The Boomstick

1.9.14 (Part I)

       I walked into the glass building just off the North Dallas Tollway with a strange sense of peace. I had been thinking all day about where to start when telling our story, and I thought I had found an acceptable starting place.
       As I got off the elevator, I ran into a girl with long, curly black hair that looked at me and said, "Are you Amy?" (I guess they were expecting me!)
       "Yes ma'am," I replied to the girl who was probably 5 years younger than me. Those old West-Texas manners coming out.
        "Follow me." She said as she started to walk down the hallway. "How are you today?" She asked.
        "Nervous," I admitted.
        "Don't be. Miss Pat is really nice. But I was super nervous the day I came to do my job interview, too."

        She lead me through a room filled with cubicles where maybe 10-15 people were on the phone talking to people. It kind of reminded me of those scenes of the stock market in movies, where all the cubicles are in one location and various team members have headsets on and are up pacing as they have their important business conversations.
         She ushered me into a 10x10 room with white walls and some fabulous decor. I was asked to wait there until R could come meet with me (this is the same woman that had called me the day before to tell me I was a winner... wait finalist... well something). The girl who had met me off the elevator disappeared for just a minute and came back with some paperwork.
         "This is for you to fill out," she said as she pushed a packet of 5 papers across the table to me.
         Basically, it was an agreement to allow the Treasure You organization to use any of the pictures we provided and any of the video they took of me in any way they felt like. That was totally fine with me since I had made sure that Alex was okay with me sharing the pictures I had brought with me (all of them were the ones that Mallie took, but we didn't chose to release ALL of the pictures. There are still a good number that have been only for the eyes of our closes friends and family and have never made it on the blog or anywhere public. And that's the way it will stay).
         The last piece of paper caused me some heartburn. It was a paper stating that anything that happened during the interview process was not to be discussed outside of the walls of the building.

         Really? But... I write this blog. This silly blog that helps me cope and share our story and put God's glory up on a stage out in the world of the internet. I sat there and read it a few times trying to make it say something different. I had just written on Monday my experience with hearing about the Treasure You contest, and now on Thursday I was being told that I couldn't share the amazement that had overtaken me in that God was being faithful in His speaking to me.
        To be honest, I nearly walked out. I nearly, nearly pushed the unsigned paper back on the desk and walked out. I spent a good 5 minutes texting Alex trying to explain to him my dilemma, but in the midst of all that I felt this wave of thought (I'm going to call it that because it wasn't a logical conclusion to my anguish and it basically overtook my thoughts completely out of nowhere.): Do you trust Me? 
         Amy, Do you trust Me? The thought came through again.
         Crap. I was being called out. The thought continued Why do you think I would have brought you this far and I wouldn't take care of the details to come?
         Crap. My human short-sightedness had nearly caused me to leave a place where God had CLEARLY orchestrated me ending up.
         I signed the paper and waited.

         I had a good 15 minutes before R came in the room, plenty of time to take in all the details of the walls in the room. To my left was a clock hung about shoulder height and around it on the wall was painted to make the face look like it belonged to a Grandfather clock. I thought that was pretty clever.
         To the right was a wall made up entirely of pictures. Pictures of families. Pictures of kids. Christmas cards pictures. Thank you notes. All kinds of things. I took my time staring at each of the pictures and wondering what kind of connections they had to this office. Were they friends of team members? Were they people who had benefited from the generosity of the charities?
 
        Then R came in the room. She was probably in her mid-forties, with blonde hair and really thick eyelashes. She came in and welcomed me with a big hug.
        "We don't shake hands around here, we hug." She said as she took her seat across the white table from me. "How are you feeling? Nervous?"
         "For sure," I replied. "Would you be the person that I would ask about this contract?" I asked before I could really stop myself.
         "Yes," She said, somewhat inquisitively.
         "Well... I'd just like some clarification. You see, I write a blog... And I just wanted to know if I could write about this experience on my blog..." I stumbled along, hoping that I wasn't about to get the answer that was so clearly written out on the piece of paper.
          "Oh that's totally fine!" she smiled. "That contract means you can't write about the other people who are here. And they can't write about you. So you're not allowed to share their story and they're not allowed to share yours. Make sense?"
           I breathed a huge sigh of relief. And immediately felt silly for getting so worked up over the contract in the first place.
          "Any other questions?" She asked as I shook my head "no". "Well, we're really glad you're here! I loved reading your entry... You know we all have our favorites that we're cheering for around here..."
           I didn't really know what she meant by that- that she was cheering for me or that maybe she had another person she had connected more with. I didn't ask for clarification.
           "You didn't bring any family with you?" she asked.
           "No, my family doesn't live in Dallas." I replied.
           "Well, we're excited you're here and we're going to get started. The camera guys will be in here shortly to talk to you." And with that, she exited.

