Timehop

I’ve wanted to write about my love/hate relationship with Timehop for a while now. If you’re not a “timehopper” (a term I just made up), Timehop is an app that shares your previous statuses and/or pictures from exactly 1 year, 2 years, 3 years… as far back as you’ve been a smart phone user.  Sometimes, I wish it gave a little more detail, or that I had given more detail in my posts.  For instance, six years ago today I was, “thankful for Skip’s heart and willingness to love the things that I love just because I love them.”  What on earth could that have been on a Sunday night at 10:12pm six years ago? Five years and a lifetime ago, I completed the Couch to 5K program and ran a 32 minute 5K.  Four years ago, I was drinking dirty bananas at the Hilton Beach Bar in Myrtle Beach. Three years ago, I was at the Summer Slam/VBS finale after letting my summer class at RCCC out early.  I wrote, “I love being in charge,” so some things really never change!  Two years ago I was in Morehead City getting ready to watch Emily get hitched.  I was super tan and adorably pregnant (with Levi).  And last year, I was packing for the beach while an adorable little 10 month old played in my suitcase. 

Looking back, it always amazes me how much things have changed and for the most part, how much better they’ve gotten.  When Skip was loving the things I was loving six years ago, what he was NOT doing was proposing, the one thing I REALLY, REALLY wanted him to be doing.  A year later, I was running those miles to look better in my wedding dress.  When I was taking pictures of my pregnant belly in the inlet at the bridal luncheon, I had no idea that it would be Amoura and not Levi that I’d be taking to the beach the following year.  Sometimes, Timehop memories are hard.  They smack you in the face with unmet expectations and broken dreams you scroll through quickly so you don’t mess up your makeup.  Other times, like last week when 4 years ago I had rolled Nanny’s hair while she sat in her living room chair, the memories are more sweet than bitter and you open the app at least a dozen times just to relive some moments you’d long forgotten.

Time is a funny thing.  When we lost Levi, lots of well meaning people said “time heals all wounds” and while I think “all” is drastic and “heals” is subjective, for the most part, I agree.  I don’t really think you ever fully heal from the death of a child or any person you really love, actually.  I think there will forever be a sting when people ask how many kiddos we have or when naïve moms announce their pregnancies as if it is impossible that anything could go wrong.  Just this week, a woman on my crunchy mom Face.book page shared that her friend had lost a baby at 35.5 weeks pregnant and asked advice on how to be there for her.  I spent a few hours on memory lane reliving the saddest days of my life, so I could write a thoughtful response and hopefully help this friend meet some needs of this baby loss mom.  I got to respond by the glow of a baby monitor and the sound of Layla talking herself to sleep.  Time, in the last year especially, has been very good to me. 

The last six months alone have been a great illustration to me of time’s healing power and God’s divine purpose in only lighting the very next step on our paths for us.  On January 21^st, after 10 months of raising Amoura, we said goodbye to her.  We hadn’t been away from her more than two nights in a row since she came to stay with us and we had no idea when or if we would see her again.  It was three months before Mom and I saw her again and just under six before Skip got to see her.  I’ve already shared some of the details of their visit, so I’ll try not to repeat myself, but what happened is nothing short of a miracle.  It was the gracious work of The Father providing an incredible gift to his children.

