Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Pain

Some days it's like reliving it all over again when something out of nowhere triggers that pain. The pain of losing your child. Flower was never ours, she was our foster child. But as we prepared to hand her to her great aunt's 2 years ago (this Saturday) it felt like we were losing our child. It came out of nowhere for us since we hadn't been kept aware of her process in gaining custody. Had we had proper time to prepare and know her it wouldn't have felt as bad.

She came back, we adopted her and the fear of losing her again has eventually faded away. But that pain is still there sometimes. And as I was scrolling through facebook this morning I saw my friend post a happy birthday post about her daughter who was born 2 years ago. It's a time in my life that I was at my saddest and I just couldn't celebrate with her like I knew I should. And during the time Flower was gone my friend had her daughter dedicated at church and invited us. We of course went and I knew it could be hard but could never have known just how hard it was. I was brought to tears and was grateful another very observant friend was sitting next to me. The pain of celebrating and dedicating my friends little girl when I so desperately had hoped we'd be doing the same with Flower was just too much for me.

And then this morning came and I read that post and I felt the tears threaten to spill. The fear is gone but the pain is real. And it's not just real in me, it's in our family. Each one of us shows signs of still feeling the effects of losing Flower.

Experiencing this today made me once again realize that I should never tell my kids to just get over it, or to move on. Sometimes they are acting out of trauma that has been triggered by something that I might not understand. I know right now we're struggling with an overly emotional Flower and Tinkerbell is pushing in ways that make me wonder if she still has walls of protection up around her heart.

Our family, and so many other families, need prayers for healing to come. But before the healing comes we need prayers for understanding and sympathy with how to help each other through these tough times.




3 comments:

Mommy3 said...

Praying for you and your family. <3

Rebekah said...

Your posts are offering me great encouragement in that we're not alone. Many brave souls have walked this haunting path - trusting God, but dripping mud with each step.

Anonymous said...

Love this post. So relatable.