Be Still

Here's the thing.

I hate being sad.  Really, it interrupts my flow - the way things run day to day, the things I do, the people I see...it's an inconvenience.  And it's not my natural way to exist in the world - I am an optimist, hopeful, always wanting to see the best in circumstances and people.  I am generally a pretty happy person - easy going - and it takes a lot to get under my skin.

So the past 2 weeks have been hard for me for a multitude of reasons.  There have been many days I've wanted to jump back into life, moving forward, pretending that things are ok.  Pretending I'm fine, things are fine, life is fine.

But there is this overwhelming theme that is running through my head to "Be Still"

Be still.  Be still.  Be still.

It's not my thing, being still.  I am not one who enjoys being alone with my thoughts.  I prefer socialization to solitude.  But through this period of grieving, God is teaching me to be still.  To feel.  To process.  To be sad.  And that's ok - because as much as it hurts, I know it's healing me.

The day after my surgery, I met up with my sister at a Starbucks so she could drop Logan back off with me after spending the night with her family.  We were talking in the parking lot when my little niece looked me square in the eye and said with an absolute, pure sincerity, "Miranda, I am really sorry your baby died."

The words both stung me and soothed me all at once.

No one wants to be in a place in life where they HAVE to hear those words.  But you know, it was really the first time anyone had said that to me.  So blunt in its context, so pure in its intention, so beautiful in the way it soothed my heart.  Her words have stuck with me for the last 2 weeks and I find myself repeating them to myself.  "I'm really sorry your baby died"

I love the sincerity and honesty of children. A child only knows how to feel and to process emotions in the raw way they should be processed.  They don't try covering it up, burying it, pretending it didn't happen.  Children FEEL - they cry, they shout, they get angry.  They laugh, they feel joy, they smile.

And being still involves all those things - to just sit and to feel.  And to allow myself the freedom to do it.

My husband posted something on Facebook recently:

"Thank you" is the best thing you can say when praised and "I am so sorry" is the best thing you can say when talking to someone who is hurting.  

I think we have both learned a lot about death and grief through this experience.  I have always been one who would shy away from talking to people about sad things.  I wasn't sure how to phrase things or what to say.  I was worried I would upset them - but what I have learned is that a sincere, heartfelt "I am so sorry" has been the best thing I could ever hear.  This experience is teaching me how to have a genuine compassion for those who are struggling with sadness and adversity.  God has taught me to be still and to be simple.

Last night I was gchatting with my husband, who was in Oklahoma on business, and he asked me how I was feeling.  I told him fine, besides the cough but that I was feeling better.  And he said, "But how is your sadness?"  And we got talking a little bit about how I was feeling on that level - I told him how I sleep with the lights on when he's gone, because the darkness makes me sad and how I was anxious for the test results to come back so we know if the baby was a boy or a girl and can give him or her a name.  I said it was hard to move forward when I know any day we will get information that will set the grieving process back to the beginning again.  I told him that when I lie in bed, I just lay there thinking about the baby.

And he said, "You know the baby is deliriously happy right now, right?"

Isn't that a beautiful thought?  Here I am, at times, overcome and debilitated by sadness.  But the baby - our baby - is happy.  Deliriously so.  I hadn't been thinking of it that way.  Not really.  Sure I believe our child is with Jesus - but I was feeling so sorry for myself, and second guessing everything I've done over the past 5 months that I hadn't really stopped to think of how deliriously happy our baby is right now.  And while it doesn't take away the pain I feel, it helps me a lot to think of it that way.  And it brings a smile to my face to imagine it.