I’d tried and succeeded for nearly a year to not develop a relationship with Amoura’s mother, Karria.  But, if I was ever going to have a relationship with Amoura again, I was going to have to mend fences with her mama.  Hate is a strong word, but I think for a while there I really did hate her. She was downright cruel to us on more than one occasion and had done a few things that while they had not really put Amoura in danger, they surely had not put her best interests first either.  For a while I couldn’t even pray about our relationship because I had absolutely nothing to say regarding her that I could say to the Savior; when I thought about the fact that He loves her just as much as he loves me, I didn’t really want to talk to Him anyway.  And then TIME PASSED and my heart healed a little.  All the while, I know others were praying, interceding on my behalf, and God was hearing their prayers.  I started praying for her mama and for something to change.  I sent a little care package in the mail for Amoura and included small gifts for her mama and her soon-to-be-born baby sister. And finally, nearly two months after Amoura left us and over 6 weeks after I’d had any communication with her, I got a text.  The lines of communication were open once again.  It moved slowly from there.  I longed to ask to visit her, but I knew the timing would have to be right and sensed that is wasn’t.  And then, she blew my mind- she’s been doing that on the regular since we met- and asked if we could come visit right after she had the new baby.  She was asking me if I would come see Amoura.  Mom and I went, and it was wonderful, but I longed to have her back in our home, even for a visit.  So when Skip had business in Atlanta a few weeks ago, I cooked up a plan to have him bring them back with him.  And, that’s exactly what happened.  They spent two nights and Karria and I spent plenty of one on one time and shockingly, it was not awkward at all!

If someone had told me six months ago that I would invite her into my home, cook meals for her and spend time just shooting the breeze with her, I would’ve looked closely for the hole in their head.  If there was an app for a year down the road, I would never have believed in June of last year that our time together would’ve happened like it did.  I never would’ve spent the time praying over our relationship, either.  If I had known then what I know now, I probably would’ve coasted through the past six months in eager anticipation.  Forgiveness and “fence-mending” don’t come easy for me.  It’s not really in my character to get chummy with someone who’s hurt me as deeply as she has.  The new relationship that’s forming is inarguable evidence of God working mightily in me.  I’ve gotta believe that He isn’t done using me in Amoura’s life and perhaps he wants to use me in Karria’s life as well. 

So, today, I am thankful for Timehop. Even though it reminds me of the younger/pre-crowsfeet/smile line/skinnier me, it’s also a great reminder that God has numbered my days and designed a perfect plan for every single one of them.

I'm Back

Full disclosure: I was cleaning the sink Saturday night when I decided that I would start writing again.  Cleaning the sink always reminds me of my Nanny.  When I was in college and lived with Ashley and Jenilee on Mallard Ln, Mom and Nanny came to visit us one weekend.  Nanny hadn’t been there 5 minutes before she went to wash her hands in the kitchen and just had a fit over our kitchen sink.  Apparently, it wasn’t very clean.  Apparently, none of us had been taught the proper way to clean a sink. Apparently, the proper way to clean a stainless steel kitchen sink is with a little bit of Comet a whole lot of elbow grease. Before they headed back down the mountain, I had my own little cylinder of Comet and a sink that anyone would’ve eaten out of.  That is just one of countless memories I have of things my Nanny taught me.  And, when I put into practice things I learned from her, I feel as close to her as if she were sitting in my kitchen critiquing my efforts.  So, when I was cleaning Saturday night (because I am just that cool!) I thought about her and lessons I’ve learned from her and how I used to write about things I learned but stopped some time ago when my life got crazy busy and crazy happy and there just wasn’t anytime to breathe much less write for writing’s sake. 

I’ve thought a lot since my last blog (6 months ago) about how I would start writing again and if I would start writing again and how I could bridge the gap between then and now.  And, I can’t.  That’s a whole lotta life to cover in one blog or several.  If I tried, I think it’d take away from where I am now and things have gotten so good that I don’t want to miss a second of now looking back on then (although then wasn’t half bad itself).  There are some popular versions of Shakespeare plays floating around the internet called “60 second Shakespeare.” So, here’s a 60 second version of the last 6 months of our lives.

Christmas with two babies was insanely entertaining and exhausting.  Major drama with Amoura’s mom allowed us to have her on Christmas Day but also got the ball rolling towards her leaving us.  She moved to SC to be with her mom on January 21^st. It’s hard to pick the worst tragedy in one’s life so I’ll call “losing” our first baby girl 16 months after losing our first baby boy a cruel tie in level of difficulty.

