April Showers. May Flowers.
April showers bring May flowers. Well, if that's the case, then for all the pollen-related allergy trouble we've had here and for all the rain we've had in this past week in South Louisiana, I fully expect a veritable floral EXPLOSION next month!
For me, April is difficult. It's a balance of joyfully celebrating the new life of spring and the sobering reminder of death and remembering lives lost, lives that "should've been" April 29th - 12 days from the date of this post, ironically enough - will mark the 12th anniversary/birthday for our little twins, Eric & Adam, who were stillborn. Just 10 days ago, on April 7th, we celebrated the 19th anniversary of our oldest daughter MaryJoe's death by miscarriage.
April is a hard month for me, to put it mildly. Every year, I get pleasantly distracted by the coming of spring & Easter preparations. Somehow I'm able to muddle through the early days of April leading up to MaryJoe's anniversary, usually by the hardest, but the nice weather helps. By the middle of the month, though, I'm irritable, easily disoriented, and usually feeling a little lost and a lot overwhelmed... And I'm unable to figure out WHY. This week, I felt so unexplainably overwhelmed and just disoriented in general that I thought of stepping away from my job (don't panic before I finish the story!). Friday, I was ready to curl up into a ball on my bed and cry. And I had not the foggiest idea why! All I knew was that I felt there was a thick, grey cloud hanging over me that was threatening to seep its way deep into my chest.
Today, a fellow sister-in-arms shared pictures of her sweet babe, who was also stillborn. Seeing those pictures... of her holding a new little person, a new little life that was sadly already lifeless… brought it all back. All the sights and sounds and smells and emotions from that awful day flooded my brain. It was exactly what I'd been feeling this week and the last 2 weeks. It was exactly what I'd felt when we lost MaryJoe. And Eric & Adam. And Henry. And Ella.
The fog of grief. Even though I was fully aware of the calendar, what month it was, what inevitably happens to me every year around this time, I still couldn't process it because of that damned fog. It never amazes me how my body can remember and how it physically responds to the grief. Even though my brain doesn't always remember, my heart never forgets.
My sweet, sweet sister in South Carolina sends me a short message every year at the very end of March: "I know April is hard on you. Please take care of yourself." Or something to that effect. I was reminded of that loving 'warning' today when I saw my friend's pictures. I promise, my sister, I will take care of myself. I will leave space in the day tomorrow to give voice to those thoughts and feelings that I don't like to feel but are necessary to heal. I will spend time meditating on His Word and on how HE wants me to move forward. Tomorrow I think the sun will be out, but I KNOW the SON will be there. And so I know the fog will burn off, and the sky will clear.
I'll be ready for the flowers.