It's All I Know

This weekend something new hit me.  I was at Wal-Mart picking up some cleaning supplies and walked by the baby aisle.  Seeing all those sweet little clothes and socks made me sad thinking that I didn’t need to buy any, but not overwhelmingly upset.  I was prepared to pass the baby section.  However, as I kept walking I passed the toddler clothes.  Adorable little dresses and outfits.  At that moment the realization hit me that I am not just losing an infant.  I am losing a chance to see if my daughter likes dresses or sweat pants better.  Does she like sports and watch football with Daddy?  Or does she love to read and learn about all kinds of things?  Does she want to play with makeup or think it is a waste of time?  Does she like to color and make crafts?  Would she like playing in the dirt or want to wash her hands right away?  

I have known all along that I would not see my daughter grow up, but I was so focused on missing first words, first steps, getting to breastfeed, and plan a nursery that I had not looked beyond that.  Joe will not walk his daughter down he aisle.  I will not take pictures of her first day of school.  She won’t pick an instrument in middle school.  

Joe and I have a drawer in our guest room that we were keeping items in that people gave us for the baby before we knew her diagnosis.  There isn’t much, but there are several outfits, a nursing pillow, a bottle, and a few other items.  Since then we have added two tiny premie cloth diapers, a baby blanket, and a stuffed animal.  Items bought to be with her in the hospital when we say good-bye.  The stark contrast of the little outfits given with love and hope and the items bought to prepare for loss is heartbreaking.  I can’t really look at those outfits, because I know she will not grow into them.  I can’t imagine ever moving them from the drawer though.  

What if I am standing in the closet trying to talk to you?

What if I kept the hand-me-downs you won’t grow into?

What if I really thought some miracle would see us through?

What if the miracle was even getting one moment with you?

(Ronan, by Taylor Swift)

People often express to Joe and I that they cannot understand why this would happen to us.  Some of them express that I have experienced enough challenges in my life.  Some express that Joe and I are good people.  Some express that Mira is so innocent.  I don’t know the answer.  Not even a little.  Joe and I do struggle with this.  I hope at some point we will get a medical answer that explains why Mira has so many anomalies in her tiny body, but we have not gotten one yet.  What I know you all want, and what Joe and I really want though, is the big “WHY” answered.  Why is this happening? Are we supposed to learn from this?  Is any lesson worth the death of a child and this pain to her parents?  I don’t think we are supposed to learn from this.  I think it will change who we are. It already has.  That's not really a bad thing though, trauma changes you.  I know this quite well.  But it is how you change that matters.  No, I don’t think a lesson needs to be learned though.  

I do think that God has a plan.  I don’t think I will ever know what part Mira’s life and my pain plan in His plan though.  At least not until I am with Mira and Him and can ask.  Not knowing things bothers me.  I would like to know the answer to everything as soon as the question is posed.  If you ask me what a word means, what something stands for, or how a theory came about, and I don’t know, then I guarantee I will look for the answer until I find it.  You can’t google the meaning of my daughters life though.  (I may have tried anyway).  Sitting with not knowing something is so hard.  It makes you angry.  It make you question things you thought you knew.  It makes you hurt.

I found Angie Smith’s (author of I Will Carry You) thoughts on the subject comforting.  She states that she struggled with this question of ‘why’ herself after her daughter live for only 2 hours due to birth defects.  Smith writes about a story in a book she read in the past (The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom).  A young girl asks her father a questions that she is too young to hear the answer to.  He in turn asks her to carry his bag off the train, but it is too heavy for the child.  When she tells her father this he says: “Yes and I would be a pretty poor father who would ask his daughter to carry such a load.  It’s the same way with knowledge.  Some knowledge is too heavy for children.  When you are older and stronger you can bear it.  For now you must trust me to carry it for you.”  Smith goes on to say: “What a beautiful example not only for our children but for ourselves as children of the Lord. Many things in this life are not meant to be understood.  We are simply not strong enough to bear them, but where there are gaps in our understanding, there is also the grace of God who has chosen to carry the traveling case for us.  Our role is to trust it into His keeping.”

This explanation does not take away the pain of my grief.  It does not make me stop questioning why.  It does remind me that God is protecting me still in this time.  And that just has to be enough for now.  I don’t know why this is happening.  Just as I don’t know what Mira’s favorite color would have been or what her favorite game to play would be.  All I know is that God is the same as he was before Mira’s diagnosis and I believed He had a plan then, and I still believe it now.

Sometimes ignorance reads true

Hope is not in what I know

It’s not in me, it’s in You

It’s in You

It’s all I know

I find peace when I’m confused

I find hope when I’m let down

Not in me, in You

It’s all I know.

(You, Switchfoot)

I have not yet found the peace, I have not found the hope.  But I do take comfort in trusting that God will hold me through it all.