Today has been a good day, full of friends and laughing with my Lily-girl. But after the house gets quiet and I am alone with my thoughts, I realize how sad I still am.
A friend of mine just had a baby yesterday- a little boy. I spent the whole day yesterday making a quilt for her new baby, not even knowing she was in labor. I spent so much time on it making sure it was perfect. I was happy to make something for this sweet new being, but I was also, in some small way, making it for Joshua. I couldn't help but shed a few tears after I saw it lying out this morning. It was so small, all done up in brown and green with monkeys.
I want to be filled with life again. I want to have the promise of a new baby. I want to feel my child growing under my heart.
Is it too soon? I don't know. Up until a week ago I didn't think I ever wanted to try for another baby. But I watched Mark with Lily and knew I couldn't deny them both a chance for a new family member just because of my fear. So I let my husband's words and wisdom into my heart and made a choice.
We will try again. But it will be on God's terms, not ours. No more ovulation tests, no more guessing at my most fertile time. Just Mark and I. It will happen when God wills it, not when we do.
It will never change the loss. It won't replace what was taken. But I have hope that healing will come just from the decision to pursue happiness.
I am a big fan of Kahlil Gibran, and as I was cleaning out my bedside table I came across my old and battered copy of The Prophet.
Kalil Gibran
on children
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
The last paragraph is particularly touching for me. Never have these words been more true or more applicable to my life.
In God's time, with God's will.
