In the span of four months, I grew up really fast. We found out about Layla's diagnosis in August and it's now December. Those four months went by pretty fast. In the beginning, I couldn't wait for what I have now. But, now, I want to go back about a month & know what to expect, know what to cherish, know what to do. I remember writing in a post, "How do things change when your baby doesn't come home?". I don't know how to explain the feeling of how things have changed, but they have.
I remember reading a blog post that I found online a couple weeks after we had that 'life-changing' ultrasound. It read:
There is no word for this. There is no word for this beautifully excruciating state of being, in which a parent has been separated from her child by death. There is no term to express the existence of a parent on earth while her child lives in Heaven. Why is that?
A person who has lost a spouse is a widow or widower. A child who has lost her parents is an orphan. They have terms to describe the change that took place in that moment of loss. They have terms to label their “new normal.”
I don’t.
When I look at my life before August, I feel like I was young. My life was easy. Our Pastor's message today was titled, "God Trusts Young People". Mary, is thought to have been only 13 years old when she had Jesus. I guess, my question to that is, why? Is it because we still have childlike faith? Is it because He knows that since we're young, it will grow and stretch us like crazy? Is it because He wants us to learn to trust Him early in our lives?
I'm only 26. But, I'm a different 26 now than I was before Layla. Different than I was before I had to pick up my baby's things from the funeral home. Her ashes, her beautiful white angel dress, her knit hat from her auntie, her pink blankie, and the wristband she wore at the hospital. I walked in the chilly air, down the sidewalk of a busy street, with a black bag of my baby's things. That was the moment that I realized, I'm all grown up.
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