with me, and her name near my heart.
Angel Watch, which has been very kind and helpful throughout our experience with Abigail, had to cancel our visit yesterday because of Covid-19 and social distancing protocol. I was a little disappointed, but I understood.
We've found ourselves feeling grateful for the timing of our experience. As dear friends get ready to welcome their own babies into the world, there is so much anxiety about going to the hospital and how their experience will be different because of Covid-19. We pray for them. I cannot imagine having Abigail and my near-death-event in a hospital today. Even if Abigail had been born three weeks later, on her due date, the pandemic would already have been declared, and even husbands are being kept out of birthing rooms today in many hospitals. Bill might not have been allowed in the operating room!
The beautiful family celebration that happened in the labor and delivery room, in which all of Abigail's present family members got to meet her and hold her and be photographed with her, would not have happened today. How different would our grieving process have been then? I shudder to think of it. My heart couldn't have withstood that.
I'm already struggling to be grateful for what did happen. I asked God to help me to feel more grateful for my life. He put several books in my path, some that are old friends from my library, and some that are new kindle ebooks. I've been presented with passages about how precious life is, how good the Savior is for all He endured so He could succor us, and I've also been given stories of the suffering and subsequent gratitude of others.
Last night when I couldn't stop crying or fall sleep, I searched amniotic fluid embolism stories online and discovered a website to support survivors of AFE and their families. AFE is why my heart stopped, according to the doctors' best understanding. In my case, my heart stopped for 20-30 seconds, long enough for brain activity to cease, but my heart was immediately restarted at that point by a shot of epinephrine into my IV. I didn't even need a blood transfusion.
But my experience with AFE was rare. In many cases, mothers who experience an AFE event die, or they incur serious and lasting injury. In many cases, babies die, too. I read one woman's experience of fighting for her life on and off for weeks while her baby went home with her husband and her other children. Not only did she suffer so many traumatic health events in the hospital during those weeks, but she suffered the guilt and loss of not being able to spend her baby's first month with her. If that had happened to me, I would have completely missed Abigail's one day on earth. What I have called our best day ever wouldn't have happened.
Fortunately, this woman did get to go home eventually, and she got to raise her baby. I don't get to raise Abigail right now, and that's where the heaviest grief is coming from. Scriptures teach that faith and fear cannot coexist. But what about grief and gratitude? This is me today, wearing my necklaces to remember Abigail.
I'm wearing a shirt I bought before Abigail's birth. It was actually the shirt I wore the day she died. It says, "Blessed." And the sticker is one Corbin picked out for me. Ironically, it's a character named Joy. So today, on March 25, 2020, as we remember Abigail on her one month birthday, I'm wearing all the reminders of gratitude and joy. Even Abigail's name means joy.
Throughout this ordeal, we have been the recipients of many acts of love and remembrance for Abigail. I have never done anything to deserve all of those acts of love, and yet people have given them anyway. I feel grateful for them. Today, two friends remembered Abigail through thoughtful gifts.
This beautiful gift made my husband cry.
This one helped my back to stop crying.
(Lava Bag, made by my friends the Coopers at Lavahq.com to heat my soreness away.)
We all need these tender mercies. Here's an uplifting article from my church about all the many ways people are reaching out to each other to minister during this collective experience of isolation. We have felt the love of angels in human form ministering to us. Thank you!
I know that somehow we are made to be able to feel both grief and gratitude at the same time because it is happening to me all the time lately. I am sort of like a hurt child whose mother has her arms open wide to receive her, but I can't bring myself to surrender to her embrace. I felt God asking me today why I am resisting His love. I don't mean to do that, but I have to admit that by refusing to feel gratitude I am resisting the joy that comes only through that pure love of Christ. Maybe the grief and gratitude paradox is resolved in Jill Thomas's HOPE WORKS talk, "Seeing Green."
Yes, it's blue, and yes, it's yellow, but at the same time, it's something altogether different. I'm not at the peaceful place Jill seems to be when she gives this beautiful talk, but her words, and the words of so many other people who see green, have given me hope that one day I will.
Until that beautiful green day, I will keep giving love to my children, on both sides of the veil. And we will remember Abigail today and always.
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