i'll carry you...

there are several momma's that i met four years ago. four women that changed my life. because at the time, their lives were changing just like mine. normal day life-thrust into-living day hell. burying babies. and trying to figure out how that played out in our faith. we met through blogs, ironically. our daily grief journals turned heart vomit diaries....

one momma was planted in pennsylvania while another was in missouri, one was planted in kentucky while another lived in california...and here i was in new mexico. if you took a thread or a banner, it would extend into almost a straight line connecting our states, connecting and threading our hearts....i even met a sweet momma (through etsy of all places) in the past two years from new york who's become a sweet dear sister friend and i smiled as i looked at the map today...seeing God's loving banner stretch all the way from the east to the west of my sister friends....threading our stories together through our losses and victories, our hearts and our faith...





these women, whom i had never met in person, soon became my soldiers turned sisters. they began to be my sanity and my voice and my support in the trenches. we became each other's midnight call or text or email when we'd be doubled over on the kitchen floor because we had found a newborn blanket or outfit that we just couldn't pack away. we'd be each other's sounding board for planning an infant memorial or a shock absorber when the enfamil milk samples were delivered to our door step. the house where there was no newborn.

we began a four year friendship that i truly believe was God inspired and led and planted and breathed. we worked out our faith and our questioning in a safe place with one another, we'd lift one up when the other was down and speak truth to each other and rally the weakest one, whoever's turn it was for the week or hour....we'd be each other's courage when ours had run out...our husbands thought us crazy many a times as we talked about these sweet sisters who meant so much to us, almost like family....faces we'd never met but voices were a balm to our heart more than any of us could explain or figure out....i remember the first time i heard one of their voices on the phone for the very first time..after so much sharing and talking through written word, to hear that voice brought me to tears and i couldn't stop crying....





we shared anniversary dates and death days and birthdays and the long month leading up to all of those that seems worse than the actual day itself...we've shared miscarriages following and crazy health issues as a result, we've shared subsequent pregnancies that we were sure we were either gonna lose like the ones before or go crazy mad in the waiting...we carried each other through all of it..i think of their babies often, they are a part of me now...their sweet kids here on earth and the angel babies that are with my girl.....





i started a tradition with their angel babies....on each of their birthdays, i would write their names on my hand with a sharpie. to last the whole day, through baths and dishes and crafts and dirt....i would carry their names on my hand, just as i was in my heart, so that i would remember that EVERY time i looked at my hand was only a fraction of the time they were thinking of their missing piece in their family that day...it was my best effort to try and "live that day with them" miles away, to try and "carry" their pain and thought process all day with them, even so far away...

liam once asked me what i was doing at the beginning and now his sweet heart just knows...."oh, it's asher or issac's birthday? oh it's blake and ethan's heaven day? oh it's the day we celebrate miller grace or lucy and asher's brother..." he knows it's something weird his momma does but he gets it....he's watching. he's learning. he's seeing what i'm carrying....

....one day we will meet in the middle, it's our plan, and stare at each other after the 45 minute hug. and cry. and eat chocolate cake and drink wine in a hotel somewhere together and stay up all night and laugh till our guts split and cry 30 boxes of kleenex worth of tears and feel the fruit of the carrying one another after all these years...in person. and agree that God's good grace brought us together. and made four friends scattered about the US to become sisters for life....

as weird as my hand writing on my man hands may be, it's just another way of walking this grief journey with my sisters....too many i've met on this road of suffering...so many mommas, so many states....so many angel babies....so much to carry. but not alone. never alone.




happy heaven day, birthday, sweet Blake and Ethan! you are greatly missed but your life still continues to bless and inspire others. your family is so strong and your precious momma is one of the bravest ladies i know, she loves you and misses you greatly. i am thankful for you both and for her. blessings and love sweet boys....