This year isn't unlike any other in the sense that I have spent
Christmas, New Years, Valentines Day, and coming up on St. Patrick's Day
without children. It's not like we had a child for those holidays last year and
now we don't. In that sense they are no different. But, it's what was suppose
to be that changes everything. Not only because we got pregnant and knew a baby
was on the way, but because we actually held a full term baby in our arms. I
gave birth to a baby at 37 weeks and 1 day. Lot's of babies survive at shorter
gestational ages than that.
I saw Liam in his perfection, all his features, his complete and whole
body. So those "firsts" that should have been seems all the more real
because I was so close to it. I was so close to that dream becoming a reality,
so close to getting to see Liam's personality come alive and watch him grow and
change. Yet, instead of a year of first hugs, smiles, kisses, waves, rolling
over, trying food, going to the beach, crawling, cooing, bathing, going to
Iowa, walking, new years, v-day, laughing, talking...instead of experiencing
all that with Liam for the first time, it's, the first car ride with an empty
car seat, the first baby dedication at church that our family should have been
a part of, the first thanksgiving he was suppose to be at, the first Christmas
of his life, the first trip to Iowa we took that he was suppose to be with us,
him wearing his hawkeye gear and watching the football games. The milestones,
like what should have been him turning 6 months old, him being in his first
ever Glynn family St. Patties Day parade. The list goes on and on. I will
experience the year of firsts both living in the present and everyday thinking
about the firsts that should be happening and everyday thinking about the first
s that should be happening.
This time of year the milestones are getting harder to pass. The time in
Jan when I had gotten pregnant and were telling immediate family came and went
and I thought about it but it wasn't an overwhelmingly sad day. This time last
year however, I was home in Iowa. I was 12 weeks along so Brad and I felt
comfortable sharing our exciting news with extended family. I told lots' of
family at the hooley and several cousins and I were talking at the parade about
how next year (meaning now) I would have a kiddo in the parade. It was
something that was so hard to fathom, yet at the same time I could picture
every detail about it and it was beyond exciting.
So this coming weekend when we are out here on the east coast and Liam
isn't here to celebrate us, it's seems really hard.
Liam would have turned 6 months old last Thursday. That is a big
milestone I feel like. Hard to believe in some ways he would have been that old
already. Yet on the other hand it feels like so long ago sine I held him and
rubbed his feel, and traced his face with my finger that it almost seems like a
dream.
Aaron was in CR on Friday and stopped by Liam's grave. He text us to let
us know he was there. It was so sweet of him to stop and meant a lot to us.
Brad and I were talking about it at dinner that night and we both
started crying. I told Brad that seeing Aaron type that he was at Liam's grave
just hit me like a ton a bricks. I mean I know Liam is gone, I was at his
burial, I helped design his marker. I have been there to see it, yet, for some
reason seeing the words "Liam's grave" just seemed so final, sad, and
gut retching. And yet at this same time of year when Easter is around the
corner. I am reminded again of God's overcoming death. After loosing Liam I am
even more thankful for God overcoming death. Liam's death makes what
Jesus did seem more real to me. I have always known I would die someday (it's
not something I think about often) and that I would go to heaven. I always knew
that Jesus made that possible for me, but since I think of Liam so often and
know he is in heaven, I think about heaven more often and I am more excited tat
I get to go there and see him. I am aware more often and Jesus death, his
resurrection, heaven, and being there one day. Easter this year like Christmas
has taken on a whole new meaning for me.
Part of my heart, part of me is up there. I understand how Jesus all the
more yearns to be with us for eternity cause part of his heart is down here on
earth. And as painful as it was for me to hold and see my son dead in my arms
and have to send him away and bury him. How much more painful was it for the
father in heaven to send his one and only son to die on the cross. It's like
Cory said "few people in the world will ever know love and loss like
this." We have caught but a glimpse as to what the father in heaven when
through. All the more that God knows exactly what I am going through and how I
feel because he himself lost his son. But his son was raised from the dead,
just as I will one day be reunited with Liam And oh, what a glorious day that
will be. I am reminded of an old song....
"When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be.
When we all, we all see Jesus, we'll sing and should the victory."
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