Sunday, January 29, 2012

Yes I do

I wonder when I am going to quit crying.

I saw an old friend today. I hadn’t seen her in a few years. She said I heard James was married.

I said Jenna is married too. Then I braced myself for the next question.

“Any grandbabies yet?”

My heart went to my throat and tears were in my eyes instantly. I saw her confusion but I nodded anyway.

“Yes one. He was born too early and now he’s in heaven.” But he is my grandbaby. It would probably just be easier to say no and change the subject. But he means something to me. David means so much to me. Even though I didn’t get to spoil him, or really hold him and reign kisses down on his face. I won’t ever deny him. He was our first. His life meant something to me, and I want people to know he was here, if only for a little while.

He taught me how much they mean. Children. Grandchildren. How very precious they are.

Jenna and I were talking the other day how we wished we had more pictures. The next time we will take a million and one on their very first day.



And we pray we never see the inside of a NICU again.

I just hope the next time someone asks me, “Do you have grandchildren.” I can say yes without crying. I am hoping to add seven or eight more christmas ornaments to my tree, but in that count will always be David, first and foremost, our #1 grandson, and I will love them all as much as I love that little boy.




Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Miracle

I start to feel sorry for myself. I start thinking how unfair it was that my daughter lost her son, that I lost my grandson, when all we wanted was to love him and spoil him. I even cry, a lot. And then I read a story about a mother whose son fought to live for two years with a crippling disease and then passed away. Or I hear about a friend whose three year old daughter is fighting cancer and stuck in the hospital most of her young life. I think about those parents whose lives aren’t normal. Who live at the hospital even if they have other children at home. Who may be single parents, who don’t have anyone to help through the pain. Or a young couple whose had four miscarriages, or a young couple whose only desire is to have a child, but cannot get pregnant. I want to wrap them all up in my arms and make it better for them.

I start to think about how blessed I am. How much love has been shown to our family through this tragedy. How very much we are truly loved and cared about. I know my daughter will have children one day. We will always miss David. But he’s not sad. I think about that. I think that my Dad and his other grandpas are playing with him right now. I believe that his life in heaven is so much more than this life on earth could ever be.

I think about how very much I love my family. How we have held each other up through all this pain and suffering and I think about those we have lost. How their legacy still lives on through us. I can hear my Dad saying “It’ll be ok baby girl.” And because I believed him when he said that to me, I believe him now. I think Dad has David on his knee teaching him to fish. Or maybe (if there are golf carts in heaven) driving him around on a golf cart telling him about the best club to use to hit that little white ball (maybe gold ball). I think about those things, because they make me smile.

I have felt so very close to God through this. I feel like he’s right here at my side letting me know that it’s going to be ok. I DO feel like it’s going to be ok, even though my heart is broken. I wish sometimes that time would speed up the healing, so I wouldn’t get that sharp pain in my heart when I think about holding my grandson that last day.

He was a beautiful little boy. And I believe he felt how much we all loved him. That’s why he felt ok leaving us. He had nothing else to do down here. He showed us loved. He showed us that we have the capacity to love with our whole being one so tiny and new. David’s smiling right now because he accomplished more in six days then most of do in a life time. He left a legacy of Love for us to draw strength from.

So when I start to feel sorry for myself, I make myself stop. I will still cry. I will still miss him. But I will think of his deep blue eyes and a smile on his face. Sometimes I say “Goodnight David, Mawmaw loves you.” and I think he’s saying “Mawmaw I love you too.”



That’s the Miracle of Love.

It never ends.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

The Top Five Things I like about My Husband







1. He married me. When you are a young girl dreaming about that perfect guy, what do you see? I saw a dark headed man with blue eyes, until I met Earl and I saw a dark headed man with green eyes. And I knew instantly that I would spend my life with him. Because….he got me. He took all of my crazy and ignored it and loved me anyway. I was young, immature ( I know hard to think that I was immature) and very very spoiled and used to getting my way. But he pushed through all my pushing him away and asked me to be his wife. So yeah, that’s one of my favorite things about my husband, he likes to get his way too.

2. He never ever criticizes me. I burned his food, I burned his army dress shirts, and I liked to read and play with the kids and not do housework. So when he’d come home and dinner wasn’t ready, and the laundry was still in baskets, and I was on the floor reading books to the three munchkins we had, he’d lay down on the floor and listen and then we’d go get hamburgers.

