With a heavy heart...

So I think I have diagnosed myself as a hesitant blogger....I get so inside my own head that I have to get it out or I am going to go insane. However, I also tread lightly when opening up my complete emotional self to my computer. Totally more of how I complicate even the simplest of things. However complicated I may be, I feel as though I've totally earned that right these last few years.

For Christmas, gifts we took some family pictures and it was actually really nice to see all the kids together. It was also very hard for me and it honestly had not occurred to me that it would be. However, the entire time, I kept thinking in my head "We are missing one...no, these are not all the grand kids...wait, no those are just 3 of the boys, there should be 4." I tried and tried to push those thoughts out of my head, but that night as I lay in bed, it played over and over in my head that our son should have been there. And then came the anger. I notice it creeping up to the surface more and more these days. It swallows me whole and most of the time I don't even see it coming. After Kade died, I poured myself into work. I became a work-a-holic and let that be my obsession and distraction. I am now realizing I never took the time to grieve or let myself feel the other emotions outside of sadness. Now, it has built up so much that I catch myself being angry at the smallest things: tv shows of idiotic parents (ahem....16 and Pregnant??), the news when a story of abused children comes on, and these stories will bother me for the rest of the evening. With a very heavy heart, I must also admit that I have began an internal struggle with how I am so angry with God. I had so much faith and hope through this process and I found so much comfort in His word through our loss. But lately, I don't find that comfort any longer. I feel as though God took everything we believed and broke us completely. I realize we are far from perfect or the poster children for religion...but I also know with everything in me that we are good people. We didn't deserve to lose that security or belief in the world. I don't know what would justify "deserving" to lose a child...I don't mean that. It is so complicated to explain; I guess I just feel so hurt, betrayed, and just plain anger that we lost Kade and that we now live half empty or half broken. I am angry that my girls will not ever know their brother, that they have to try to comprehend his death at such a young age, that Kinsley cries because she misses her brother or because she can't see him. I feel so guilty for feeling angry and then I get angry that I feel guilty for being angry. Some days I just feel sad. Some days are days I spend angry. Most of the time, I am reminding myself of all we have to be so thankful for. In those moments when I watch my girls play or snuggle, I should know God loves us. How can we look at those beautiful babies and have doubts? I know eventually we'll get back to that place of finding peace in the faith we so clung to. It will come. For now though, I have to feel these emotions, feel the grief, and let myself find whatever it is I need to find to bring myself out of this feeling of unsettledness. I am a fighter...that's always been a part of me...and that is what my girls need to see in me. I fight for them. I fight for all the moms out there who feel the pain I feel and wonder how to muddle through it while keeping up with work, family, and life in general. I also have learned I have to fight for myself...no one else can do that for me.

Kinsley has really been inquisitive this week into facts about Kade's death. She has the usual whys, but also the fears of Karsyn going to Heaven, the need for more in depth details, and she has been looking at his picture albums more and more. Sometimes I have to remind myself that she's just 4. She always, and I mean always, says "Hi Bubba" as we pass the cemetery. Usually it followed with "we love you." And I don't do that...she didn't get that or over hear that from me. It touches a place in my heart that nothing else could. In those moments, I am reminded of how proud I am of her and how many lessons I have to learn from her.