Walking on Crutches

I am getting a bit of a slow start this morning. Sarah and I have our "date" to get pedicures and then we're going to go pick up the shirts for the SHARE Walk for Remembrance and Hope that is October 2. We will be walking to remember Faith and all of the other babies lost too soon. But as I said, I'm getting a bit of a slow start on this day.

Last night, I crashed a bachelor party. Okay - not really. But I did show up to one to pick up my lovely husband so he did not have to drive home. And it was not the gaggle of debauchery that you might imagine. They were at a casino being boys, so my presence was not all that cumbersome. I actually ended up staying for awhile with Jamie and we learned to play Roulette - and actually walked away with a whopping $16 more than we started with. All in all, a good night. And I learned that when you know what you're doing at a gambling table, it's actually pretty good entertainment! So we had a very late night - later than I can think of in recent memory - and now I'm trying to caffeinate myself into being productive today and making my date with Sarah.

As part of my groggy "join the land of the living" process this morning, I began checking some of the blogs I follow and was thrilled to see that Angie Smith had posted something new! (See the "Bring the Rain" link on the sidebar.) I love her voice in her writing and I almost always take something away from what she has to say. Her blog was the first one that I found and began reading when we received Faith's diagnosis, so it holds a special place in my heart. Angie Smith simultaneously makes me laugh and cry and think, all while simply talking about her life and her struggle to live wholeheartedly and joyfully, even after losing their infant daughter in 2008. She is a Christian woman married to a man that is a member of a Christian band, so her faith and spirituality are common in her writing. Today she talked about the story of Lot, which is essentially about listening to God's plan for moving forward and not looking back (or at least, that's what I took from her message.) I am, by no means, an expert at Biblical stories.

It's about trusting that you have to look ahead and leave behind you what is behind you. It's not about forgetting it, but it is about trusting that there is something in front of you that is worth moving forward for and that trusting God means leaving behind you what you must. Sometimes this is incredibly difficult to do and to believe. I even expressed to Jamie the other night that sometimes I feel guilty if I'm having an "okay" day and feeling pretty good. I worry that it means I'm forgetting or "moving on," even when I know that forgetting is an impossibility and "moving on" is a phrase that has a whole new meaning. He wryly laughed and assured me that would not happen - and I know that it won't. I know that to us, "moving on" simply means that we keep going. It means we find a way to weave Faith into the life we have without her because we believe that there is something else awaiting us. So, we talk about her and do things to remember her, like the walk in October - all the while doing it with a hole inside our hearts.

I've heard it said that when you have a child it's as though a piece of your heart is walking around outside your body. What a profound sentiment - and very true. Jamie and I feel that everyday - that a piece of our hearts is missing because it belongs to Faith. It is with her and will always be. To us, no matter what else this life brings, no matter how much good we have - we will always be doing it with a missing piece. Our family pictures will always have a hole in them; they will always feel incomplete to us. So, how do we trust that we must keep walking forward? I'm not sure I have this one figured out yet - I just know that some days we do this with a skip, and other days we do it as though we're walking on crutches. But, we trust and so we do - and we do it with the spirit of Faith in our hearts. Because now that's where she resides - in our hearts and in our dreams and in our memories.

Despite my groggy start to the day, I feel like today I might walk a little lighter. No hobbling today - today I will skip because I choose to.

Erica