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Wednesday's Woe
Cleaning and Crying
~Tommy and Angie Prince
Okay, so it's been 4 years since we've cleaned. Well, maybe not quite that long. But really, grieving takes so much out of us, major cleaning jobs get postponed. So today, Tommy dug into the laundry room. Literally. Clothes were piled up for oh about 2 to 3 feet... Our son found clothes he forgot he had.... And we found clothes we forgot Merry Katherine had...
The floodgates burst open. First for Tommy when he found them, and later for me when he brought them to me. What got me were the festive little outfits. What got Tommy were the things I had hanging up in the laundry room...her Brownie Scout vest with all her merit badges attached, her Girl Scout vest... and then her middle school track warm-up suit with her name embroidered across the maroon and white jacket. Tommy's heart sank when he saw the warm-up suit. And when he found the Brownie vest, he could hardly maintain his composure.
But then when he found her little black sweater with the pom poms on it that she wore so often and her favorite jean jacket with the long brown fluffy fur on the collar, he lost it.
Holidays are once again upon us, and she won't be here. But her precious little outfits are here. (Tell me, how are we supposed to get excited about "celebrating" when our baby girl is gone?)
...I went to the Sam's Club website earlier tonight and found some ideas for Thanksgiving recipes; they looked luscious so I copied a few... Then I made the mistake of reading "Tips" for Thanksgiving, and it began giving ideas for making the holiday more festive... ideas I had used for years and years for my babies... setting out pilgrims and Indians, candles, our best china and silver, and our white, elegant-with-lace tablecloth, then pulling out children's books to read to commemorate the holidays... Then the contrast of worlds hit me like a ton of bricks:
BUT THAT WAS BACK THEN... THEN, when things WERE festive, and fun, and light-hearted...celebratory.
Last night, we read a devotional about the need to "accept" your baby's death. Well, guess what. This is all a part of "accepting" the horrible reality of what you don't want to be but is, and it sends you back to the starting line of grief. Ain't acceptance great? Happy Holidays. Yeah.
Picture of broken heart thanks to photobucket.com
