Saints

Yesterday was Tuesday, just like it was the first time I spent Saint Patrick's day with slothdog. Tuesday is the only day of the week that has seven letters. Patrick has seven letters. Patrick is a Saint. Bridget and Dominic have seven letters, and Bridget and Dominic are both saints.

I have been thinking a lot about the last seven years. It was seven years ago that we started our first grief support meeting. That very first night, we ended up in the emergency room. My husband had suddenly jerked back in his chair, fell forward, was unresponsive, turning blue, clammy, sweaty. He looked just like Dominic had looked that Saturday, September 8th. I was panicked, but we were in the hospital and medical help came quickly. They checked his pulse, and I was relieved to hear he had one. But only about 30. Too low. Finally he was responding. Couldn't move or see well...

The Chaplain was there in that meeting, and he went down to the emergency room with us. It was odd to be there where Dominic had been admitted as a trauma patient just six months before. We hadn't been in the emergency room with him. It was life flight that had taken him there and he was admitted to the PICU before we even arrived. But there were some familiar faces in the crowd in that emergency room, and it was scary. I remember the Chaplain asking something along the lines of, "do you always think worst case scenario?" I don't think those were his exact words, but I remember stopping to think because I didn't realize I was coming across as that worried.

The emergency room was in the children's hospital, and when they failed to find any concerning causes, they sent us over to the adjoining general hospital to be checked out by their ER. After a long night, there was nothing found to cause the event (one he had had similarly as a teenager, where they chalked it up to a seizure even though there was not any conclusive evidence that is what had caused it). It was decided he had simply fainted due the intensity of emotions.

I remember that night only in pieces. I remember telling the group that I didn't feel overcome with grief. That I felt sustained by faith and that we were there more because our kids seemed to need the help. Those weren't my exact words, but I remember stopping myself in my thoughts after I shared that and wondering if I hadn't been deceiving myself. But that night proved that we had a lot of support. One of the people in the meeting was someone we knew from our student days, and she was able to take our kids for us while we were in the ER. My sister came to drive us home (since I was tired, it was dark and I don't drive well in the dark, and both my husband and I were too stressed to drive). And when we arrived home, our doorstep was covered with canned goods, toilet paper, and other necessity items -- since my husband was now in his fourth month of unemployment this was a welcomed gift.

Seven years ago was such a difficult time. Yet until that night, we felt a lot of love and support in our struggles. But that night was like a turning point. The effects of the miscarriage I'd had the month before, the unemployment, mourning Dominic, and watching as my husband's appearance had taken on the same appearance Dominic had that had resulted in death just seemed to overwhelm my mental capacity to cope.

But I think that the biggest reason things got harder was that prayers in our behalf had started to subside. The hour after death, when the comfort of the Spirit and good friends and loved ones comes in to attend you, had passed.

I've been thinking a lot about these past seven years, and the past year and a half. Just how is it that we have gotten to where we are.

I had participated on a message board for infant loss where a post was made titled "Bite Me". It was a post where we were invited to vent our frustrations with all the things people say and do after your child dies that are insensitive, mean, rude, annoying, etc. So, for example, if your doctor had said, "you're young! You can have another one", you could post "Bite me, Doctor X, who told me ...". I remember having a lot of things come to mind that I could post about. People sometimes just say and do the most hurtful things, mostly when they are trying to be helpful.

And then I thought how I would much rather write those things that people had done or said that are helpful. And I tried to think of how to express these saintly kindnesses-- what could I title the post in contrast to "Bite Me". My thought was "Bless Your Soul".

I've always meant to sit down and write that post. But I no longer go to that message board. But those people who have made the effort to offer support to me and my family when so many others have abandoned us are truly saints to us. I know I cannot list them all, but I want to post a few who have been very significant, answer-to-my-prayers saints:

♥

Bless Your Soul, Debra C. You were not a welcome friend in the beginning. When you called just after we left the NICU with Bridget, I thought you were only assigned to us because I had caused such a stir there. I thought they assigned you to us to see how likely it was we would sue, or for some other liability reason. I still don't really know why you were assigned from a business sense. But I feel that perhaps, just maybe, you were one of those who were chosen when the Lord pleaded, "Behold thy mother!" Seeing how He loved me and knew how troubled I would be when I would behold my little one, then have her no more. He found someone who would from that hour, would take me into her own heart.

