We have said that we feel like what we have experienced is
worse than a death. I don’t mean to
belittle anyone’s devastation of losing a child, so let me explain. When a child passes away, or anyone you love,
for that matter, they are gone forever.
As horrible as that sounds, there is a finality that death brings with
the promise of seeing your loved one again in heaven. In our situation with Jensen, he’s not
dead. He’s very much alive, just with
someone else. It would be better
compared to a kidnapping. We know he’s
out there somewhere but we have no way of knowing whether or not he’s hungry,
crying, cold, anxious or lonely. For me
to say that worrying about all of that breaks me over and over again each time I
think of it is a huge understatement. I can’t
even begin to accurately describe what it’s like to worry about someone who you
know you will probably never see again.
He’s 2,000 miles away from us and will probably never even know who we
are, how he changed our lives or how much we love him.
Tomorrow, Jensen will be 9 weeks old. Yesterday marks 8 weeks since he was taken
from us. As I thought about how much
time has passed since I was able to hold him in my arms, I remembered the words
to a Reba McIntire song. “If I had only
known it was my last night by your side, I’d pray a miracle to stop the
dawn. And when you’d smile at me, I
would look into your eyes and make sure you know my love for you goes on and
on. If I had only known, the love I
would have shown, if I had only known.”
Those words ring so true for me.
I can remember Jon talking on the phone that awful Tuesday morning to
his sister in law, Rhonda and him telling her that I wouldn’t put Jensen
down. That was absolutely the
truth. As we waited for the news that
would devastate us, I could not do anything but hold that sweet baby and look
at his precious face. The only time I wasn’t
holding him, his Daddy was. I wouldn’t
have done it any different. I just wish
I could have had more time. I know that
sounds bizarre since I know how it ended but I would give anything to have just
one more second with him. Just because
the ending wasn’t what we planned, doesn’t mean I would trade a single second
that we had with Jensen. Garth Brooks
sang it well when he said, “Our lives are better left to chance. I could have missed the pain but I’d have had
to miss the dance.” I was lucky enough to
have experienced the amazing joy of what it feels like to be a mommy, even if
for only 5 days. I would do it all over
again, even knowing how it would make me feel, just to touch his soft skin, see
his dark eyes and smell his unforgettable scent.
Now, without Jensen, we are learning to live our “new normal”. That may be hard for you to understand. You might be thinking, “Living without a baby
isn’t different for them, is it?” Our “new
normal” is learning to live our lives exactly the opposite of how we expected
them to be right now. I shouldn’t be
back to work yet. We should have car
seat bases in our vehicles. I shouldn’t
have time to write a blog. Jon should be
telling his work buddies a funny story about his cute baby. We should have a baby room full of presents
for a baby who is loved by so many. I
should be posting pictures on Facebook, like every other new mommy. And we should be waking up at night to feed a
baby, not from nightmares.
Life goes on and there really isn’t a damn thing we can do
about it but go on with it, hoping we can somehow learn something valuable from
our loss rather than be swallowed up by our all consuming grief.
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