a decade

10 years ago at this time i was lying in a hospital bed near Nashville, TN. I was surrounded by my friends and family and we were waiting.

My parents and sister drove in from St. Louis.  My sister was getting ready to run the Country Music Marathon the next weekend.

My brother rented a car and drove in from college.

My mother-in-law and sisters-in-law drove 7 hours from Springfield.

My teacher friends came straight from school.

We were laughing but it wasn’t real laughter.  I was in a fog and I was heavily medicated. 

We were waiting. Waiting for the nightmare to be over. Waiting for news that there had been a mistake. Waiting to hear that our baby was going to be born alive and healthy.

We never heard that.

We continued to wait while the medication worked to induce labor.  We waited through back labor.  We waited through a botched epidural.  We waited for more than 24 hours for Sarah to finally be born.   Born still on April 23, 2004.

I remember when she finally started coming how hard I was crying.  Not because I was in pain but because I experienced a deep sadness that I had never felt.  I remember announcing to everyone (I don’t know why but there were a ton of doctors and nurses) in the room that I was crying because I was “just really sad.”  I remember how much the grief hurt (emotionally and physically) in the weeks following.

It has been 10 years since Sarah left us. Life has continued and we have been blessed but today, suddenly I feel lost.  I know that I will never get over it, but I have gotten through it.  Yet some days I fall back into that sadness.  

When Bubba and Dude talk about wishing their older sister were still here so they could pester her. When I see my sister and sisters in law with their girls. When I think about my baby girl finishing up 4th grade. When the hubs and I decided we weren’t going to have anymore children. That whole in my heart opens up big and cold.  I hurt and feel sadness.  Sometimes briefly.  Sometimes it lasts a little longer.

But I somehow I make through.   

10 years ago I started making it through because I was surrounded by people that love me and were hurting for me.  They helped carry my burden.  My husband, my parents, my sister, my brother, my mother in law and my sisters in law, my team of teachers- each held a piece of my life together until I could walk on my own again. I cannot express enough gratitude for them.

Today I am hurting. I had a good cleansing cry in the bathroom after school.  But I am making it through because I have Bubba and Dude wrestling at my feet and performing armpit fart songs for me.

Say a prayer for me today, please.