Christmas is over. It was a good one. It still just opens the hole in my heart when I take the socks off of the mantel and I know that Logen's will remain empty. It's always easy to put it up, I need to see his name lined up with everyone else's, but taking them down and filling them and having this empty sock just laying there kills me every year. It has become the one moment of the holiday that I just can't seem to get through. I miss him!

It's our 5th Christmas without Logen. We are decorating, cooking, putting up lights all of the usual stuff that has taken us time and years to want to do again. But still I dread Christmas shopping. I don't know that it will ever get easier to shop for everyone but him. We are still doing service for his gifts and it helps. But it's not the same. I love and hate this time of year. The sadness is so close. My heart is aching and homesick for him.

every now and then the piece of my heart that belongs to Logen opens into a hole as big as the universe and starts to bleed.

Relief

August is over, it wasn't as bad as it has been. Still it lingers in the background, all of the memories, all of the experiences. I wonder if August will just be normal ever again? I doubt it. But this year is the first year that I have hope it will get down to just one or two days that are hard and the rest of the month will just be August.

Happy Birthday in Heaven

Happy Birthday, I hope that you will be here in spirit with us for the birthday party. It's amazing to see Cole be so big, but even though he is right in front of me, I still wonder what you would look like. How would you be different, how would you be the same. This year has been better than any year in the past. I guess I have grown used to the idea of you being in Heaven. I'm grateful that it hasn't been so painful, but still missing you.

4 years

4 years hasn't diminished my desire to see him, know him, hold him. My heart still aches, it's old grief, familiar grief, and I know it will pass. I wish almost that the familiar feeling of Heaven pressing in around me and holding me up was still here. I miss the feeling around me of when the veil was so thin but as I have moved on and forward, that has gone away, but I felt so close to him then, he feels very far away now, further than it has at any other time. I know he is busy about the business of the Lord and that he knows that his mother loves him, but he also knows that inspite of my moments here in mortality when I ache for him, he doesn't need to be constantly at my side, and I miss that feeling.

It's almost August

My heart wants to hang on to you,
It tells me that I have to stay here
In the past,
Where you are
Or I’ll really and truly lose you,
Because this is where you were.

The spirit whispers in my mind,
That the way to get to you
is forward
Always forward,

Moving forward feels like
I'm Leaving you behind

Difficult to accept

It’s hard to let it go
And walk forward,
Trusting that my journey
Forward into the time
I have left to live will
In the end
Take me back to you

It still makes me cry

I'm missing you tonight. I wish you didn't have to be where you are. I still want you here.

Pictures from Memorial Day

I know it's almost July, but I finally down loaded the pictures from the Memorial Day and the picnic in the park after.

memorial day

Even though it was nice to see all the flowers around the headstone, there is a part of me that still just wants to scream at the world, it is so unfair!!!!!!!!!

deja vu

We were at my sisters house tonight for a birthday party and it was fun and I was sitting on the edge of her couch and I had this flash back to a moment that I had had when Cole was little.

He was probably only 6 or 7 months old and I was sitting on the couch holding him in one arm and my new niece, who was about 3 months old, in the other and they were just about the same size, she was maybe just a little smaller, and I was overwhelmed for a moment with feeling what it was to hold 2 babies in my arms, the way it was supposed to be, and I just sat there and cried. My b-i-l, came in and saw me distressed, offered to take his little daughter, but it felt so good to hold 2 babies, even though it was heartbreaking too.

for a second tonight that feeling came back, that memory. I still wish there were 2 here to hold.

Journal Entry

I had been working nights in order to have our kids out of a daycare setting, I had already had strep throat from work and shortly after that I started to throw up and I knew I had taken care of people with the stomach flu. I was beginning to hate working where I was because I was catching everything that was airborne, or so I thought. My period was late, I was throwing up, and after 9 years of infertility I called my Dr. to ask for a shot to start my late period. I knew I was not pregnant. I felt pregnant, my period was late, but in my rational brain I was not pregnant. I think even then in my heart I still had hope. My doc said take the pregnancy test and bring it up with a negative and they'd give me the shot. So of course I went to the store and bought the cheapest test I could find, went home and peed on the stick. It was positive. I still have this memory of sitting on the toitet watching those pink lines show up and my husband saying "well?" and telling him it was positive. His only response was, "how cheap was the test?", the cheapest I could find of course, I wasn't wasting money on this!

a miracle

and little did we suspect at that point, the beginning of the hardest and most heartwrenching experience of our lives.


And now, that I know the end of this beginning, I cry just thinking about writing it all down, so it's not forgotten, so He's not forgotten. But it matters and if I don't write it, who could?

Time to write

I was updating the music on the blog the other day and the kids came in and were kind of looking at things over my shoulder and started to watch the slide show. Before I knew it, Ian was crying, Sara was crying, Cole and Aislynn were just glued to the screen. When the picture of Ian holding Logen came on, Ian said " I don't remember holding him!, I miss him!" I realized that although Logen being in heaven is something that comes up frequently in our daily conversations, Logen's time on earth hasn't really been talked about much and my children were really little when it happened! They don't have the memories that I do. A blessing in many ways, but I can see that they don't want to forget him either. I need to write it all down.

So..

