The Little Boy Who Changed Me

Look at those lips!

Ethan Carter, One Day Old

My Heart

I know I never write on here anymore.  It's not my plan, in fact it's the opposite, but it's just what happens (or rather, what doesn't happen).

The reasons have nothing to do with Ethan... I love and miss him as much as I always have... even more if that is possible...

No, it's just that life gets in the way.  Life gets in the way of so many things.

But I can't complain when that life has included a beautiful, precious new baby and her incredible big sister... yes, life with a baby is busy.  Life with two children is even busier.  But it is such a beautiful busy.  And oh how I wish it was even crazier, with three children needing me constantly instead of two!

I have been sorting through our homeschool cabinet today, and it's amazing how tears have filled my eyes throughout the whole thing, and how those tears have just sat there, brimming... for hours.

I need them to fall, but I can't seem to let go.  There is a lump in my throat, and the only thing I can think to do is write.

I miss my son.  I miss him with everything in me.  Every fiber of my being.  I feel like I walk around with a heart that is permanently broken.  I know there is nothing anyone can do for me, not really... there is no mending this heart on this side of Heaven.

I'm being honest, because I don't think sugarcoating pain helps anyone.  It definitely doesn't help me, and neither does pretending.

But in the midst of the pain, God has graced us--- yes, graced us--- with unspeakable joy.  So while the pain is unspeakable, so is the joy.  It's like I said in an earlier post... it is possible for joy and sadness to run together...

I am in absolute awe of the little princess God has given us... Julia Carter has swooped into our lives and we are all putty in her hands!  She is an incredible, beautiful, sweet, fiesty, perfect and adorable, ball of energy!

Emily was an extremely easy baby (though we didn't know what that meant at the time, since she was our first), Ethan was a tad higher-maintenance than her (but not much!), and Julia gives us a run for our money! :)  But I simply cannot describe how sweet she is... it's amazing!

Yes, she has been such a balm to our hearts... mine, Josh's, Emily's... our extended family's... she is a Miracle Baby in every sense of the word.

The homeschool cabinet is hard because so many sweet "Ethan Memories" are wrapped up in the contents, like so, so many things in our home.  I started preschool with Emily right before I became pregnant with Ethan, and she actually prayed for a little brother or sister during one of our Bible lessons right around the time he was conceived!  The faith of a child...

The following year, Ethan witnessed her first weeks of Kindergarten, as I often held him in my arms (and many times nursed him) while we did school.

Just two weeks before his death, Emily learned to write their last name.

Just the day before his death, I read Junie B. Jones to her in the car on the way to Birmingham.

I look at her schoolwork from when Ethan was here, and the tears come.

I feel like I was so naive then.  There was an innocence there that no longer exists--- for me, for Josh, for Emily... for us all.

Daddy and I never imagined Emily and Ethan wouldn't grow up together, and neither did she.

Little Brothers are born, but they don't die...

I am a different person than I was before June 4, 2010.  I am not naive anymore.  I look in the mirror, and I feel like my face is old... like I can tell just from my appearance that I've lost a child, my precious Ethan...

No, I'm not the same person.  

But I'm a better person.  I know what matters in life, and what doesn't.  My heart aches for others, particularly for those who have lost a child, in a way I never knew was possible.  And I know God in a way that, to be honest, I never wanted to know him.  It's an intimacy that gives me my every breath.  My heart, though broken, is continuously being shaped by the Potter.  He promises to keep working with the clay.

Yes, I'm a better person... and God and my son have made me that way.