I post on here alot. I bare pieces of my heart and soul to you, my dear readers.
I have 28 followers but there are more hits than that on my page when I post. I'd love to hear a little bit from you...so if you're reading or following or I know you in real life or you're just stopping in from somewhere in cyberspace...give me a little wave will ya...I could use the little pick me up right about now.
Hi Em, We've had quite a time with our sunflowers this year! My oldest, Josh, planted some in his garden in the backyard, but every time they got about 2 inches tall our neighbor, Mr. Chipmunk, would dig them up. Yesterday I was watering the raspberry patch which is in the front yard- guess what I found? I found two clumps of sunflowers sprouting up beautifully! I guess the chipmunk was busier than I expected! (He also ate all the juneberries off Emily's tree-we didn't get a single one this year!!) I am happy that perhaps we'll still have sunflowers. Our sweetpea bloomed and I hope it will come back again next year. I think of you and Eva everyday. Praying for Hope for you and thanking our God for the Spirit that fills you. ~Renee
ReplyDeleteThank you for the little uplift Renee. Sounds like your little chipmunk has been verrry busy.
DeleteIt rarely let's me comment from my iPad but I am here :)
ReplyDeleteThank you Merry :)
DeleteHi Em,
ReplyDeleteJust got back from the ocean...Point Judith in RI...The ocean always holds a special place in my heart. The last day that we spent with our little Caleb was at the beach. It does get easier each year remembering Caleb, for the most part.
I feel so close to God there...
Do you have a certain place where you can go to feel close to God?
I love reading your posts.
With Hope and hugs,
Cheryl
Cheryl, I feel close to God in nature. Just seeing the work of His hand in each blade of grass is strangely comforting. Thank you for sharing a little of Caleb's last day, he must have had so much fun there.
DeleteAnd thank you for reading and your thoughtful comments.
Hey there... I'm still reading. Love hearing about Eva. We share many of the same feelings, yours especially remind me of my first year without me son. ❤
ReplyDeleteThank you for the wave Molly, and thank you for reading.
DeleteHi Em, I am here, after just visiting your blog for the first time. Thank you for having me. Is Eva the little baby in the picture with you? I'm so sorry to join you here under such horrible circumstances, but glad you are sharing Eva's life, and yours, with others who are walking this road. Thinking of you and your family.
ReplyDeleteMrs J,
DeleteThank you for commenting. Yes, Eva is the baby in the picture with me. Ah, happier days those were. The photo was taken in March and Eva died in August. Still seems so unbelievable sometimes. I'm sorry you're walking such a sad road too, but glad you can find some company. It's a hard road. Don't I know it.
Love, Em
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo and here :)
ReplyDeleteSuzanne, I know you're here. Thank you for the xxxx and oooo. Very needed and right back at you honey.
DeleteWaving. I will pick up a stone for Eva at the beach tomorrow...
ReplyDeleteThank you Jen. Thank you. Very much. Really.
DeleteI am sending up some prayers for you tonight.
ReplyDeleteIts the 15th tomorrow and I know those are hard days for you.
Prayiing that tomorrow at church you will be able to look up and not look at the ugly rug:) I love your blog but all at the same time hate your blog! There is no doubt that your blog will help so many people going through the lose of a child. It helps me understand so much more about what YOU are going through and maybe how one can help when we don't understand what its like.
Know that I read your blog and have a huge burden to pray for you.
Thank you very much Heidi. Thank you for remembering the 15th without a reminder. Thank you for your frequent comments on my blog (cause I know it's hard to say anything sometimes on such a sad blog). Thank you for reading and thank you for praying, cause I feel so unable to pray so often it's good to know there are people out there picking up the slack for me.
DeleteEm. Thinking of you on Eva's day.
ReplyDeleteThank you Amanda. Thank you for remembering.
DeleteI read all of your posts. They are all so beautiful and heartfelt. Sorry I don't comment more often, but please know that I am thinking of you!
ReplyDeleteThank you Lydia. You too are on my mind as you go through this time with your second pregnancy. I want to follow your 'happy blog' too, but somehow, haven't made it over there. Thanks for reading and thanks for the comment today.
DeleteYour words were part of what helped me, this morning, to go to church and meet with God.
ReplyDeleteI met with other people, too - just enough, and of the kind who don't add to hurt. Better than expected.
Here, reading, valuing you.
And dreading August on your behalf...
Eva, you are so missed.
With love,
Cathy in Missouri
Dear Cathy in M,
DeleteYour comment warmed my heart more than many. On Eva's obituary we wrote that it was her family's prayer that Eva's sick heart would bring many hearts to Jesus. It is comments like yours here that bring tears to my eyes, because, this blog here is part of Eva. It would never have existed had she never lived and died. Thank you for sharing with me that you went to church again. I'm glad it was better than expected. Sometimes the biggest hurdle is just getting in the car and driving there...and sometimes not. Much love, Em
I suspect you know that I'm here and I hope you don't mind. I've gained a lot from reading your words here. I'm an oldie, here via Glow, and I'm the person with a lot of hair over her face in your follower list.
