6 months (part II)

3.18.14

     That afternoon, I had an appointment with Kate. After my morning of crying, I felt like this was perfect timing since I hadn't put it together when I made the appointment that it would be on our 6 month anniversary.
      I sat on her couch, and it didn't take long for all the emotions to start coming out. I told her about my outburst the previous week over the dishes and my immediate wave of guilt that had consumed me.
     "What you're going through," she started, "is totally normal. Pregnancy after loss is hard."
     "But people struggle with getting pregnant for years," I argued with her. "And here I am after trying for two months and we're pregnant and I'm selfishly saying to God, 'This isn't good enough'? As if that's going to bring Kaitlyn back?!"
     "You have to give yourself grace in those moments," she said, undeterred by my argument and frustration. "When I got pregnant with our second one, I begged God to delay my grieving for Piper until this baby was here safely. He did that, but boy did I have a lot of work to do once she got here.
      "The best piece of advice I can give you is to allow yourself to grieve Kaitlyn as you go through the process, but also try to separate your grief from your joy. You know that you are ecstatic that this baby is here, but you are also comparing your two pregnancies, which is unfair to this baby. You had Kaitlyn for 9 months, you knew her. Don't try to expect those feelings with this baby when you are only a few weeks pregnant."
        I left Kate's feeling relieved and exhausted.

       The last appointment I had that day was with Dr. Jim Denison, the pastor who baptized me when I was 8 years old. At some point in January, I had reached out to him through his facebook page and just told him that because his words had comforted me at such a young age, I felt better prepared for the death of my own child. His response came that same day from his assistant:

Dear Amy,

Thank you for one of the most encouraging notes I've received.  I am so glad to hear from you and deeply honored that God would use my words in your life.  His word never returns void!

The loss of your child is the most devastating pain anyone can know.  God's grace and comfort, using your experiences so many years ago, is just one example of his love for you.  I am so sorry for your loss, and grateful for his grace.

It would be my privilege to meet with you. If you'll reply to this email, my assistant will find us a time together.

God bless you!

Jim

        I'm not going to lie, I was pretty excited but nervous to get to meet with him. I didn't know if he would remember me, but I definitely remembered him and the void that was left when he decided to leave our town and come to Dallas. I headed down to his office that afternoon, but the address I had put into my GPS took me to downtown Dallas, even though his office was really in the north half of the city. I ended up figuring that out once I fought the traffic the entire way downtown and did a u-turn, but finally ended up at the right location a little harassed.
       Dr. Denison met me in the lobby with a handshake and said, "Hi Amy, its good to see you."
       "It's really good to see you, too! Do you remember me?" I asked, not really expecting him to.
       "It's the weirdest thing, but I do remember you," he said to my surprise. "21 years changed you a little bit, though."
         We went into his office that was split off into a main office and a separate study that had a round table with four wooden chairs. As we sat down, he asked me to update him on what all I had been up to in the last 21 years. I took him through my time in high school, college, and how I had move to Dallas immediately after I graduated to accept a job in the medical field.
          Then we were able to talk about Kaitlyn. We talked about Alex's deployment, and how God had brought him home just in time to meet his baby girl. We talked about the road after the loss, and how much it had changed both of us. We talked about the peace that resting in our salvation in Christ had brought us.
          "That peace is one of the gifts of the spirit. Like it says in Philippians 4:7, it is 'a peace that transcends understanding' or 'a peace beyond understanding'. But in the Greek, the phrase is actually, 'a peace that wisdom can not produce.'"
           I had to let that sink in a little bit. I liked the Greek phrasing much better than any other phrase I had heard.
           "Can we just read every verse in Greek?" I asked him, jokingly.
           "We lose so much of the depth of the Bible when we translate it to English because our words don't have as much meaning behind them," he chuckled his response.
           We talked about those first few days after we said goodbye to Kaitlyn, and I told him the story of our first Sunday back at church. I talked about how I really hadn't wanted to get out of bed that morning, but how Alex had practically dragged me out.
           "I don't know Alex, but I sure would like to meet him someday!" Dr. Denison laughed as I told the story of my resistance.
           "Yeah, and do you want to know what the take-aways from the sermon were that day?" I continued. "God is good, and His plan for us is good."
            With that, Dr. Denison literally put his head in his hand and laughed at the awesomeness of that timing in our life.

            At the end of our conversation, Dr. Denison asked me if it would be okay if he contacted me if he heard of anyone in his church that had lost a child the way we lost Kaitlyn.
            "Absolutely..." I said as we left his office. "And I write a blog that I started a week after Kaitlyn passed." I took out some of the cards I had made up and gave them to him.
            "You might regret giving me these..." He laughed as he took them.
            "No," I shook my head. "That's one of the purposes in Kaitlyn's life, for us to talk about her and to show God's mercy in our story."

With that, I left his office and headed back home.