Mourning

I almost feel too devoid of emotion at the moment to write this post and yet, writing is part of how I process, so maybe it's a good time. Maybe I'll start by telling you exactly how everything played out yesterday. Interestingly, the night before, Scotty had asked me if I still feared that Zion could die and I told him that I felt like he was through the worst of what he would probably experience and that now I was just trying to take each daily trial as it came. We also read a chapter from "The Praying Life", by Paul Miller, that talked about the way God weaves all things in our lives into part of His story. Sometimes, that story doesn't play out like we hoped it would, but it is so important to continue to look for God in the story and the different ways He redeems the story and brings it all together for a greater purpose. Little did we know how much we would be thinking about those ideas the next day. I heard Scotty's phone ringing about 6:30 Tuesday morning and immediately thought it might be a doctor calling- since people don't usually tend to call that early. I had a gut feeling something was not right when I couldn't hear Scotty talking- he had shut himself in the kitchen. When I went in, he said "this isn't good" and explained that Zion's organs were starting to shut down and we needed to go up as soon as we could. I asked if they thought he might die and he said it sounded like it. A wave of despair hit and after a minute of crying and telling Scotty that he can't die, we both went into action mode and somehow pulled ourselves and Natty together to make it up to the hospital. By God's amazing and constant grace, we had just enough time to hold him, talk to him, touch him and say good-bye- probably no more than 10 minutes. His heart stopped beating while Scotty was holding him. It was the first time we had been allowed to hold him, and the last time we would do it while he was living. The rest of the day was a blur of emotions, as I'm sure you can imagine. The only thing that really brought us hope or peace was the idea that Zion was being held by Christ, that he has a new and whole body, that He will never be in pain again and that he is full of joy before His savior. Truly that brings a smile to my face.

I'm realizing that grieving is so much more than just missing a person. It's missing what would have been, what you dreamed life would be like with that person, how that person would have affected your life. For Zion, we imagined this beautiful bond and playtime between him and his big sister. We imaged our house filled again with the little cries of a newborn. I imagined hours of holding him, rocking him, putting him to bed, nursing him, watching him discover his world and develop. We imagined a bigger family and the things we would do together. We imagined what his strong personality might be like and how he would interact with others. We planned to have kids close together so we could have a big family. We planned our future house with that idea in mind. We prayed that he would become a godly man of integrity. So many expectations and hopes that we must release and believe that God has a better plan. Medically, it's not even safe for me to think of conceiving again for a year- what do I do all that time without the baby I thought I'd have?? And yet, our hope is that God knew all of those things when He chose to take our baby to Himself. He knew about the waiting, the dreams, the expectations. And he found that it would be good to write a different story. I believe we will see glimpses of how that story intertwines with different areas of our lives and thank God for His great wisdom. For now, we take each day as it comes, thankful for a healthy little girl, thankful for people right here in our neighborhood and around the world that love us, thankful that God, too, knows what it is like to lose a son. We will pray for the patience to wait on Him.