And in just a moment

And in just a moment I realize his Legos mean the world to me and I wish I had watched all the moments of his little hands carefully working with them.

And in just a moment I feel how precious anything he had last touched becomes like gold to me and I want to run my fingers up and down and all around to try and feel some connection to his skin or maybe some lingering smell.

And in just a moment I can consume myself with pictures that are priceless treasures no amount of money can buy. I obsess over them taking in every expression, every article of clothing and even every little thing that was in his hand wondering where those things are now.

And in just a moment fear can overtake me when I remember something I have forgotten about him, a phrase he would say, a scar on his face, a toy he had and I wonder to myself, "what else about him has left my memory."

And in just a moment I see kids growing up including Haleigh Raye. She's getting so tall and he's not. What would he have in common with her. With other kids. What would he be doing with them right now. What sport would he be playing in. What toy would he like me to get him. Where exactly is he...? What is he doing right now? Right this minute.

And in just a moment I forget he is gone. I call for him. I grocery shop for him. I look for him.

And in just a moment I realize...I remember.

And in just those moments I experience an unexplainable hurt, solitude and loneliness. I know the ache of being torn between two worlds. His and hers. I know the desire to live out life with Haleigh Raye, to watch her grow up, to guide her on this journey but still wrestling with a longing, a want that I have no control over.

And in just a moment it hits me again and again...the moments she needs from me in life are no longer moments I will be able to give to Noah.

He doesn't need me in anyway form or fashion.  He is much better off then any of us here. But it still doesn't make it any easier with the aftermath we are dealing with. I'm trying to understand "the bigger plan." I'm trying to comprehend "it's not for me to know this side." I try to reason with myself. I tell myself I lived 26 years without him and I was just fine. He just was passing through my life and I will be the one who is ok.

And in the next moment, the next breath, still yet, still to this day, there are moments I beg, bargain and barter to have him back with me. With us. It could happen. It's just been a moment. It's just been months since I held him, touched him, texted him...kissed him. Things I took for granted just months  ago which, in a moment, has turned into

a year ago.

And in just a moment it won't be months.  We will add the words I've come to dread to add for some time now. A year.

 A year without Noah Dean.

Bittersweet Friendship

Facebook Post From November 14, 2012

Today I am thankful for another bittersweet moment and a new bittersweet friendship that came into my life. As I concluded a “new normal” weekend on Sunday I had just sat down to hear a knock at my door. Being home alone with Haleigh Raye I reluctantly opened it and found a stranger at my door. As I looked at her through my screen door I saw that she noticed my hesitancy and she tried to put me at ease by telling me she was Angela O'Bryan Anderson from Missouri and had been to the UT/MO game this weekend (which explained her cute yellow nails.) I haphazardly congratulated her on her state’s win and silently wondered if she had ended up on my door step for a congratulations from a lifelong true blue Tennessee fan or was there something else she wanted to share. The latter parts of my thoughts were correct and her next words left me frozen and confused. “I lost two kids in the lake…on July 4.” I thought for a moment and vaguely remember being told about her story. There was two siblings who died the very same way Noah did the very same day just two hours prior. But those days were such a fog, the family was so far away and I was dealing with so much here I couldn't really absorb the story and the full effects of a mom losing two children not that I didn't have sympathy for her I was just dealing with the loss of my one and it was about to overtake me. The cause of Noah’s death is one that is rarely heard of and for it to happen to four kids in one day is uncanny but it did happen and the mother of the other two children, who was just a stranger moments ago, is now standing in front of me. Once I took a minute to put all this together and realize what a connection we had I immediately ushered her in, offered her a seat and we talked and talked and talked. We talked for 3 hours while her sweet friend waited in the car for her (Now, don’t worry I displayed southern hospitality to both of these Missouri fans and invited her in as well but she politely declined). Angela and I laughed, we cried, we exchanged stories and we eventually talked about what took our children from us. She was there that day with her kids and I was not and I had many questions about Noah and what quite possibly he dealt with that medical examiners were only able to answer in medical terms that didn't make much sense to me. I wanted to know if Noah suffered…did Noah know what happened to him. Those thoughts stay with me daily and nightly. Of course, she could only share with me her own story and even asked if she could before she went into details. I won’t really know answers about Noah until I get to heaven and may not even be allowed to know them then. But for now I battle the flesh and still live with those questions and wonder why didn't God intervene that day with Noah. Why didn't he have someone put the precautions in place so that Noah wouldn't have went through this. I don’t think that God caused the circumstances around Noah’s death but I can’t help but wonder why. Why did it happen? Why was it Noah? Why didn't someone somewhere know what they were doing. I'm angry but doesn't mean I’m angry at God. Doesn't mean I don't have faith in God. It means I’m human and I want answers surrounding everything that happened that day and the time prior that led up to this death. But with all those questions about God I do know he is God and he is faithful and that he did intercede in my life when he brought this new friend into my life. A new friend that I wish I had never heard of and I wish she never would have heard of me and I wish we didn't have a story to share…but we do. He knew my heart and knew I needed someone with similar circumstances who understood what I was going through and the questions I face and the thoughts that haunt me. So, Angela, I thank you for staying up all Friday night in your hotel in Knoxville and researching us and our story. I thank you for answering the call that was on your heart to come find this grieving mother who needed someone as much as you did. If you haven't read about Angela and her story, I encourage you to do so and add her to your prayers. I know she, her husband and especially their son Garrett, who is discovering what is it like to go from middle child to only child, will be on mine for the rest of my life...probably several times a day.

