Tates At Sea: July 2013

Work

11:21 AM

I've decided to go ahead and post this so that it will come from me and with explanation, but today I officially (and quite emotionally) resigned from my position at work in order to take the proper time to heal and rest after losing our Ellie. :( This decision did NOT come easy and I wrestle with it even now, but I do...

some things and coffee and other things

1:08 PM

I'm so thankful for everyone who has sent me such great feedback on the post about my struggles with empathy right now. Totally awesome and life giving. I'm working through it and know that I'll be able to look back and see how this is all shaping me post-Ellie. Holla! What's new around here? Getting SUPA freakin' pumped about this cruise in 2...

Conservation Burial

9:40 AM

"What we’re doing is basically land conservation. By setting aside woods for natural burials, we preserve it from development. At the same time, I think we put death in its rightful place, as part of the cycle of life. Our burials honor the idea of dust to dust." -Dr Billy Campbell I've been waiting to talk about Ellie's burial for a while because...

my problem spectrum is way jacked up. or completely acceptable.

11:15 AM

(I'm secretly writing this post to detract attention away from Caroline and the cruise. Shhhhhhhhh. Kidding. I love my family.) No, but actually..I was thinking about a lot of things today and one of them being this issue I notice I'm having.......and I think it's normal but I also don't want certain aspects of it to stay. Let me explain. Because we've just...

Surprise Cruise!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

6:24 AM

Well. Apparently we happen to have family members who think it is acceptable to surprise us with..say..a CRUISE. And they are going to read this post and be embarrassed maybe because they are the type of people that are so humble and amazing and knowing them they probably don't even think it's a big deal. BUT IT IS. So, Jon and Caroline--love you...

hey.

9:53 AM

Why yes, I did spend the larger portion of my falling asleep time stalking the instagram of Mackelmore. Thanks for asking. We get on such weird kicks around here. For a while we discovered that the only thing youtube was really good for was watching our Pax video where our cat attacks himself in a mirror get thousands and thousands of likes and...

Most days.

8:59 AM

It's strange how certain days are wildly more difficult than others. I think that while I was pregnant, my expectation of the grieving process was so different than what it actually entails. I thought that the worst day would be the one where the bad thing happens..and that each day onward gets steadily easier. That's totally not the case and of course it's...

4 Tuesdays

7:26 AM

Hard to sleep last night because I was reliving the surgery and the whole hospital experience as it was four weeks to the day. It's weird how even with the passage of time comes these intense memories and floods of feeling. The one memory that keeps hitting me is the one where the doctor comes over to tell us she is not going...

ANGRYFACE

2:51 PM

You mean to tell me that this is the controversial commercial everyone's been talking about? THIS!? *slaps hand to forehead* As a family who wants to adopt children outside of our own race...it literally appalls me that anyone could UGH. AH. can't even finish. I had to watch the video twice to even try and pick up on anything that could be taken...

Ughhhhh my life.

9:48 AM

K so. Rough morning. The "eye doctor" told me the wrong "appointment time" so now I have to wait like an "hour" (these are my conspiracy quotations for emphasis) and anyways I'm a decent person so I didn't get upset and also they have wifi so holllaaa ima steal all da internets. So I'm sitting here doing this and then sending them to...

A Meal of Stuffed Everything (Stuffed Zucchini and Chicken)

7:12 PM

Whatever. I'm not a food photographer so NOT apologizing for my terrible pictures and also I had to will myself SO hard to take a picture after each step because that's so not my style (aka super impatient) so I should get an award. Also, this meal is delicious. Also, we added a TON of cheese because I happen to have a husband...

"He withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place.."

7:39 AM

Last night I had a bit of insomnia. I've found that the hardest moments are the ones in which I can't stop imagining what life would be like if she actually were here. How she'd be sleeping right next to our bed and how I'd be taking pictures and videos of her and sharing them with all our friends and family. How this blog would be all kinds of full of baby-ness. It gets to be unbearable when reality sets back in and I realize that we don't have her and that we won't have another baby around for a good amount of time while my body heals and while we heal. I talked about this in a previous post, but it is just the strangest thing to feel like a mother and not have your baby. You carry them and rub them and pray for them in the womb and this insanely profound connection and bond develops between the two of you and then all of the sudden its over and she's gone. The connection doesn't leave and the bond is still there. And it's just this void..

I got up the nerve during my insomnia to type "Grieving the loss of a baby" into google, which I've never done before and I was terrified at what was going to pop up..and a lot of what I saw was what I expected--medical related articles about how apparently this is just one of the worst things to go through as a human being. I didn't want to hear that or see that or let that settle. But of course, God knew what I needed and a link popped out to me that was written by John Piper. It was the only link with a picture (of him) by it so it caught my attention right away. Granted, Ellie wasn't a stillborn, BUT the essence of this letter is just so true and so comforting. Sentences in bold are my own emphasis.

Earlier this year, a grieving mother, who recently had given birth to a stillborn son, wrote to me asking for counsel and comfort. The team at Desiring God thought this letter might be helpful to some others, whether other mothers who have lost infants, parents who have lost young children, or perhaps even more broadly.