ReplyDeleteI'm waving as I know this was a very tough time for me, eleven months. Remembering your Eva, especially today xo
Oh Catherine W, Your suspicions are correct. I know you're here and I'm glad. I'm so grateful for glow and the people I've found there, you among them. But thank you for the wave today anyway...I really needed these extra comments just now.
DeleteThinking of you and your family today. xo Karine
ReplyDeleteThank you Karine.
DeleteEm,
ReplyDeleteIt’s TS from the BBS group in town (with daughter A). I’m one of those “hits” you’ve been seeing. I’ve wanted to post a comment for a very long time but to be honest I was worried about saying the wrong thing. Worried that I may have said the wrong things in the past when I posted on your CarePages site. If I have, I am so sorry! … I visited your blog today because it was the 15th, but your July 14 post was the kick in the pants I needed to write some things down. I see so clearly from your writing that you need to be heard. I hear you, and I read your blog frequently… more frequently as time goes on. I think of you and Eva often. Every day, probably. Many times a day sometimes. So maybe now is a good time to write down some of the random thoughts that have been floating around in my head regarding what I have read in your blog.
A recurring theme in your blog is how many people are critical of your grieving. I find this so difficult to understand. It seems cold-hearted to me. I know that it is terribly frustrating and hurtful to be told that what you are feeling is not legitimate. May I provide some small counter-balance to this and say that I accept as legitimate everything that you write about what you are feeling? Everything. Anything. Nobody can be the judge of what is the “right” way for somebody else to think or feel when they are grieving. I think: surely these people, whoever they are, cannot be parents. I can well imagine grieving for my whole life if I ever lost one of my children. My grandparents lost one of their three children at the age of 16, from cancer. I grew up knowing of Janice who had died before I was born, and there was one picture of her in the dining room, but she wasn’t often spoken of. I remember asking my grandfather about Janice one day (this would have been decades after she died) … and seeing the shadow of grief fall over him. It truly seemed an almost physical thing as though a cloud had covered the sun. The image stays with me years later.
The night I read about Eva’s flower garden, I lay in bed imagining what kind of flower I would plant for her. Then it came to me: maiden pinks. I used to have them in a little rock garden. They’re a low, ground-covering plant with little pink flowers, and they’re just so pretty and delicate they just about make my heart ache to look at them.
Though it may seem strange, I really related to your posts about your fears about your sons dying. I have not lost a child, no (I almost fear writing those words, almost hear the word “yet” attached to the end of that statement) … so I have no doubt that you feel this fear differently than I do. But to the extent that I can, I get it. Death can happen so terribly easily, and in so many ways. How does one guard against them all? When I think of my own death, I think that it will be enough if I can simply live my life without any of my children dying before me. I think these thoughts more and more as the time approaches for my own daughter’s cardiac surgery, sometime in August likely (it “should” be fairly straight forward, and yet probabilities are just a game of roulette and so I am terrified). Again, I don’t mean to imply that our situations are the same or that I can fully understand the ordeal you are going through … just that you are not alone in your thoughts and fears.
Please keep up the writing. It is something special.
T
Trish?
DeleteFirst off, thank you for this comment. And you've never said anything on carepages that bothered me. And to be clear, there have been very few incidences of people who have hurt me so deeply with their words. There was only one person IRL who really criticized the path I am walking but you know how hurtful words zoom around and around in your head that you simply cannot let them go. Well, that's how this was for me.
I am also not the person I used to be so impossible to really keep the friends I had when I was that other person.
Thanks for the 'maiden pink' flower name. I will have to look that up and get it next year. It sounds lovely and the name is perfect too. Thank you for even thinking about what kind of flower you would plant. That means the world to me.
It really does. I would really like to know what kind of cardiac surgery your daughter is having-is it A? I really hope all goes well, but, like you said, it feels like roulette...and I would be terrified too. Thank you for reading and, especially, thank you for letting me know you are there...I often wonder who is actually reading my blog...
Hi again,
DeleteYes, my daughter is A. She has a double aortic arch – she has two aortic arches instead of the usual one, and these are wrapped around her trachea and esophagus causing breathing and swallowing problems. Thankfully her heart itself is fine, which is not always the case.
By the way, maiden pinks come in pink or white – I think the pinks are the prettiest. They are a perennial. I’ve had them grow back in the spring when we lived in a colder zone than where you are, so they should for you too. I think I probably mulched them over the winter though. When I find the time to make another little rock garden, I’ll plant some maiden pinks for Eva. When A is a little older, I’d like to tell her about the little girl who shares her birthday.
I really hope the surgery goes well. I would like to hear how it went when it's over too. Is it happening at the S hospital in E-town? I would love if you told little A about Eva. I went to the greenhouse today to pick out a tree that we will plant on August 15th. I looked in on the perennials and they had some maiden pinks but only one box and they were kind of raggedy but I got to see them and you're absolutely right, they're perfect. I will plant some next year when I make a perennial garden but this year I only had it in me to buy annuals. Thanks TS.
Delete