Friday, March 19, 2010

Conflicting Days

Today is a day that will carry joys, sorrows, tears, laughter, good and bad. For each of us, it will be a different day with different experiences.

I took my mom and her husband to the airport bright and early this morning. They are headed to BC because today is the day my step-sister and her family will bury their baby girl. Little Naomi was born prematurely at 2 lbs, 11 oz, with more problems than a baby can survive, she had Trisomy 18 (causing a hole in her spine and an under-developed heart), Spinal Bifida and Club Foot. We have known she wouldn't live since the first ultrasound but it doesn't change that it hurts. That this precious little gift could only be enjoyed for a few days before she left our lives. Today is a day of great sorrow for my family, but it will be interspersed with happy moments.

That's the way of it. We grieve while we laugh sometimes. We love while we are angry. We are a people of mixed and conflicted emotions and actions.

Today, I will grieve with my family from afar. I will do all I can for them from this distance, I will love, I will remember, I will cry. But most of all, I will pray for them and share their burden in whatever way is possible. I wish I could do more.

I cannot imagine what my step-sister is going through today. To be perfectly honest, I don't even want to try because I know that kind of pain would be overwhelming and devastating. I weep for her, and today I will weep with them, even though I am at a distance.