3. He compares himself to Rocky. “Yo Adrian” yes his favorite movie line of all time and I’ve heard it fifteen billion times. The night we got married we watched Rocky II. He struts around flexing his muscles and shadow boxing. “I coulda been a contender” Was that the same movie? Not sure, but Earl doesn’t take himself seriously. He likes to have fun, he likes to make me laugh. And girls if you can find someone who makes you laugh, keep him. I’m keeping my Rocky.




4. He likes to shop. We got married in December. A week before Christmas. So our anniversaries have been spent Christmas Shopping and usually a very nice dinner. We can roam malls and stores together for hours, and the best part is he likes to buy me stuff. He likes to buy himself stuff too, but mostly me.

5. He is the best Dad in the world. We have three children with different interests, but he supported them all three in whatever they were doing. If it meant going to Florida or Missouri to hear Jamie preach a sermon, or sitting through basketball games to watch Jenna cheer, or see Justin wrestle, or do a spelling bee. Earl is there. His kids are his main concern, always have been. He doesn’t like to see them hurt. He will do anything to ease their pain. Even when there is nothing to do, he will sit there and listen. That’s what makes him great. He knows that to be the best Dad you just have to be there.

 

There are many more things I like about my husband, too numerous to name, but here’s the top five. I just needed to write out something that made me feel good. That brought back into focus what life is about really. Love, partnership, support. I’m a blessed woman to have that. And I know it. Life is good.

Friday, January 6, 2012

David Everett

I lost my Grandson last month. My first grandchild. The pain is sharp and cutting. You know you’ve heard that before- cuts like a knife. Well I felt it. For the first time really. A serrated knife plunged into my heart and making a jagged cut as it went through. Pulling apart all the truth I had believed. Everything that told me that nothing really bad would ever happen to my family. I’ve lost grandparents, and cousins and aunts and uncles, friends. I lost my Dad back in 2005. I miss him, it hurts, but this pain was different. Maybe because it’s still fresh. I’m not sure.

But I understand now why no one really talks about losing a child, a baby. The pain is too much to relive. It’s too alive, too wrong. Too unfair. But what is worse than the pain I feel, is the pain I feel for my daughter having to feel what I feel, or much worse. It was my grandson. But it was her child.

We were very excited about this child. My daughter was made to be a mother. Her career is daycare so she can be around children. She loves them. I don’t mean she thinks aww how cute, how sweet. I mean she loves spending her day with children, playing with them, washing their faces, talking to them, encouraging them and mostly just loving them. I love children also but she is down there on the floor with them while I’m observing. She’s in the midst of the action. She started babysitting when she was eleven years old. Someone saw and trusted my child with their child when she was eleven years old. She was made to be a mother. It took her husband and her a year to get pregnant, so when she did- it consumed us all. We made plans, listened for heartbeats, the doctor thought we were all nuts as her Dad, her brother , her husband and me crowded into a examining room just to hear that heartbeat for the first time.

I started talking to the baby as soon as she told me. She’d walk in my house, I’d be on my knees whispering to her belly, about what I had planned for this baby, how much I already loved  him. We made a big deal over everything. We had a Gender Reveal party that was the most fun of any party we’d ever had. Had the bakery make a cake, put inside whether it was pink or blue, and no one knew until the next day when it was cut. It was a boy. I had wanted it to be a girl, until I heard it was a boy, and than I didn‘t care at all. A little boy. And he was named instantly, David Everett. David means beloved, was there ever a child more beloved in his life than our little David? And Everett after his great grandpa.

She was sick through the first trimester. But she was a trooper. She would get through anything just to hold this child of hers. She was good with her vitamins, she didn’t drink caffeine, she stayed away from red meat and chicken. She was a Dr pepper addict but she never touched one the whole time she was pregnant. She didn’t eat a lot of things that I ate all the time when I was pregnant. She read too many books and had to quit, because it was freaking her out. And we were anticipating every day when he would be born. What he would look like. How much we wanted to spoil him and love him.