          Another 5 minutes went by as I started staring at the chandelier that was in the room. Somebody had really done a great job making this room non-threatening for those of us getting thrown into situations we really had no business in.
         The next thing I knew, two guys came in the room: one was armed with a 5 ft long boomstick and the other held his DSLR camera equipped with a special lens for filming. Their names were Danny and Wesley.
         Danny was probably mid-forties as and wore glasses. Wesley was younger, maybe 30s, and was sitting looking at the back of the camera to make sure he had the right angle. They sat down after they had introduced themselves, and then we were off to the races.
        "Why are you here?" the first point-blank question they asked.
        I had spent the last 24 hours in constant prayer trying to figure out what all God was going to use me to say during this time. I didn't know what to expect, but I had thought about what questions I would ask if the situation were reversed. I had hoped to get a warm-up question, but it looked like we were diving in right off the bat.
        "Well... I'm here because I lost my daughter to stillbirth on September 18th..." I started. My heart was racing about 900 beats a minute.
        "But maybe I should back up a little bit." I started over, taking a deep breath and trying to slow down my tongue. "I suppose it all started a year ago. Nearly to the day. It was this time last year, we found out we were pregnant..."
         I told the story of how Alex and I had been trying for a few months to start our family, and how we kept missing that crucial window and were somewhat disappointed with the realization that we wouldn't get pregnant before he deployed for his second tour. I told the story of how Alex never saw a live picture of his daughter, and that every sonogram and heartbeat sound was recorded on my phone and sent to him via email and iMessage (thank you, GOD, for putting us in a time period where we have such awesome technology!). I told the story of Kaitlyn sitting breech, and our scheduled c-section because she was stubborn as hell.
        I told the story of going to the hospital with the carseat in the back of the Tahoe. I told the story of seeing that first image of the sonogram with her heart perfectly still, frozen on the screen. At this point, I had to stop.
       You see, even though I have written the story several time from my memories of that day, I still haven't actually told the story verbally. I haven't let those images run out of my mouth in the same way that I have let them come out of my fingers on the keyboard. I really have only told the story once: to Kate, because I hadn't sent her a link to my blog for her to read it herself. And even if I had, she wouldn't have read it because it was really crucial to me in the early appointments to verbally talk about my daughter. To talk about those images. To talk about the operating room. To talk about the smells and the sounds.
       I closed my eyes for a minute and let the tears that had come run down my face. I had a package of kleenexes in my bag, but at that moment I wanted to be raw. I wanted to let my absolute brokeness be caught on camera. I needed the world to see that my God had taken my broken heart, life, family, and made it beautiful. I felt the droplets run down my chin and drop into my lap. I made no apologies for the tears. No quick, "I'm sorry" as I reached down for my bag. I just sat with my eyes closed.
       When I opened my eyes to continue the story I saw that Danny the boomstick guy was fighting back the tears. His chin quivered a little bit, and the bottom rim of his eyes were red with the onslaught of emotion.
       I cocked my head a little to the side and nodded at him, letting him know he was okay to let the tears come. He shook his head and whispered, "Keep going."
       And so I did. I kept talking for another 10 minutes about all of the grace that God has allowed me. How he has opened my eyes to the beauty in His orchestration of Alex getting home in time to meet her and to go through this together. How He had softened the blows in tiny details long before Kaitlyn passed- such as leaving her name out of all the books in the nursery. Or us choosing to have all of the things in the nursery unisex for our "future kids", not knowing that the one I was carrying would never be among the ranks here on Earth.
 
       When I was done, I paused. Danny put down the boomstick and cleared his throat.
       "I need just a minute," he said. It was at this time, since my tears had dried on my cheeks for the last few minutes, that I reached down and dug out a tissue pack. I gave him one first, since he was still fighting back the tears, and then took one for myself to try to clean up the tear streaks a little bit.
       "The reason I'm crying," he said in a soft whisper, staring down at the kleenex, "Is that my wife and I experienced the same thing."
        His words sat in the air for a few minutes before I was able to say, "I'm so sorry for your loss."
         He nodded his head. "There is nothing worse." He cleared his throat then, and squared his shoulders and said, "But today isn't about me, its about you."
         "Its about all of us," I corrected him.