I've never met you in person. I know you came to Bridget's funeral from the note you left for us. But you have done so much to help. Because you are on the insurance side of things, you were able to help sort out all the claims for us. And when we were faced with the ambulance bill for Bridget, the same bill we had when Dominic died that had caused so much distress, you did what needed to be done to take care of it so I didn't have to like I did with Dominic.

I've spent hours and hours and hours on the phone with you. Not because I was calling, but because you felt like it was time to check to see how I was doing. And you didn't just call and tell me to let you know if you could do anything. You DID something! You took the time to let me ramble about the same things over and over again. You didn't try to correct me, or convert me, or...

Perhaps our friendship started as an assignment. But when the assignment ended, you still found time for me. You still worked with the insurance to help things be as smooth as possible with all the overwhelming medical bills side of grief. And you still call me, and let me ramble. It seems you always call when things seem the darkest, and you give me the chance to feel loved again.

Bless Your Soul, Debra C. You are a saint to me.

♥

Bless Your Soul, Allyson C. I don't always appreciate having your friendship. When you found out you would be able to adopt your little Brigham, I was so happy to think that we would have our little ones to raise together. I didn't share my news of my pregnancy with Bridget, but I knew she would be born shortly after your Brigham was going to arrive. I still remember how you came to our home the day before Bridget was born, and offered to let me hold him. How I held him in my arms, and a certain feeling of peace came to me. I'd been feeling uneasy because of the complications I was having with my pregnancy, and knew I was going in the next morning for an amnio and possible delivery. It was so nice to have had that moment before Bridget arrived.

I was excited to finally share her with you. And you seemed so enthralled! It meant so much to me to see your joy for our family. I enjoyed those few weeks we shared of raising our little ones together. I remember the phone call while I was folding laundry, and you reminded me to get out Bridget's clothes to make sure she can wear them before she outgrows them, because they grow so fast.

I sometimes find your friendship difficult now. We were supposed to both have our children grow up together. You still have your Brigham, and I don't have my Bridget. Perhaps it sounds so cruel to think that it is hard for me to see him sometimes. It would be harder, though, for me if you didn't have him in your life. So it is bittersweet. I love that he is still growing and learning and in your life, but I just miss that we aren't sharing that experience anymore.

But even with that awkwardness. You are a friend who was there for me before Bridget was even born, and you have been here for us since her death. I have called you for favors and you have made arrangements to help. And there were times you have been an answer-to-my-prayers friend, who just knows when to do something for us even though I hadn't asked.

Bless Your Soul, Allyson C. Because there have been so few saints who have stayed with us through all of this. And so the load that is carried is divided to fewer arms willing to bear it. It makes it so much heavier for you, and yet you are still willing.

I sometimes doubt your motives. I know your callings through all this have put you in a position where you have essentially been assigned to help. Perhaps it is only a response to duty, obligation to which you respond. But I don't sense that is it fully. And even if it was, there have been so many others who were assigned who did not follow through. Whatever the motivation, we have needed you, and you were there.

♥

Bless Your Soul, Slothdog. This is a personal one, a selfish one. You are the one and only reason our family has not been dashed to pieces since Dominic and Bridget died. When I stopped making dinners, and you started making them instead. When I couldn't go to the grocery store anymore, because it hurt too much not to have the cute little ladies stop me and tell me how beautiful my baby was. You didn't begrudge me and you started doing the shopping. When it overwhelmed me wondering how we were supposed to pay all the expenses without a job, you took over the finances.

In all of this, I wish I had been stronger for you. I want to be stronger for you. I want to be stronger for our children. And I am so very weak. You don't begrudge me, and you carry the load. You help the kids get up in the morning, and help them get to bed at night. You remember to check on their school work. You pack their lunches. You read them stories. You play games with them. And most of all you encourage me when discouragement weighs me down. You are gentle and patient with how I struggle, wanting to do so much more but only making small steps forward every day.

Even when a Heaven seems impossible, when God seems a matter of fiction. You have continued to pray with us. To read to us the scriptures and counsel of a prophet.

It seems so unfair that someone who is struggling so much in the same depths of grief is left to carry so much of it on his own, and then to make up the difference for his wife's lacking, too. It amazes me how you carry on even with your own heartache.

The complexities of it all, you are living it. But, Bless Your Soul, Slothie, for enduring it and making all the difference for us.

♥

There are two saints I am looking forward to being with again. And my yearning, aching desire would overcome me and I would speed forward into the eternities to try to soothe my soul with the chance to be where they are now, except that there are those saints here who find the way to bear with me. Bear for me when I cannot bear my own.

Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
Galatians 6:2