I'm going to start writing it out in posts here on the blog. This will be for my children and I, but I will leave it open to anyone to read. My family and friends know that I have a strong testimony of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and that I am an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints and that it influenced every experience I have had, I need to write it all down so it is not forgotten, so that my children know that I have a strong and firm testimony of my Saviour's love for me and that I know that my Heavenly Father knows and loves me and was mindful of me every moment of the way and often was the only one able to provide the solace and comfort I so desperately needed. I need my children to know that even in the darkest hours of our lives, Heavenly Father loves us, the Saviour loves us, He died for us! Even when I was being asked to the hardest thing a mother could ever do, return a child to Him, I felt his love and knew that he would help me through. I am grateful everyday for the knowledge I have of that love and how grateful I am that I know one day, Logen will be mine to raise again!

little things

Isn't it interesting that grieving happens at moments, not on a timeline. Time helps, that is true but it only takes a thought or a smell and I am back in that moment of loss and it is just as fresh as the original moment. It doesn't last long and I have learned a long time ago how to control my emotions, but inside I'm shaking and crying. All it was was Cole laying his head on my chest for a moment in church and I looked down at his head and it just hit me, Logen's not here. He will never be here. I will never have this moment in mortality with him. The pain and grief just go through me all the way to my soul. I had Aislynn wanting to sit on me and Cole trying to get his share and I thought there should still be one more little boy, pushing to get on my lap, but he's not here. It only lasted a moment. I think I will always have a piece of my heart that just aches for what might have been.

Twinless twin

On our flight from San Diego we flew with a set of young adult identical twin boys. OOOHHH it made my heart ache! Just for a moment I caught a glimpse of what might have been, instead I have a sweet little boy who points to the picture on my wall and says " I miss Logen!" All I can say is me too Cole, me too.

grieving causes insomnia

I know my last post was full of self-pity and it's not that I really feel self-pity, it is just that I am overwhelmed sometimes by the task ahead of me, living my life in such a way that the Lord can't deny me the opportunity to raise Logen. I'm so human and I constantly make mistakes and I fumble around as a parent and I am afraid that I'm not good enough to be his Mom. At least if he was here I would have the opportunity, screw ups and all, to be his Mom. I want that more than anything. I want with him, what I have with my other children... a lifetime.

How could Heavenly Father think that I could possibly do this for the rest of my life? It feels so hopeless sometimes. I don't know how to earn him back.

I miss him

I'm longing for him tonight. cole is getting so big and my memories seem to be getting smaller.

Thinking

I think too much. I think that is why I have stayed sooooo busy since Logen died. I remember the doctor telling me to go home and take it easy and thinking yeah right, I have 3 kids at home, one in the NBICU and a funeral to plan and I felt like I was being sucked into a void so full of pain that I couldn't breathe. I stayed up cleaning until I could collapse and go to sleep without thinking about where Logen was. I tried to do that everynight, not sleeping or quitting until I could just collapse. It didn't work.

I still haven't figured out how to turn off my thoughts and just not think about it. It doesn't bring me to my knees like it used to. But I realize in this break from school where I am only working full time and trying to keep up with my family, that maybe going back to school was a way of staying too busy to think. It didn't work either.

I am finally realizing that it's okay. I wish I had the personality to just accept and move on. Chad is much better at that than I am. I have to think it to death. It doesn't change anything. I just have to keep trying to wrap my mind around it. trying to make it be okay. I have learned that those kind of feelings come from the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, and they come when I need them the most, not always when I want them, because...

because the Lord allows us to be tried in the refiners fire, to become what he wants, He knows that he doesn't need to remove our trials but that we can overcome everything, EVERYTHING, that we have to face if we will turn to him and let our Savior carry what we cannot, HE makes up the difference, whether we believe or not, He does, and I now Know this, not just believe it,

because the Lord understands how much I love my son and he has let me know that my sorrow is a Godly sorrow and I have his permission to grieve as long as I don't let it hinder my progress back to him and back to Logen with the rest of my family intact,

Because my Father Loves Me and knows that in the end, I will have all I have mourned for and more returned to me a Hundred fold if I will just hang in there and do my best, so he really hasn't taken anything from me, if you look at this in an eternal perspective. I just have to remember not to think like a mortal. It's hard.

but I'm trying.

It has been 3 1/2 years and I am finally able to be more thankful than sad, I'm thankful he is mine, I'm thankful that I got to hold him, and touch him, I'm thankful that Heavenly Father has blessed me so abundantly. I have known true sorrow, but I now recognize joy and I am thankful for it. I am thankful for the clarity of purpose that the grief and difficulty of allowing Heavenly Father to ask for the return of my son so soon has given. I am still striving for the patience and the grace to bear it with serenity. I am thankful that I was not asked to send both of our sons back to him so soon. I am grateful for my grief and the compassion and ability to be compassionate to others as a result of my grief. I am grateful for a plan of salvation that promises me his safe return if I remain faithful. I am grateful for the opportunity to raise his brothers and sisters and I am trying to do it right.

But I still have moments when the memories are strong and I miss him.

Memories of places no mother should have to be with their baby.

Memories of the amazing amount of love and support of those around me, bearing me and my family up when we were weak.

I have been blessed with an abundance of Love in my life and I'm grateful.






Why is tonight so hard?
I don’t know…
Somedays my grief is as heavy
As the whole wide world

Other days it is
Light enough that I can
Walk, Laugh, live and love

But always it is with me
It is my constant companion
Always there

some days
It is a thousand pounds
And the weight
Feels like it will steal
My breath, and
I can barely
Take a step
because the weight
Is too much

So why is tonight so hard?
The answer is
Like all of the other questions
That I have asked on this
Journey,


I don’t know.


But God does,

And he will
Lift the weight of the
World for me
Until I feel strong enough to
Try again.

So, I will continue on
And trust that in the morning
I will have the
Strength to pick up this
Burden and take it along
And that maybe
It will be easier to
Carry with
The beginning of
another day.