She was 26 weeks and five days pregnant on December 9. It was a normal day. We were having our Church Ladies Christmas party that night at my house, always a fun time. We laughed, played games, exchanged gifts, prayed. The party was winding down and I looked around and saw Jenna missing. I asked someone, they thought she was in the bathroom, but she was downstairs with Justin and Ben, and when I saw her it didn’t look good. She was pale, holding herself really stiff. I asked her what was wrong, she wasn’t sure, her back hurt, her arms were numb. Ben took her to the ER while I told everyone what was going on and started winding the party down, to clean up. I still wasn’t overly concerned. Just thought she was feeling tired. Nothing major, surely not. This was out of the blue. It had crossed my mind a couple weeks earlier that she was pretty swollen, maybe toxemia. But she had just went to the Doctor and things were fine. Before my final guest left, Ben called me, shaken- they took her right up to maternity, her blood pressure was 197/130- something’s wrong. I left to meet them at the hospital immediately.

At the hospital it was controlled chaos. They were not messing around, immediate plans to send her straight to Good Sam in Cincy. They don’t have a NICU at our little hospital, so they knew, already knew my daughter was going to have to deliver soon. I picked up my husband and we followed the ambulance and by 2:30 am we were at Good Sam. After that there were two days of monitoring, controlling her blood pressure, listening to David’s heart rate, trying to determine the best course, and we were praying. Praying, praying. I was worried now. Jenna was calm. Ben was worried. Jenna was calm. She believed everything would be alright so we believed too. Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati is wonderful. They are informative, they are direct, they don’t mess around. We knew they both were in danger. She had toxemia, her blood cells were attacking the placenta because they believed it to be a foreign object, cutting off David’s supply of blood and nutrients, there was not any other choice but to deliver. And he was small.

So on Monday December 12th, 2011 at 10:50 am, David Everett Jury was born into this world. 1 lb 9 oz and 12 ½ inches long. So tiny, but so big to me. He filled up my heart the instant I laid eyes on him. I was in love. I love my children. I loved giving birth to them, holding them for the first time, what an amazing fantastic wonderful experience it was. But David - maybe because he was so little, looked so helpless, needed someone’s protection- all my mother instincts that fight to protect, turned into Maw Maw’s fierce determination to love this child so much that no one would be able to love him more. I was going to see him through this. He was going to win this fight, and so he was dubbed Warrior immediately. He was working hard, you could see it in his tiny movements, the turn of his little head, he wanted to win this fight too.






And he was beautiful. There was a light in his face. When he opened his dark blue eyes, there was intelligence there. He was red, and he was perfect. Ten little fingers. Ten little toes. A elegant Wooten nose- long dignified. He had black hair. The nurses had told us not to expect any hair, with him being three months early. But he surprised everyone with a whole head full, and it was black. My little black headed blue eyed baby- that I had wanted one of my children to be and didn’t get. Now we had him. A beauty. But we weren’t allowed to touch him. Mom and Dad could sparingly.

But on the third day the nurse said if Mom didn’t care, Earl and I could touch him. Jenna of course said YES yes touch him Momma. I laid my finger on his arm, and bawled like a baby. I could feel his heart beating. His soft skin, so delicate, I could feel the preciousness of this child. I never wanted to move my hand.



David was doing well. He was gaining weight. They had taken him off anti biotic. On Thursday night I spent an hour with him by myself. The nurse got me a stool and I talked to him and sang to him. He fell asleep. I sang to him “I love you a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck, a barrel and a heap and I’m talking in my sleep about David. About David.” I’m not sure how many times I sang it, but I told him about his momma and daddy and his uncles, and his Pappy, and everything we had planned for him. How he was going to get better and we were going to have so much fun. Pappy had already bought him Bengal stuff.



I take care of my Mom so on Friday I didn’t go back to the hospital, I let Earl go. He had a really good night with David on that night. On Saturday the 17th was our Rowland Christmas party in Ohio- Jenna and Ben had family in, so they went straight to the hospital instead of the party, and Earl and I and Justin left early from the party so that we could stop by the hospital and see David before we went home. We stayed about hour and a half. He was peaceful, moving a little - they said he had a good day. So the next morning Jenna, Ben and I decided to go to church before going back to Cincinnati. There was no warning.

We got to the hospital a little before two. As we were getting out of the car, the hospital called Jenna, David was having some breathing problems. We were right there. There was a spot on his lung, they were going to need to give him some blood. Everything seemed ok for about an hour and then there was a rush of people, doctors, nurses surrounding our baby and they were trying to resuscitate him. We were all three standing there in shock. Our hands linked, tears flowing, I was praying, just pleading with God, please Lord, please Lord, please Lord, please Lord. That’s all I could say. This tiny baby - the nurse just using her thumb on his chest. That’s the image I see all the time. She only had to use her thumb to pump on his heart.



