July 2, 1989, I made a wish.
July 2, 2005, I made a wish.
July 3, 1989, my 15th birthday! The day I was going to the DMV to get my driver's license! Oh yeah!
I had the perfect outfit, a great shade of lip gloss, my hair was ready, my face was smooth...yep, it was going to be a great day to take that long awaited photo in front of that blue screen!
I was ready! My worst fear for that day was that I would fail to yield like sister did when she took her driving test. (sorry, sis!)
That fear rapidly faded because I never made it to the DMV that day... instead I stood in dead silence at the hospital as my brother held his lifeless son and sang to the both of us "Happy Birthday..."
My 15th birthday was the day Christopher Lloyd Clark would enter and leave this world. Christopher was born still...
I was prepared to get my driver's license, but not prepared for this.
No one was.
Sad, it was so sad. Unexpected, it was so unexpected.
As a teenager I was so focused on myself and shoes and driving but I knew that day it had all just changed...I just didn't realize how much.
I cannot even remember when I got my driver's license after that but I remember the day that I didn't get it very well.
I was uncomfortable receiving a "Happy Birthday" on my birthday (those that followed) when my brother's baby was not.
How was I to adjust to this for the rest of my life? How would I celebrate my birth without remembering his death?
How would my brother? How could I eat cake while his son could not?
Finding the balance of being okay to celebrate my birthday again was hard after Christopher died. I am not really sure how successful I ever was with that though I tried.
My memory is vague as to when I actually started having "Happy" Birthdays again...but I do remember when they stopped permanently...July 2, 2005, the day before my 31st birthday.
This would be the day that my baby boy would die.
July 3rd, 2005, on life support, while my baby was in a morgue, I turned 31 years old.
Sixteen years minus one day from the day my brother's son passed away, Matthew died.
July 2, 2005, had Christopher lived, he would have been getting ready for his visit to the DMV.
No one would be going to the DMV and I wouldn't be blowing candles out again...
Eight years later, here I am still, while Matthew and Christopher remain buried just a few feet away from each other. I am here with these two days weighing heavy on my heart, always.
Surrounded by memories of loss and feeling very sad about my birthday. I am so tired of being sad about my birthday.
My birthday comes with such tragic memories for our families and it has since 1989...that is a long, long time.
I don't want cake...I don't want gifts...
But I do want a "Happy" Birthday...
I am determined to make it different this year.
I am choosing to make it different this year.
I am determined to smile more than cry and I am determined to find the "happy" in my birthday...for Christopher, for Matthew and for myself.
My wish for my 15th birthday was for my nephew to be born on my birthday, yes that was my 15th birthday wish. It came true...hauntingly true.
My wish for my 31st birthday was to have Matthew while I was still 30 years old, yes that was my birthday wish. It came true...hauntingly true.
I quit making wishes, for there is so much pain in the very words I spoke for my 15th and 31st birthdays. So very much pain.
Today I courageously use that pain to make a wish. A wish that has the potential to make someone smile instead of cry...and I will be the first to say that someone could and probably will be me!
I need YOUR help!
That's why I am here today giving you this background in hopes that it will help you understand why this wish is so important for me...
This wish that I will be posting here soon!
You are faithfully using the megaphone! I read this today, it's an older Ann Voscamp blog entry. It made me think of you, Lori, and Laurie Young as you come up on your big days. Hope you don't mind my posting it here.
ReplyDelete" Murmuring thanks isn't to deny that an event isn't a tragedy and neither does it deny that there's a cracking fissure straight across the heart. Giving thanks is only this: making the canyon of pain into a megaphone to proclaim the ultimate goodness of God. Our thanks to God is our witness to the goodness of God when Satan and all the world would sneer at us to recant.....But this is the hardest of all: That which I refuse to thank Christ for, I refuse to believe God can redeem." Thank you for publicly using a megaphone to show me God's redemptive goodness!