Every May, I know what is coming. The first smell of cut grass, I know what is coming. The memories of May 2013 come flooding in and the gut drops to my feet. It’s another May, another start to summer , and the start of the month I gave both birth and gave my first son over to a nurse to be brought to the morgue. It’s 3:32 pm on May 27th as I write this, which is 9 years ago today I had to count Asher’s toes and cradle is perfectly teeny body for the last time. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. I told my husband this morning that I just need to make it to noon. Noon was the time we told the hospital that we would let Asher be released . Do you know what that feels like ? If you are reading this, I HOPE you don’t and if you do know what this feels like, I am here, on the bathroom floor with you.
There was a large clock in our hospital room and I vividly remember watching the minute hand , getting closer and closer to the 12. In a way I started to panic, as I knew after the minute hand reached the center of the clock, that was it. The journey was over. This child I had brought into the world would now be handed over to a nurse who would take him to the basement of the hospital. I balled, begging her to not let my little boy stay in the morgue, not around all those dead people. She assured me that the funeral home would be there soon. She put him in a bassinet and wheeled him out, out the door, and out of my sight forever. I wanted to run after her. I would have kept him longer , just memorizing every crease in his hands and feet but he was starting to deteriorate. You don’t want that image in your head, I can assure you. I sat there and cried with my husband at the time, wondering HOW is it already over. I had already started the grieving process and that was BARGAINING. I begged God to take me with him as I didn’t want him to be alone, to be scared in Heaven. But that didn’t happen and that was not in God’s plan.
So here I am, nine years later, still paralyzed at times, especially in May. I wonder what he would be like, what he would look like, and what challenges he would have had as a little person. I also wonder if my first marriage would have made it and if I would be as strong and faithful as I am now. Not to mention, I would not have my son Rowan, my rainbow baby. He has given seven years of fullness….of laughter, of proudness , and of absolute pure joy. I asked God if I couldn’t have Asher, that he needs to send me a child that would be just like Asher. I can’t say with certainty that Rowan is, as I only had 23 hours with Asher. I do know that Asher was perfect and Rowan is NOT perfect , but he is the most perfect and greatest child I could have. He is now at an age where he asks about Asher which I love and celebrate. Now , the gentleness of Asher’s story is told a BIT different through a 7 year old. If you ask Rowan where Asher is, he will say he is in Heaven . If I say Asher is looking down on us, he will say “How does he do that, he’s dead”….very matter of fact. I did have a parenting fail moment just a few weeks ago, specifically Easter weekend. We were reading The Berenstein Bears book about Jesus and Easter and I saw his bottom lip quiver( the sign he has right before tears). I asked him what was wrong and he asked if Jesus was in Heaven with Asher and I said yes. He then says with tears in his eyes, ” I don’t want to die , do kids die? “. I immediately said ” Honey you do not need to worry about that! You are going to live a long time “. Then the boom came- in FULL ON tears he says ” Well Asher was a baby and he died .” All I could say was that Asher was very sick so that was a fail as well as now he is worried about getting sick.
Now that I have breast cancer, he has asked me more than once if he can die from breast cancer. I told him no, you don’t have breasts. He says, ” but I have nipples and you have nipples, and you could die from cancer”. I learned I can’t win, and I will never have the perfect explanation for it all. I think death is a subject that has to be approached by each couple and family individually. We all have one thing in common and that is we wanted more time. Some, probably many, wonder how I can have faith after losing Asher. If God is so great and loves us, why does he allow bad things to happen? If you think about it, God allowed the worst possible thing to happen to the best possible person, Jesus. He sacrificed his son to save all of us and I am so eternally grateful for that. Because of that, I WILL see Asher again and spend eternity with him. With Rowan. With my family and all my loved ones. That’s how I get through May. It may be painful, and I may be the worst person to be around when Memorial Day weekend comes and that is expected. God can handle that.
I miss Asher every single day. It gets easier but it is never easy, as it shouldn’t. He would be nine as of 2 days ago. That is nine years of missed memories and of joy and laughter like I have with Rowan. But no matter what, if it is year 1 or year 9, I choose to celebrate his life as he was never broken and never not meant for me. That my friends, is acceptance and gratefulness.
mommadale 