This year Thanksgiving passed me by without me even remembering.
Last year we were at Disney.
The year before we were anxiously awaiting Asa’s arrival.
The year before that we were sitting-quite unexpectedly-at our little house in northeast Georgia.
I can still hear the voices of my family, my friends whispering in the other room.
Not sure what to say, but just being there…
I can still remember sitting in the ultrasound room, my eyes straining to see what was no longer there.
I can still remember my OB coming into the room.
I’d held it together until she walked into the room.
I can still remember waking up in the recovery room to friendly faces.
Friends who postponed their own holiday plans for me. For me.
I can still remember calling the mom of “my girls” that I nannied.
And I remember being so grateful that she was a doctor because all I could eek out on the phone was,
“I’m having a D&C. You’ll explain to the girls?”
I can still remember sitting alone at my basement desk, writing this post.
I can still remember talking my friends into going to a movie with me-
A movie that I loved, they hated.
I can still remember so much about that day, those days.
I can still close my eyes and end up in any one of those moments.
(Although in my mind they never occur in the sequence that they occurred in real life.
Like my mind was trying so hard to take it all in, that there was no time for proper sequencing as it was all being filed away.)
I can still remember so much and yet…
There are times that I forget.
It’s always right there, hidden in the back of my mind.
But sometimes it just gets covered up by all the other stuff, all the other chaos that defines my life.
And then I read something like this:
I was okay, and not okay. I changed diapers and folded laundry and wrote…and I flinched every time I saw the date on the calendar, the date that would have been the due date…How do you mark a birthday that isn’t a birthday at all?
(from Shauna Niequist’s book “Bittersweet“)
And I remember.
I see pictures of babies who were born when my baby was supposed to be born.
And I remember.
I talk to someone who has recently had a miscarriage.
And I remember.
I hear another child called by his name and my throat catches.
And I remember.
I will never forget…and yet, I am thankful that I don’t always remember.
That baby, forever known in my heart as my sweet little Elijah, is as much a part of me and who I am as my other children.
But as I get further and further away from the day that changed me,
I find that I think of him less and less.
And sometimes I feel guilty about that.
But mostly…it makes me more grateful for the children I do hold in my arms.