Christmas also marked the start of Layla’s colic and for the next 8 weeks, I spent hours a night pacing the floor trying to console a miserable-but so so adorable- baby girl.

In February, after a ridiculous amount of discussion, Skip moved his office out of the house and 2 miles away to a little studio/office of his own.  I was pretty against it, but must admit, it’s been a good change for him and the business.

In March, Layla finally decided the world was a happy place to be and we celebrated with road trips to Georgia and to Lynchburg.  We started cloth diapering and I joined a natural parenting page on FB where the moms never cease to amaze me with their natural remedies and drug free (sometimes at home) births! 

I did two online diet bets between March and early May and by the time Layla hit six months, I was back to pre-Layla (although not pre-Levi) weight and got $28 richer. 

School is rapidly coming to a close and I am preparing to teach 10^th grade next year, a course I’ve never taught that’s full of texts I’ve never read.  I'm oddly excited. 

We’ve started Layla on solid foods using a method called “baby led weaning.”  We skipped the mushy rice cereal and, for the most part, don’t give her purees.  She eats whole, soft foods she can “chew” with her gums.  It’s awesome to watch.  I am still breast feeding, and after a painful start, it’s going well and will hopefully last until after her first birthday.

Possibly the best thing to happen in the last 6 months is that my dear friend Kimberly realized her dream of becoming a mom.  In one of those “I will always remember where I was when I got the news” texts, she sent me a picture of her and baby Quinn and I was almost as happy as I was finding out my own babies were on the way.  Our mom walks and talks have become some of the best hours in my week.    

The next best thing that happened is that after three months without seeing Amoura, we were invited to visit her in SC for the day to welcome home her new baby sister.  She remembered us and for the first time in a long time, I felt whole again.  We are working on our relationship with her mom and are hopeful that we will get to have a steady presence in their lives moving forward.            

That might’ve been a tad more than 60 seconds, but barely scratched the surface of the past 6 months.  I hope to write more about the present.  My blogger friend/baby loss mom hero/idol Brooke says she writes sometimes just so she can remember the mundane, everyday happenings her life.  I wanna do that, too.  I hope I will stick with it. And if I do, I hope you’ll read it. It feels good to be back.

Legacy

To be so bad with numbers, I am awfully good (oxymoron, yes?) with dates.  So, there’s a lot going on today, August 17^th, but the thing that strikes me most about this date is that two years ago today, my Nanny went home to meet Jesus face to face.  Not a day goes by that I don’t either do something she taught me or think of something she used to say or laugh at how she would be dolling out the advice on how to handle visitation and “joint” parenting (I’m being kind with that wording).  And oh my gracious, how she would love this baby girl just like we all do. 

Enough time has gone by now that when I think about her, I don’t think about her sick and suffering like we did for so long after she fought cancer so dag-gum hard there at the end.  Instead, I think of our shopping trips and visits to the library and how intently she listened when I told a story.  I find myself regularly asking mom and Skip if they are really listening to me, and I never ever had to do that with her.  It’s one of the things I miss the most.  She was my greatest admirer and you better believe I worked hard not to let her down.

This summer, through their posts and pictures, I’ve watched two friends on Face.book say goodbye to their grandmothers.  My heart just broke for them, but it also was a great comfort to see that other Memaws and Grannys out there are just as treasured as my Nanny was.  I know so many in my generation that don’t make spending time with their grandparents a priority, and that’s sad.  Truthfully, I think we lose out on more by not being around than they do by not having us around. 

So, when I think about my Nanny today, it’s not bittersweet, it’s just plain sweet.  In many ways, I feel as close to her today as I did when she was still here.  I am a mother now and I get to try to do the task justice like she did.  I get to watch my mama be the Nanny my Nanny always was.

We didn’t get a whole lot monetarily when my Nanny died.  She’d spent our inheritances on our first cars, and spending money for me throughout college, and finally cancer treatments.  But what she did leave is a legacy and I am so incredibly thankful for it.