August

8.1.14

     It's August. August is my birthday month. August is also right next to September, and I don't really care for September.
     I started feeling September the first day of August. I started dreading the days leading up to our one year anniversary of losing Kaitlyn. I had already decided that I would take some time off work because I didn't want to risk having a mental breakdown in the middle of a case. I'd much rather do that in the privacy of my own home, thank you very much.
     Its a strange feeling to have memories you didn't realize you were missing start creeping up on you again. Kate likes to call these memories "the vault" memories because we tuck them away until we need them or something triggers them. August 1st triggered a lot of memories for me. I started thinking about what I was doing last year at this time, preparing for Kaitlyn's arrival with baby showers and letters to Alex's commanding officer to try to get him home in time.
       For the most part, I shoved these memories away and tried to ignore them until it was time to deal with them, but sudden sadness would come over me on random days because I started realizing how long it had been since I'd held my baby. I miss her. I remember the weight of her and how soft her hair was. I remember the quiet in the Operating Room as I held her for the first time and sobbed over her still body.
       In the first few weeks after Kaitlyn, I begged God to show me the mercy in His plan for us. I begged him to open my eyes to the grace in our story, and He did. From reminding me what a miracle and blessing it was for Alex to make it home, to showing me the lack of personalization in the books that people had given to us at our shower, to reminding me how He had orchestrated all the details of Kaitlyn's birth to make it the best it could possibly be. Whenever I started to go down the road of sorrow, I tried to remind myself of the good things God had done in the midst of our loss. I tried to remember the people that surrounded us.

       After 9/11, there was a quote that circulated around the internet for a while from the famous Mr. Rogers about how his mother had taught him to deal with tragedy:

"I was spared from any great disasters when I was little, but there was plenty of news of them in newspapers and on the radio, and there were graphic images of them in newsreels. 

For me, as for all children, the world could have come to seem a scary place to live. But I felt secure with my parents, and they let me know that we were safely together whenever I showed concern about accounts of alarming events in the world. 

There was something else my mother did that I've always remembered: "Always look for the helpers," she'd tell me. "There's always someone who is trying to help." I did, and I came to see that the world is full of doctors and nurses, police and firemen, volunteers, neighbors and friends who are ready to jump in to help when things go wrong.