Dear _____,

This loss and sorrow is all so fresh. I hesitate to tread into the tender place and speak. But since you ask, I pray that God would help me say something helpful.

First, please know that I know I don’t know what it is like to give birth to a lifeless body. Only a small, sad band of mothers know that. I say “lifeless body” because, as you made clear, your son is not lifeless. He simply skipped earth. For now. But in the new heavens and the new earth, he will know the best of earth and all the joys earth can give without any of its sorrows.

I do not know what age — what level of maturity and development — he will have in that day. I don’t know what level of maturity and development I will have. Will the 25-year-old or the 35- or the 45- or the 55-year-old John Piper be the risen one? God knows what is optimal for the spiritual, glorified body. And so it will be for your son. But you will know him. God will see to that. And he you. And he will thank you for giving him life. He will thank you for enduring the loss that he might have the reward sooner.

God’s crucial word on grieving well is 1 Thessalonians 4:13: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.” Yours is a grieving with hope. Theirs is a grieving without hope. That is the key difference. There is no talk of not grieving. That would be like suggesting to a woman who just lost her arm that she not cry, because it would be put back on in the resurrection. It hurts! That's why we cry. It hurts.

And amputation is a good analogy. Because unlike a bullet wound, when the amputation heals, the arm is still gone. So the hurt of grief is different from the hurt of other wounds. There is the pain of the severing, and then the relentless pain of the gone-ness. The countless might-have-beens. Those too hurt. Each new remembered one is a new blow on the tender place where the arm was. So grieving is like and unlike other pain.

There is a paradox in the way God is honored through hope-filled grief. One might think that the only way he could be honored would be to cry less or get over the ache more quickly. That might show that your confidence is in the good that God is and the good that he does. Yes. It might. And some people are wired emotionally to experience God that way. I would not join those who say, “O they are just in denial.”

But there is another way God is honored in our grieving. When we taste the loss so deeply because we loved so deeply and treasured God’s gift — and God in his gift — so passionately that the loss cuts the deeper and the longer, and yet in and through the depths and the lengths of sorrow we never let go of God, and feel him never letting go of us — in that longer sorrow he is also greatly honored, because the length of it reveals the magnitude of our sense of loss for which we do not forsake God. At every moment of the lengthening grief, we turn to him not away from him. And therefore the length of it is a way of showing him to be ever-present, enduringly sufficient.

So trust him deeply and let your heart be your guide whether you honor him one way or the other. Everyone is different. Beware of blaming your husband, or he you, for moving into or out of grief at different paces. It is so personal. And what you may find is that the one who seemed to recover more quickly will weep the more deeply in ten years. You just don’t know now, and it is good not to judge.

May God make your grieving a bittersweet experience of communion with Jesus. Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been beheaded, “he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself” (Matthew 14:13). So he knows what it is to go with you there.

We do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize. He was tested in every way as we are — including loss.

Grace to you and peace.

Affectionately,

Pastor John

Just a little recap and also can we PLEASECATCHABREAK.

6:34 AM

Ah, here. An analogy: If the entirety of nursing school were the Harry Potter series (this is happening) then the month of July is the Order of the Phoenix. It's scary and dark and also necessary in order to complete the story that is nursing school but sometimes I want to cry and also throw the book before moving forward and I'M NOT...

Three Weeks

7:47 AM

It's hard to believe that tomorrow marks 3 weeks since Ellie's birthday. It feels like yesterday and months ago all at the same time. I was talking to one of my sisters last night and wondering out loud if these feelings of motherhood will ever subside since we don't have any other children at home (and pondering how life would be just a...

Endless Years

7:27 AM

This song today. Reminding me so much of my Ellie. I will hold you, childWhen all is doneWhen the world is goneAnd its songs have been sungYou will be with meThrough endless yearsWe will dance and singWhen your heart is fulfilledSo don't you close your eyesDon't you lose your wayDon't you miss all the giftsThat are unforeseenI'm your anchor and shieldI'm the wind...

Things that make my life better right now

2:19 PM

I got my hair did. I never ever do anything crazy to my hair. This doesn't even really count as crazy but to me it does. My mom is super brave with her hair and she is extra brave with it when she's going through something stressful. It's like her coping mechanism. Clearly she passed it on to me and clearly my life...

June Flower

7:39 AM

Oh my gosh. My brother in law wrote a song about Ellie. I can't make it through the whole thing yet but good gosh. No words. Love you so much, Bri. ...

Me, myself.

5:18 PM

It's a good thing I decided that writing was therapeutic BEFORE my life got insane so that I didn't have to discover what to do with myself in the midst of the chaos. And you all get to join me as I share because sharing is caring and I'm totally not strong enough to do this alone. You're welcome. So let me just...

bestsistaeva

3:03 PM

I drove for the first time today post c-section. The seat belt felt slightly uncomfortable on my waist, so I sorta held it out a little further, but for the most part it was good. The only bad part of the whole experience was when I arrived at my destination (my brother's basically empty apartment that he's living in alone) and found THESE...