Wednesday's Woe - The.Four.Dreaded.Words. ~Tommy Prince

Wednesday's Woe

The.Four.Dreaded.Words.

~Tommy Prince

Coming out of the holiday season, The.Four.Dreaded.Words I hate to hear amidst our immediate family:

"Let's all get together."

It seems I can function okay until I hear these words, and it stops me in my tracks. All the wheels lock up. Everything stops. And I cannot function.

For example: We go into a restaurant.

"How many are in your party?"

The number 5 comes to mind... Then once again, I'm stopped in my tracks. Someone's missing. This isn't right. I must say, "4."

Take last week, last Thursday. We are walking into Angie's mother's funeral. I am walking down the aisle, seeing the crowd of people, hearing the music, smelling the flowers, seeing the casket... and being directed to sit on the front row. I almost keep going...back down the aisle...and out the door.

But I don't. I stop and sit down.

About the time I regain my composure, I look up at the stage. Angie is up on the stage to speak at her mother's funeral, but only two of our three children are standing with her... It is almost more than I can take. Here come the tears...

Now, we're back home and are anticipating two family birthdays coming up - Nathan's, then mine. It is something I should look forward to, but I don't. I dread it. It is now impossible for "all" of us to Get.Together.Ever.Again.

picture: http://www.northrup.org/photos/quebec/pink-flower-missing-petal.htm

Wednesday's Woe - Cleaning and Crying

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

Wednesday's Woe - The Heavy Presence of Your Absence

Wednesday's Woe

The Heavy Presence of Your Absence

The emptiness from your absence fills the vapid room;

The Great Void o’ertakes silence like the sonic boom...

Though no one speaks it, your absence brings such gloom;

Yes, your spirit’s in Heaven, though your body’s in the tomb…

How do we celebrate Christmas...when our baby’s left our “womb”?

The Heavy Presence of Your Absence sucks air from the room,

Sapping life-giving air from each person in the room,

Filling hearts with dread, sealing each of us with doom.

The heavy presence of your absence within our room does loom…

And yet the spirit of your presence fills the air like sweet perfume

So despite death’s cold of snow, out peeks the spring thaw’s bloom…

Poem - The Great Void Sucks the Air from the Empty Room - Angie Bennett Prince – 11/21/09