They brought him back. Took him out of the incubator. Attached a portable breathing tube and gave him to us. You can hold him. They said. They didn’t have any hope so they were allowing us to hold him for the last time.

I had called Earl when we knew he was having some trouble, so he was there. I went to call Justin. They gave us a private room and unhooked David from all his breathing apparatus. He was free to cuddle. We all held him, kissed him, talked to him, but mostly let Jenna hold her precious child, and watched. He lived for about a half an hour more. With his beautiful eyes focused on his Momma he left us.

Justin came in right after he passed away. My heart broke all over again just for him. His first nephew and he was in love with him. He is not a crier, but he stood there and cried holding that tiny baby. Our pastor and his wife arrived. More tears, talk, just holding him though he was gone. We stayed for about three and a half more hours. They came in, cut off some of his hair for Jenna, gathered up his things. We didn’t want to leave, we thought if we just stayed it wouldn’t end. We could wind back time and things would be ok. But it wasn’t and we had to leave.

I rode home with Earl, Jenna and Ben in our other car, and Justin behind us, a silent terrible caravan of hurt and pain. I couldn’t speak. The hour ride home was silent. Earl and I had just celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary the day before, I looked over once at this man, this rock of mine, whose eyes wouldn’t leave the road, and saw tears running down his face. I touched his hand, but we still couldn’t speak.

I felt betrayed. By God. He knew my heart. He knew we wanted this child. Why hadn’t he healed him? Why not some divine intervention here, Lord? My thoughts were rambling. I wanted to be angry, I so wanted to be able to scream at God. I wanted to smash a million things into a million pieces with a big huge baseball bat. But I didn’t scream or yell, or smash anything. I just sat there in my hurt and couldn’t understand. Why had God taken our baby?

Why is a loaded question. It’s never going to be answered, never to our satisfaction. Until we see God and if by then we still have the question, I’m sure he’ll answer it. But that doesn’t help the here and now, while you are stuck in this world of hurt. While you wonder what in the tarnation had just happened? I think I was in shock. I think I was in shock for days. I don’t remember much. Our oldest son and his wife arrived home the next morning, too late to see their nephew and hurting because of it. Christmas was the next weekend. I had nothing done, and now a funeral.

We moved through that week as if we were slogging through a fierce snow storm. Being hit in the face with sharp needles of cold and blinded by white. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t see the future. I didn’t know how to bring my daughter up out of the cold, and I just wanted to slide into a bed, and cover my head and not wake up in the morning.

But we moved. It was my husband. He said we had to do it. So we did. The arrangements, the calls, and the stupid Christmas shopping which I was not in the mood to do. I would find myself standing in the middle of a store and just blanked out. I would spend an hour roaming the store and come out with nothing. I gave a lot of gift cards.

During this time, we were being blessed beyond measure. Everyone was helping. The flower shop wouldn’t charge us, Kroger’s and McDonalds donated all we needed for the dinner after the funeral. Someone anonymously paid the funeral bill so Jenna and Ben wouldn’t have to. (they wouldn’t let us do it). My girl at the beauty salon cut my hair for free. Cards of sympathy, messages, money, pictures, prayers arrived daily. My brother, my good friends, they all helped out with Mom and food. I still think there is a casserole roaming around in my frig that we didn’t get to eat. I was touched by all this. Our town is a wonderful small town. I am thankful we live here.

But I was not prepared for the funeral. My daughter and Ben wanted to have an open casket. They needed to see him one last time, and it did help. It gave us closure, our baby wasn’t here anymore and we knew it then. They did their best to make him look good, but he was so tiny they had a hard time, and he had so much make up on because of the discoloring of his skin. But to me he was still the most beautiful baby I’d ever seen. Will ever see.

David.

Warrior.





We released six blue balloons at the cemetery for the six glorious days we had David with us on the earth.

I know time will heal the pain, or lessen it. I believe God has my back and loves me so much that he will help me be able to talk about our grandchild without feeling that my throat is going to close, and be on the verge of tears.

I wish I had some words of wisdom, or something to say that would comfort someone, anyone who might have to go through a similar situation. But I don’t. I can give you a hug. That’s the best therapy I’ve received during this whole ordeal. I’ve received tight squeezes that I‘ve felt to my bones, gentle touches, and great big loving bear hugs. That touch, that squeeze can convey more to those hurting than words can.