two juxtaposed thoughts...

I'll start with my more reflective thought and end with one that makes me smile, so as to end on a happy note. If you are reading this now, bear with me as I pour out my struggling, rambling thoughts, which are a living testimony to a life that will pass too quickly and whom I grieve losing even as he bursts forth with life in the womb.

I am concluding that at any given point in time there are two kinds of people in the world. (I realize there are many ways of looking at the world and people, but today I'll focus on this.) There are those who have lived through unspeakable loss and tragedy and are still standing; and those who have only seen life unfold as they dreamed, untouched as yet by sorrow and loss. To suddenly go from the latter group to the former is like skipping blissfully along on a sunny path through a beautiful garden, and suddenly mashing through the glass of an unseen wall, with a million little shards wounding you. You look about at the beauty beyond the broken glass lying at your feet but cannot grasp it; the beauty is out of reach. If you take a step to move out of the brokenness, you only wound your feet on the path more.

You eventually are able to escape the garden of brokenness and move on, because life doesn't stop. You observe pictures of others, family portraits of others in their beautiful gardens, watching more joy and flowers and beautiful children filling their frames, always being added...my frame doesn't reflect all those who should be in my portrait, in my garden. Why God, do you keep taking my babies?

Ever since last Friday, but especially all day long today, I experienced a beautiful gift that cannot be taken from my memory and is forever etched there like a framed photo. David has been kicking me in the upper right side of my tummy, near my ribs. One by one, Jonathan, Rebecca, and then Bryan were able to feel his tiny feet pushing against me. He is here now; he is my gift now; every day he is with me, now kicking me, is a new gift I feel privileged to unwrap each day. I long to kiss his little feet...

So, my beautiful gift, waving back at me with perfectly formed little hands from my ultrasound photo, each segment of each finger so tiny, I marvel at your life. I love you. Please stay one more day. I celebrate your kicks, your life. You are leaving footprints on my heart that will forever remain. You have brought me great, wonderous joy today.