small world...

what are the odds of meeting someone at a random dinner party that you met a long time ago?

what are the odds of a small world when it comes to God's divine appointments?

ian and i were invited to a friend's house last night for dinner. a small get together of people from our friend's workplace and then us and amy and kenny and the kids to mix it up. i wasn't really up for it. haven't felt very social this past few weeks. had a really hard time this week feeling motivated for anything and anyone. for several reasons, too many and too personal to get into here, the last two weeks have been trying and dark. i have missed our girl with a deep longing that can't seem to be quenched. by anything or anyone. not even Him. life has seemed too overwhelming to fit me, my grief and my confused mind of fear into it latley. being around new people and having to put forth effort in small talk seemed daunting and quite honestly tiring. but i went anyway. i wanted to push through it and try and shed some of the skin that was heavy and hurting by stepping out of my comfort zone. something in me, told me i should just do it. i should just go. so i listened. and went.

met some of our friend's workplace peeps and their kids. it was nice. grilling out, drinking cold beer. talking, yes-even small talk. it was good to be out of the house. i sat down next to amy as she fed grayson and was talking to one of our friend's colleagues from work. i started in on the asking of the usual questions, where are you from?, how do you like your job?

i told her, in fact, that i knew her boss and admired him greatly. he was very important in my and ian's life and we really respected him. i told her how much he had been there for us since our loss. " we lost our daughter late last year after a severe concealed placental abruption when i was carrying her at 30 weeks" i told her....

before i could finish, she looked at me, with tears in her eyes..."what date was that, if you don't mind me asking? was it like 7-8 months ago", she asked....

"yes, i said. it was november 29th and she was delivered on the 30th..."

what i haven't told you is that our friend is in his residency as an OB and we were hanging out with his OB colleagues from work...

she looked at me and placed her hand on mine..." i helped in your surgery, i scrubbed in on your delivery..i met your daughter. i remember you. you were very sick. very sick, " she told me with tears. " i got called in about 12am that night and helped your doctors get you better. i stayed the whole night to make sure you made it in ICU.."


we stared at each other. we both were teary. me more than her, of course. i couldn't stop staring into her eyes. "you met my sydney?" i asked her. "you were there?", i said. time stopped, i got the chills all over my body. and i placed my hand back on hers and told her thank you. "thank you, thank you," i said. amy and i looked at each other, amazed by the small world moment we were all having and we kinda just stared back and forth at each other in silence. i then, in classic alyssa self-deprecating humor and awkward wit that ""breaks the ice of awkward moments for me most times "" told her, "wow, you are the only one in this room who has seen my insides, huh? what did you think? ".."you have beautiful intestines, " she told me. we all laughed and dried our eyes and began to share our stories back and forth.

we sat together for over an hour i think, over a cold beer and some tears...and talked about that night. about my doctors and about my daughter. ian came inside and i shared the small world moment with him and he almost froze. he was speechless but walked over and gave the women a hug. and another cold beer. i mean, how do you really thank someone for helping saving your life? i mean, a beer doesn't even begin to cut it..but it was this intense man-moment ian was having where he didn't know quite what to do and he had this emotion of wanting to give her the world i am sure, but all we had near was cold beer....ha, we laughed. she got it. she knew what he meant.

we each talked about how amazing it was to meet each other, especially like we did, over dinner in a most random way. but i told her that random doesn't happen with God. i told her lucky i was to meet her. how honored i was to sit with her and hold her hand. how touched i was to hear her talk about our little girl. "she was absolutely beautiful," she said. "perfect."

she told me about my fibro-something levels and how she had never seen anyone's so low...that she had talked to other colleagues about "this girl who had less than 60 fibro-something levels", which is pretty much non-existent at that point" she told us. " you were really sick and loosing so much blood. you lost so much blood. it was pretty scary there for a bit, but by morning, you had turned around and were doing wonderfully..it was amazing," she said. i was "that girl" that she had shared with others about, so weird. i feel like we got closer to sydney last night somehow. we met someone who met her. who witnessed her very being pulled from my body and placed into a blanket, still and sweet and beautiful. she was there when our daughter was "born"....

i hope to keep in touch with this woman, her name...cara or kara. i am not sure. but a blessing from our God, i know that for sure. she wants us to try and get pregnant and have our next baby before her residency is up in the next year, so she can help deliver our next child. i would love that. how special would that be? as far as small worlds go, i think our big God could manage that one, don't ya think?

you will probably never read this sweet kara or cara...but our lives were touched in a special way last night. and we are grateful for you and what you do and what you did for us. and for meeting you over cold beers and fajitas. we are honored that you met our sydney. we are thankful for your help that scary night and for staying near to see us through. and we are most privileged to have met you face to face last night to be able to thank you in person.

needless to say, i am glad i went. overjoyed that i listened to myself and just went. what a gift i received in doing so. wow.