Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Today

I don’t usually let myself “go there” very often, to the timeline of her “should’ve” been milestones. I try not to keep them forefront in my mind. It is just too painful for my heart.

But my mind does wander to that lost life, for a moment or two daily. I try and picture what she would be like, look like, act like. I daydream of her each day, but after losing her, I never could stand to mental mark the timing of each milestone that she should would be at. I didn't track when she could've been crawling, walking, talking,…it was just too much.

There are of course the big ones, the special moments and milestones that I had dreamt of and imagined while she grew in my womb, that I cannot escape. Today, was one of them.

Today, would have been her first day of preschool. She would have attended the same school as her big brother and at the same age he did. I would have walked her up the same walkway, guided her into the same section of the school, settled her in, kissed her goodbye and let her go for the first time, trusting a stranger to take care of her. I would have walked away and shed some silent tears of sadness knowing she was embarking on one of her first steps to growing up.
Instead, I kissed her goodbye 3 years ago for the very last time, watched the nurse, a stranger, walk away with her, trusting she would take good care of her body, and I shed deep, hysterical, shrieking sobs of tears knowing my daughter would never grow up.

My heart hurts today. It aches to know that life with her. I can almost see it in my mind. Her pretty little dress & cute little backpack. Her giggling with excitement while her little hair bounced, or maybe, she would have been clinging to my leg, nervous to let me leave her side. I wonder what her personality would of been like.

I never wanted to leave her side.

I will not get to show up at the school today way too early because I missed her and was excited to pick her up. I will not get to hug her as if she was gone more than the few hours that she would have been. I will not get to hear all about her first day of school and know if she loved it and whether or not she had made some friends there.

Today, she will not be out of my reach for the three hours of school because today, she has been out of my reach for three years.

I wasn’t blessed to live that life with her, to get those answers or details about her. I will not get to know her or see her grow and enjoy shared moments with her. She will never get to experience all that this life has to offer. That pains me so much, to know all that she is missing here.
The never knowing her is a constant ache and today, on this "should've" been special day, it all just seems that much more painful.






Monday, May 21, 2012

Gone But Not Forgotten


When Janessa was stillborn, I knew what a great loss we had just suffered. I knew our lives were going to be forever impacted by the silence of that doppler, the stillness of that screen and the shake of the doctor’s head, “no”, to my husband, because she couldn’t bare to look me in the face.

I knew how important she was to our family and how much she was loved, but I thought the rest of the world would just dismiss her and she would be forgotten. If you asked my husband about me, he may say, “She is always right…or at least she thinks she is…”, but in this circumstance I was wrong and quickly after her death I realized that. I am very thankful that I was. She is not forgotten by those important to us and I can credit part of my heart healing to those who remember her. So I thank the wonderful people in my life who took time to remember her and us on her third birthday. We received three birthday cards in the mail. I cried tears of gratitude each time one arrived.


A few days after her birthday I received this…
“The Arbor Day Foundation has received a donation in memory of Janessa Marie Jimenez. As a tribute, 20 trees will be planted and registered in the Blackwater River State Forest... With thoughts of comfort, peace, and caring, these trees will be a living monument to your loved one.” The donation was made by a new friend of mine, Jamie. I get choked up each time I think about it or reread it. On the front cover of that card it says…

“If you seek my monument, look around you.”
I always feel the closest to Janessa’s spirit when I am among nature. I see her in all the beauty. I sometimes forget how beautiful this world is amidst the pain and cruelty I see in it. When I am surrounded by the sights, smells, and sounds of nature I feel a sense of inner peace and a feeling of connection to something much larger than myself.

I hope to stand underneath those trees one day and gaze up at the wonder of them and know that they are another little footprint of my daughter's, even though her little feet never touched our ground at all.

"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change"- Buddha
Each life form that comes to be on our earth IS a miracle. The chance of it all, the obstacles each life faces before its bloom or birth is never in its favor. I never really understood all of that until after Janessa. Although our daughter will not get to bloom here on this earth, the miracle of her life will be something I am forever grateful for, because that is finally clear to me now, just how miraculous her existence is and just how much she has changed my whole life and my whole being.






Sunday, April 29, 2012

Sucker Punch

Tonight, I held my mother prisoner at my house so I could get a couple of housework tasks completed without having two little boys pulling me in different directions.

I went to my neglected laundry room because it has been on my to-do list for months now.

I was just about to finish when I noticed a bag at the top of the closet. I jumped up and grabbed  it.
______________________________
Mid-jump my heart sinks. I know what the bag is. Painting clothes. These are from three years ago. They were used to paint a beautiful nursery for a baby girl on her way.

I don't recall placing them in this bag or in this spot. I'm not sure how I knew what they were before having a chance to read the bag. But I do, and once the connection is made my world stops and everything goes silent. The pitter-patter and squeals of play from the boys are muted by my racing thoughts as I am transported back in memory. I can almost feel the paint brush in my hand, feel the weight of my large belly full of life.

I slowly open the bag while feeling as though someone has punched me in the gut, knocking the air out of my lungs. I take each article of clothing out one at time. I spot the faint pink, the deep maroon, the pure white. These were the clothes her Daddy and I used to prepare her walls and changing table for her arrival. The tears form in my eyes, blurring my vision.

The anger hits first. This is a new emotion for me in regards to her death. I haven't expressed much of it in the past three years, but quickly the grief in my gut overrides. I feel ten times heavier with it. I feel that broken feeling I know so well.



I clench the piece of clothing stained with the deep maroon paint splatters tight in my grasp and then pull it up to my face desperate to catch a hint of what her nursery smelled like. A mixture of paint and the laundry detergent that was used on her clothes that filled up multiple bins, just waiting for her arrival. But the aroma is gone. Just like how that smell left her nursery after a year of waiting for a baby to fill it's space.

I catch that scent every now and then. In someone passing by me in the store, or near a freshly painted item coated in the same brand of paint. It hits me just like finding these did. Like a sucker punch right to my heart.

I have them wrapped back up in their bag. The bag now being a time capsule of sorts, back to a time when all was right in our world. To a time her heart beat safely in my womb.

They are now awaiting to be placed with all her items. I cannot bare to toss them away. To lose anymore of her, or reminders of her life. They are another piece of proof that she was here. She was real. She was almost ours to keep.





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