Reflections of Mother's Day

I had a very good Mother's Day this year. My parents were visiting, so I was blessed to be able to share Mother's Day with my mother.  It was very nice.  

My wonderful husband gave me a very special card, beautiful roses and a very beautiful charm with Faith's name and birthday for one of my charm bracelets.  

I am so excited to be pregnant with Joy, so it was very nice to celebrate Mother's Day for her.  At the same time, I am certain that Mother's Day will always be a bittersweet day for me.  Faith Melody will always be my first daughter, the beautiful girl who made me a mother.  I love and miss you baby girl.

My View of Steel Magnolia's Quotes and Loss

I just watched the last part of Steel Magnolias.  If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it.  I've seen it before, but watching it this time was different.  I guess everything in life is different...now...

I can relate to Sally Field's character, M'Lynn, when she uses the following quote in the cemetery scene: 

"I'm fine! I can jog all the way to Texas and back, but my daughter can't! She never could! Oh God! I am so mad I don't know what to do! I wanna know why! I wanna know why Shelby's life is over! I wanna know how that baby will ever know how wonderful his mother was! Will he ever know what she went through for him! Oh God I wanna know why? Why? Lord, I wish I could understand!  No! No! No! It's not supposed to happen this way! I'm supposed to go first. I've always been ready to go first! I-I don't think I can take this! I-I don't think I can take this! I-I just wanna hit somebody 'til they feel as bad as I do! I just wanna hit something! I wanna hit it hard!"

This explains how a part of me will always feel about Faith.  It is a perfect description of the initial feeling when your child dies.  While there are so many things in this life that we may never understand why, part of the process is accepting that you may never know why.

It took me quite awhile, but after some time, I can truly relate to this other quote from Sally Field's character, M'Lynn, when she says:

"There was no noise. No tremble. Just peace. Oh God.. I realize as a woman how lucky I am! I was there when that wonderful creature drifted into my life.. and I was there when she drifted out of it. It was the most precious moment of my life..." 

This quote is by far the more difficult of the two to relate to, perhaps, as a parent, the most difficult revelation to have.  While a piece of me will always feel like the first quote, in my heart, I will forever cherish the time I had with Faith.  She was with me her entire life and that is one of the most precious things I can ever hope to experience.  She will always be my baby girl and I will always be her mother. 

Thinking of Faith Today...

I had a pretty good day overall.  Really the only thing I had scheduled for myself was to run a couple errands. I had a few things I needed to pick up for Faith's birthday cake.  I found the items I was looking for, and of course so many more cute things.

When looking at all the selections at Party City, I had a difficult time holding back my tears as I looked at all the cute items available to celebrate a child's first birthday.  There were just so many pretty things.  

There were a few things that I would have loved to get, but I just couldn't spend the money for those things with Faith not being here. I actually had to have a conversation with myself to remind myself that she is not here. Needless to say, I found what I was looking for and checked out as fast as possible. 

As I was driving to the grocery store afterwards, tears flowing, it dawned on me, yet again, that I am going to feel this way as long as I am here. Every passing year, there will be no way to not think of what Faith would be like and all the fun things we would do on each year's birthday.  

I did end up stopping at a dollar store to grab a couple things we needed for the weekend and ended up finding similar items that I'd seen at Party City, but of course for a dollar!  So, I got a few things to make our celebration of Faith's life nice and thus, completed my errands.  

Faith is our baby girl, our firstborn daughter.  We will always love and miss her.  We will always celebrate her life on her birthday.  I look forward to celebrating and sharing about Faith with Joy when she gets a little older.

We all love and miss you, Faith,
Daddy, Mommy, and little sister, Joy

Getting into the Christmas Spirit with Faith

Today we got some Christmas decorating started. The tree is up and the red lights are on it.  My husband thinks one more strand will be good.  I think one or two more will make the lights complete. He put lights out in the back yard and also some lit candy canes.  It is starting to look very nice.

As strange as this Christmas season is/will be, I know that Faith is with us.  She is with the One we are celebrating at Christmas, and for that, I am grateful.

I did not think that I would be able to get into the Christmas spirit too much this year.  However, it seems that I am beginning to get into the spirit.  I believe this Christmas will be great and lead us into an incredibly blessed 2015.

As we go into this Christmas season, I will continue to hold Faith close in my heart, as always.  I know she is celebrating with us.  I love you baby girl.