This is an update on Angela and another hurdle they just crossed and I am trying to cross myself. One thing I personally have learned about grief is that everyone handles it differently and everyone handles the "have to's" that come with it differently...A headstone is not a want or a need...it's a have to. 

No need to carry around feelings we can't take to heaven....

No need to carry around feelings on earth you can’t take to heaven....

Feelings can take such an emotional toll on us. They can be a roller coaster ride. One minute we can find ourselves on a high or sailing through, a breeze in our face and we get a good view of the landscape around us. The next minute it can be a plunge that we weren’t expecting and takes us into the depth of a place we weren’t prepared to go and places we don’t want to see. The picturesque outlook we had just moments ago is now whizzing by us so fast we don’t even feel as if we have time to catch our breath much less time to open our eyes - and that may be quite an accurate way to feel and an even more accurate description.  This ride can become a cycle leaving us feeling, at times, as if we have no control and the only thing we can do is to hang on and cling tightly to the bar holding us down.

The past 8 months and even the past 2 years I have personally experienced an up and down of so many thoughts, feelings and emotions it would be enough to make even the fastest of roller coasters be in envy. Just like with the turn of a kaleidoscope and everything changes my life has closely resembled that.  My own feelings or emotions and even the feelings and emotions of other people can become a more complicated matter and therein lies, part of the roller coaster ride.

I’ve slowly internalized that I can’t control other people’s behavior, pictures they draw, gossip they partake in and truth they misconstruct. I can, however, control my response and the feelings I carry around with me. C.S. Lewis (yes, I admit, I’m a little smitten with the man) quotes in his book, Mere Christianity,

“Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor, act as if you did...When you are behaving as if you loved someone you will presently come to love him.”

It can be a challenge within itself to choose to do that. Especially when situations keep recurring over and over and people hurt us time and time again. We look for justification in our minds for the way we are treating them, for the hurt we could be causing and for the division we are intensifying. By this time the feelings have multiplied, other people have become involved and we have found a host of other reasons to reaffirm our thoughts and actions. Lewis likens these types of feelings to the Germans and their clear disdain for the Jews.

“The German, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them; afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill treated them.”

I’m not trying to say we aren’t supposed to feel some of the natural feelings that arise in us after we have been treated a certain way whether it be good or bad. I know all too well my own sentiments toward people and situations are not always the most God honoring. God made us in His image and is fully aware of the feelings and emotions that go along with our human behavior. This doesn’t take God by surprise. We didn’t catch Him off guard. God doesn’t expect us to be perfect creatures. If we were perfect creatures there would not be the free will that He has allowed us to have.

But we can’t carry around those negative feelings. They become like old, worn out luggage that gets heavier with time and weighs our journey down and they aren’t feelings that we will be taking to heaven with us. So if they aren’t worthy of heaven why would we let them fester, control our lives on earth and make them much more than they ever were to begin with.

My grief and pain I feel over losing Noah is tremendous. Sometimes I catch myself in full disbelief that he isn’t here. I find the truth of what happened to him like a slap in the face that brings me back to reality quickly. Other times the anger, the hurt over letting this happen to him and the negligence of things not being in place is enough to absolutely overwhelm me at times and it takes so much mental discipline to be able to focus, carry on and not let it control my life or my outlook.  I’m not saying I’ve perfected it.  I’m not even saying I’m good at it. And, honestly, I hope I never start to think or feel I am. I pray that I am always keenly aware of my feelings and emotions and how they are either weighing me down or lightening my load. I also want to be aware of how my feelings can encourage and influence others and when it is a good time to be vocally vocal and when it is a good time to be silently silent. I don’t want to just take a seat and hold on to that manmade bar that I see is keeping me strapped to my seat on the roller coaster nor do I want to hold on to any feelings that I "can't take to heaven" for too long. But, yet, I want to keep holding on to my faith in the Word and clinging to the One that can keep me strapped in, secured and safe on this road I am on until I get the most joyous feeling of all. A joy that will last and a joy I CAN hold onto. The joy of the reality of my faith, the joy of heaven, the joy...of Noah Dean.

This is one of my favorite songs and is on my Noah Dean play list. I listen to it every day. It was released July 10, 2012. Just 6 days after Noah left this life.