Posts Tagged ‘Faith.’

This past year has had it’s moments. There has been times when I literally wanted to burn my laptop and never open it again, I just couldn’t handle any more of my friends in pain. I was an outsider on the most part, new to Twitter and blogging (publicly at least) and I hadn’t yet found my “tribe”. At least not here.

However, for the three years I have been blessed to be a member of the most close knit group of friends that I could ever imagine. We met on a message board when we were pregnant with our “big kids” and have been a constant presence in each others lives ever since.

We cry together, we laugh together. We vent about our spouses, we talk about all the gross pregnancy and after baby stuff there is to talk about. Cause dood…men just can’t handle all that.

This week I have felt helpless. Helpless that one of MY girls was suffering and I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried, reach through the computer and hug her. I couldn’t ( for many reasons) get on a plane and go be with her after the devastating and unexpected loss of her mother.

I just don’t know how to help her.

I’m helpless.

I don’t know why it even surprises me anymore.

Our community is strong.

The first time I saw it in action was after the passing of Heather and Mike’s sweet baby girl Maddie. I was a newborn to the blogging world and twitter, just dipping my toes in the social media world after years of Myspace and Facebook. The outpouring of love for this young family that was going through the unthinkable was quick and true. 

  We love you and we are going to find someway to help the best we can

This is the message that has been spread. People show their love and support through blog posts, hundreds and hundreds of them.  When Mckmama’s warrior Stellan has headed to the hospital in critical condition multiple times over the last few months, the response has been the same.

We support you and want you to know you aren’t fighting alone.

Messages on Twitter are re-tweeted, and updates spread like wildfire. No one is left out of the loop. Everyone has an equal investment in the pain. No one dares suggest that because we are “only friends on the Internet” that we shouldn’t be upset. My own husband has given up trying to understand, as he watches me read “The Spohrs Are Multiplying” every morning, most days tears and laughter emitting from me together.

Our community is loving.

Anissa is a fabulous woman. I have only had the pleasure of direct interaction with her a handful of times, but over the course of my day she makes me laugh more than anyone on the interwebs. She is caring, strong, hilarious, gentle when needed, and quick….so quick to jump when a friend needs her.

She needs us. Anissa suffered a stroke yesterday and needs prayers if you’re the praying type, or just general good juju is you’re not. Gather up all the positive energy in your mind and send it towards an ICU bed in Atlanta.

Anissa, I am so hoping for a wonderful recovery for you. I fully expect you to be back and eating kittens soon.

**For updates and ways to help, please visit the Aiming Low website.**

The past few days have held very hard milestones in the lives of two bloggers that I really admire for their strength and their dignity.

Heather’s sweet Maddie has been gone for five months. It seems even to me, who never got the honor of meeting her, that it was yesterday that she passed. It also seems like it was a lifetime ago. My heart breaks for Heather and Mike every day…but especially on Tuesdays, and most definitely on the 7th of each month.

Loralee has also faced a day she has been dreading and hoping for. Her baby boy Aaron is now older than his big brother Matthew will ever be. He was taken at 108days old from SIDS. Loralee’s blog is heart wrenching and so honest. You can feel her grief dripping from every word. She is so strong, and such an amazing woman.

I wish with all my heart that I could take some of the pain from these women, and all parents faced with losing a child. Even if for a minute. one minute that they could feel the weight of grief lift off their shoulders. One minute that they could smile with their eyes. Just one minute of time, back to when they were complete.

I can’t. No matter what, I can’t. I am, however, much more aware and sensitive of parents who grieve. I can hold my babies a bit closer. I can keep my temper a bit longer. I can let C splash in a mud puddle, because no matter how big the mess…it’s not a big deal in the scheme of things. I take more pictures. I journal for them more, here and on my private blog. I give more kisses, just because.

There are other ways to help. Support Friends of Maddie. Support the March of Dimes. Support Ronald McDonald House. Put a quarter in the little cardboard stands for the children with Leukemia and think of Peyton. SHE WON, because of the leaps and bounds made in research in the last years.

I am very blessed to have two healthy boys, but I am grateful to the two amazing mother’s above and all the others who share their stories with me. I am grateful they have the courage to struggle through their darkest time and put their feelings out there for anyone to see. I am grateful that because of them, I am aware.

The beach is one of my favorite places.

I grew up in South Jersey, and while it’s not exactly the blue green water of the Caribbean, I loved living near the ocean. 10 minutes and I could be on a beach, or in the bay crabbing.  When I was 15 I moved to Pennsylvania, and being landlocked really didn’t sit well with me and still doesn’t.  I am now one of those people who makes the trek to the shore every year, one of the very people that I used to make complain about all year long. Damn Shoobies. My beach of choice is in Maryland now, but I still get the feeling of coming home as soon as I can hear the waves crash, the gulls cry and smell the dune grass.

My thoughts wander quickly and effortlessly in the evenings when I am sitting out in a rocker with nothing between me and the ocean. Last night there was the most beautiful sunset. A vivid purple sky streaked with pink stretching as far as the horizon. Any day that would have sent my mind to sweet Maddie and her parents Heather and Mike, but especially last night. Especially on the eve of her her being gone 3 months.

It really amazes me everyday how much this baby girl has impacted my life. How she has impacted the lives of so many. How the grief filled words of her mother show a strength and resolve that I have never seen before. How every Tuesday, Twitter fills with love to her and her parents. How a majority of the blogs I read have either a Maddie button, or some reference to her. How most of my twitter feed is purple. It is amazing.

At the same time, there has also been an uprising of “trolls”. Hateful, insensitive people who lurk in comments, usually under an annonymus name. Some of them are intentionally there to cause hurt, and pour salt in a open, aching wound. Some of them just don’t think before they hit the “publish comment” button. Either way, I have been proud to see that many of the people who I consider “friends”, come to the defense of those who shouldn’t have to defend themselves. I have found myself becoming fiercely protective of people I have never met before, just because there is just no way that they should have anything more on their plate.

Today I will be wearing a purple bathing suit while playing on the beach with my sons. I’m sure I will have a great day with them, and we will have alot of fun as a family. However, deep within my mind I am sure that Maddie won’t be far, and tonight when I am back in my rocker with a glass of wine, I will grieve for a little girl I never met… right along side with a wonderful group of caring people that I hope to.

I’ve been having a tough time with some things lately and have been feeling a bit lost. I’ve reached out to people I know in “real life”, but most are too busy with their own issues to really sit down and help me sort through things.

So I did the obvious next choice, I bitched about it on my twitter.

I’m not sure whether it’s sad or amazing that I got a better response, advice and encouragement from strangers than I did from my own friends.

One in particular stood out. I received an amazing email from a person I barely know that had advice, wisdom and encouragement I needed, and the assurance that it was OK to feel the way I did. I was floored that he would take the time to do this for me.

The last paragraph of the email sent to me goes as follows:

“Next question, why do you care enough to write an email like this to some one you barely know, Ben? It’s my nature, I guess. Which is my way of saying, “I don’t know.”

I’m so relieved to find there are still people in our society that will go our of their way to help, without any personal gain to be found. I have a renewed faith in people, in a time when that faith was wavering. Not only in others, but in myself. I know that feelings like I’m having take time to heal, and might not ever go away, but that it really all depends on me.

Now i just need to renew my license, and all will be right.

Thanks Ben. See you on twitter.