Monthly Archives: April 2014

When More of Us Are in Heaven Than On Earth

If our spirits enter the body at conception, when do they leave? I am sadly, miserably, waiting for my third miscarriage to commence, and I am wondering when this little soul left or will leave my physical body (and his or her little mass of cells). Do we have to live – even for a day or two in our mothers’ wombs – in order to be granted everlasting life? What is the purpose of this short life that causes tears of sorrow here on earth? How do I process the fact that, while my husband and I are here on earth, we technically have three angel children in heaven to whom we’ve never even been granted a “hello”? When more of us are in heaven than on earth, is that our sign to stop pushing our agenda, our desire to care for and love a biological child in this world?

We are at a major crossroads. Do we do genetic testing and try to unpeel the mysterious layers of how our bodies are failing us again? Or, do we just take this as a sign that our journey does not include those blue eyes lined with my husband’s long, thick eyelashes and his easy grin I’ve imagined on our child’s face?

I don’t know the answer. But, both my husband and I are having trouble feeling in our gut that a biological child is in the cards for us. I think I always had this inkling – and the desire to adopt – so maybe that is as simple as answers get. Putting a dream as close to our hearts as this away forever is a cruel, likely possibility. 

Life was never promised to be easy. However, when will I be broken enough to warrant a change of life course? When will my soul be as ready (wise? pure? reflecting of God’s perfection?) as those three little angels I have – watching over me somewhere in an alternate reality – to permit a break from these heartaches I have been enduring for the last year and a half?

I would like to think I was the loving vessel for these souls to achieve everlasting life. To be born to die in order to live again. I have to believe this because it is the only way to endure something so painful and emptying. I will be holding – since not their hands – the moments of hope they each gave me. I will try to process and unattach from the subsequent afflictions. And, I will keep plopping one sad foot in front of the other, believing (or if not believing…hoping…) the best, surely, is yet to come.

Dancing Lines

For the first time since starting this blog over a year ago, I went through and read all my posts. It’s funny how life and ideas prepare you for the next step. One thing that stuck out to me is how I said – before being pregnant, losing our son, losing our opportunity to move back to our favorite city, almost losing our dog (twice – he went back to the emergency vet last week), and another job scare – “Rock bottom is a dancing line. It changes positions as you get stronger.”

Rock bottom is, indeed, a dancing line. I have told my husband recently that I feel I keep bouncing off this rock, thinking I will be leaving it for a good while only to return to the hard, hurtful surface much sooner than anticipated. This sounds dramatic. I know I have a lot for which to be thankful. Although, I have to recognize the pain centers when they present themselves. I have to acknowledge that my life seems to be slamming against this rock over and over again, even if it could (always) get much, much worse. 

I have been trying to transform my painful experiences into love. I believe the only way to create love out of pain is to share my empathy, my understanding, and even my strength. I have learned how vital it is to recognize loss in another’s life. Loss of ego, loss of love, loss of hope…I am learning how to accept those losses in my own life and how to recreate my reality, knowing now that – not only is rock bottom a dancing line – but reality itself is a dancing line. What we think we know to be true is always changing and reinventing itself, so we constantly need to strive for an admittedly painful, yet freeing, complete openness to life.

Painful, yet freeing openness…as we try not to let our egos suffocate the truth (that we are, in each moment, always okay). Naked, taking deep breaths with everyone watching. I think, if I can master this, those dancing lines won’t scare me so much anymore.