Before and After

There will always be certain events in our lives that mark a change or turning point.  Sometimes it is a global or national event that affects many people at once.  I have heard it said that when President Kennedy was shot it changed our nation as a whole, with people becoming less trusting among other things.  I have heard it referred to as the day our nation lost its innocence.  Hurricane Katrina affected a whole region of people whose lives will never be the same.  Sometimes it's a happy event like a marriage or birth.  It is the events that touch our lives personally that affect us the most.  We often identify that period as before and after.  We might say before Katrina hit this is how things  worked, but now..."  For myself I used to sleep like a rock before I had children, but after I sleep light as a feather.  Once you get "mommy ears" that's it.

Someone recently commented that my husband is, "different than he used to be."  Granted he has not had much contact with this person in over six years though he tried to stay in touch and had reached out to this person many times.  You know how it is though, we get used to seeing someone almost every day and it’s convenient, then suddenly they are no longer there.  People get busy and caught up in their own lives with work and family and friends who are still logistically close.  

Our family has gone through one of those mentioned life changing events, actually more than one we also moved over five hundred miles away from family and friends.  Other people forget, well that’s not a fair statement.  Our life changing event is not in the forefront of anyone else's mind but ours and that's the way it is.  It didn't happen to them their lives didn't change the way ours did and life goes on.  When you lose a loved one your family, friends, coworkers and so on all pause for a moment out of respect.  Those closest to you pause a little longer because they also feel the loss.  But eventually life does move on for those of us still walking the planet.  It just goes on a little differently for we who are grieving, especially when the grief is for a child.

To put it mildly grief hurts!  It hurts emotionally and spiritually and even physically.  It changes you, it changed me and Mark and my family.  We may look the same on the outside but we don't think or feel the same on the inside.  I know we don't act the same either and I won't apologize for any of it.  Of course things changed someone we love is no longer with us.  She wasn’t just someone we love; she was a friend, a best friend, a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, queen of the one liners, a confidante, a beautiful creative funny part of our family.  We miss her and always will.

As hard as it is we do go on, but our path is altered.  There is no going back to the way we used to be even if we wanted to.  We move forward for the sake of each other and ourselves and to honor Madison.  We know that she would not want us to wallow in sadness and tears.  We know that she would want us to be happy and we are working on that.  In the beginning I didn’t think joy would ever be a part of my life again but little by little I learned to find it; in the beauty of a cardinal or the cuteness of a puppy or a smile on my other children’s faces.  I find joy when I hear Derric and Dallas laughing, now that is a sound Mark and I absolutely love to hear.

My sister Jennifer told me once not long after losing Madison that if I am feeling overwhelmed in depression to just go outside.  She told me to go outside and sit in nature and see what a beautiful world God has made.  She was right, and she should know she has lost two children in her life.  I took her advice and I think it is one of the reasons I like East Tennessee as much as I do.  I spent a fair amount of time our first year here sitting outside on our porch, more time than I usually do, enjoying the four seasons.  I would spend that time contemplating the beauty around me, the trees, birds, snow, fireflies, and an occasional glimpse of the mountains.

So has my husband changed?  The simple answer is yes; anyone who knows him, really knows him can’t help but have noticed the transformation over the last few years.  We have all changed.   Can you say that you’re the same person you were six years ago?  It doesn’t require a life altering event to see that people change a bit as the years go by.  Though we are no longer “happy go lucky” and the smiles don’t come as easily we are finding our happiness a moment at a time.  There will always be sadness that Madison isn't with us to share our lives.  The most difficult thing to do after losing my child was to find and experience joy.  I thought I would never experience that feeling again.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that the rest of my family probably felt that way too.  Maybe one day I’ll have a grandchild named Joy, then she will be more easily found!  :-)

This photo was taken a week before we lost our Madison.