How are we doing?

How are we doing?  It depends on the minuet really...  Days have fallen into an order of sorts, I don't feel like I'm standing at the edge of a black hole, things are not so chaotic anymore.  Josie going back to school has been a huge help, mornings revolve around getting her up, fed, dressed and into my wonderful friend V's SUV as she's been taking her to school for me.  Then there's nursing Sarah, doing dishes, and I actually have been getting Sarah to sleep and digitally scrap-booking the rest of my morning away.  I never had much time to do it before, and it feels good to get life in order, even if it's only photos.

Afternoons I bring Luke lunch and ride in the tractor with him a few hours before I come back in to pick Josie up from school.  I am grateful his office is so dusty, dirty, private.  The views from his window are beautiful...  It's a good place to be, there with him.  It's a good place to cry.  I love seeing him work, it's been a long time since I was able to ride with him.  I haven't spent this much time in the cab of a tractor with him since I was pregnant with Josie.  Sarah sleeps in her car seat on the floorboards, the steady hum of the engine and the constant rocking and vibration work wonders to lull her into dreamland.

Throughout the day I am suddenly struck by this incredible emptiness, be it the empty Nap Nanny on the floor, folding laundry and there is no size 3T in the piles, ordering diapers and only buying size one not size three...  Things everywhere remind me of Marie.  And I love that, but it makes me miss her so.  I want her in my arms, that weight...  I miss the way her hair smelled after a bath, I missed painting her toenails on Saturday morning when I painted Josie's... and her sister misses her too.

There is acting up, there is lots of sensitivity, but at the end of the day Josie has lost her playmate and she is lonely and bored at home.  The hours she and Marie would spend playing their little games... she doesn't know how to fill them and I'm not completely sure how to help her other than just being there.  I have the same problem, many empty hours to fill.  Cuddling Sarah helps, and she is a beautiful baby, but she is Sarah, unique to herself.  There is no replacing my Little Mama, her laugh, her smile, her smell... and it's empty here without them, for all of us.

Luke coming home is hard, his girls looked forward to that part of the day.  My heart breaks a little when there is only a blond little five year old running for the door.  No wiggling two year old in my arms about to come undone if she cannot get to her Daddy right now.  Marie's face would light up at the sound of his boots on the floor, after all, she was his baby.  Through and through.

I know we'll treasure these memories and they'll bring us joy and comfort in the coming years, but right now it's only been two weeks and being separated from Marie hurts so much.  Still, we're grateful that she was taken quickly, no extended suffering.  It was peaceful, she is healed.  Healed and running with Landon, Quinlan, Bernadette, babies gone to soon.  I also know mine are not the only arms that are empty and there is comfort in having amazing women who understand... I pray a lot...

Sarah was baptized on Sunday, it was beautiful.  It was amazing really, watching my child be welcomed into God's family having seen that journey through to completion in Marie.  To have seen her baptism and how God worked in her life, and how He brought her Home is just amazing...

Grateful to have been a part of that, but missing my Rie Rie so....



Lamentations 3:31-33
For men are not cast off by the Lord forever.Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love.For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.