A Box In The Ground

Four years ago today hubby and I drove to the funeral home to say goodbye to our daughter's perfect little body. We were led down a hall and into a small room with a couch and side table. Across from the couch was a rectangular table against the wall with the tiniest of coffins on it. Our daughter's body was laying inside. She was a little over half way bigger than that tiny coffin. Yet there she was, ten fingers, ten toes, button nose, knees, elbows, Daddy's feet and Momma's legs. Somewhere behind those closed eyelids there was the color blue. My daughter that had grown in my belly for six months or so. My daughter that was so much wanted by her daddy and myself. My daughter that I planned so much for, that had a full nursery waiting for her with pink clothes and towels and sheets and stuffed animals and blankets. There lay my daughter who I wanted to show the world and who I wanted to show the world to. No one would ever see her but us. Not in this life. There lay all my hopes and dreams of becoming a mother to a bouncing baby girl. Dead were the possibilities of potty training, pre-school, first day of kindergarten, Girl Scouts, scraped knees, first love, college graduation, wedding, her children. All gone. And it happened so quickly. Just seven days, one week, earlier we were expecting all these things. Instead we held her, cried over her, sang to her, spent one-on-one time with her, made sure her clothes were perfect, enclosed a tiny teddy bear, and a picture of us with her, wrapped her in one of the blankets from her nursery, kissed her goodbye, and sealed the lid.
Hubby carried her to the funeral home car. I sat beside him with that box in his lap. That box that held all his hopes and dreams. That box that we would have to put in a deep, dark, cold hole in the ground. That tiny box that held so much. He carried her to the grave site. After the grave-side service I couldn't leave. I couldn't leave my baby laying out there in the open unprotected by momma's arms. Doug could not pull me away. The fellow from the funeral home asked the cemetery workers to bypass protocol and bury her with us watching. A man came and lowered my daughter into that hole. Then came a machine with a scoop of dirt. She got covered and I felt she was safe. The man arranged the flowers on top of the tiny mound of dirt and was gone. The fellow from the funeral home waited a ways away in silence. It took a few minutes, many, many tears, and a slight nudge from hubby, but I was finally able to leave. Only to return hundreds of times later.

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Normal

Normal is having tears behind every smile when you realize someone important is missing from all the important events in your family's life. Normal for me is trying to decide what to take to the cemetery for birthdays, Christmas', Thanksgivings, New Years, Valentine's Day, July 4th, and Easter. Normal is feeling like you know how to act and are more comfortable with a funeral than a wedding or birthday party, yet feeling a stab of pain in your heart when you smell the flowers and see the casket. Normal is feeling you can't sit another minute without getting up and screaming because you just don't like to sit through anything. Normal is not sleeping very well because a thousand what ifs and why didn't Is go through your head constantly. Normal is reliving that day continuously through your eyes and mind, holding your head to make it go away. Normal is having the TV on the minute I walk into the house because the silence is deafening. Normal is staring at every baby who looks like she is my baby's age, and then thinking of the age she would be now and not being able to imagine it, then wondering why it is even important to imagine it because it will never happen. Normal is every happy event in my life always being backed up with sadness lurking close behind because of the hole in my heart. Normal is telling the story of your child's death as if it were an everyday commonplace activity and then seeing the horror in someone's eyes at how awful it sounds and yet realizing it has become a part of my normal. Normal is each year coming up with the difficult task of how to honor your child's memory and her birthday and survive these days, and trying to find the balloon or flag that fits the occasion. Happy birthday? Not really. Normal is my heart warming and yet sinking at the sight of something special my baby loved. Thinking how she would love it, but how she is not here to enjoy it. Normal is having some people afraid to mention my baby. Normal is making sure that others remember her. Normal is after the funeral is over everyone else goes on with their lives, but we continue to grieve our loss forever. Normal is not listening to people compare anything to this loss. Unless they too have lost a child NOTHING, even if your child is in the remotest part of the Earth away from you, compares. Losing a parent is horrible, but having to bury your own child is unnatural. Normal is taking pills, and trying not to cry all day because I know my mental health depends on it. Normal is realizing I do cry every day. Normal is disliking jokes about death or funerals, bodies being referred to as a "fetal demise" or a "product of conception" when you know they once were someone's loved one. normal is being impatient with everything and everyone but someone stricken with grief over the loss of your child. normals is sitting at the computer crying, sharing how you feel with chat buddies who have also lost a child. normal is feeling a common bond with friends on the computer in England, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and all over the USA, but never having met any of them face to face. Normals is a new friendship with another grieving mother, talking and crying together over our children and our new lives. Normal is not listening to people make excuses for God, "God may have done this because...". I love God. I know my baby is up in heaven, but hearing people trying to think up excuses as to why healthy babies were taken from Earth is not appreciated and makes no sense to this grieving mother. Normals is avoiding McDonald's and Burger King playgrounds because of small happy children that break your heart when you see them. Normal is asking God why he took your child's life instead of yours and asking if there is even a God. Normal is knowing I will never get over this loss, in a day or a million years. And last of all, normal is hiding all the things that have become "normal" for you to feel so that everyone around you will think that you are "normal". This "normal" is torture.
-Unknown

Olivia's Graveside Service

On May 5, 2007 at 11:00 AM Hubby and I arrived at the funeral home. We spent time and took more pictures with Livy. At 1:00 PM we arrived at the the cemetery. It was raining. My momma, Hubby's mom and dad, and Hubby's brother's and sister's and their families were there. I can't remember the order of things. It's blurry in my mind. Her Uncle Jeff gave a prayer. Grandpa spoke of The Plan of Salvation and how it applied to Olivia. Her Daddy sang a Welsh Lullaby and dedicated the grave. Uncle Blaine gave a prayer. Afterward we met at our church for a supper provided by our church congregation.