Held

Sometimes Most times through my life I have forgotten some pretty important people. I try not to but when I don't get the answers I want or when I want them I get angry and just block it from my mind.  Who else would I be talking about but God and Jesus Christ.  I have always been religious. I grew up LDS and have since left the church but found peace in other areas.  In my adult years I have really been known to forget those same people. No prayers, no thoughts, no thank yous, no wishes. I just lived. Living life thinking I control it and no one else. Thinking I make the good, the bad and whatever in between.  I never denied there was a greater power but I never really understood it. I didn't want to really think about it.  Once Kenzie came around how could I not think about it a little more. To know she came from heaven and was as perfect as she was. However, it wasn't until I was faced with her life in my hands that I really reached out to someone else.  Life was no longer in my control, nothing I did would change the fate of my daughters life. She was the way she was, her life was changing, her body was failing and I was stuck. I would beg God to let me keep her. I would plead when she was in pain to help her. I have never prayed so much in my life. For strength, for guidance, for healing, for hope, for love, for comfort, for peace, for help, for everything.  I needed him to come down, look me in the face and tell me she was going to be okay. He needed to assure me he would take care of her.  I never got that. In the hospital I felt she told me in her own way though. Its hard for me to describe it now because I am not in touch with that side like I was then. It only lasted while Kenzie was there. It was her. Her spirit. She made me feel comfort, peace and assurance that she would be okay.  That's all I wanted. For her to be okay- more than okay, Perfect.  I hated those tubes, I hated her failing body, I hated that fact that she was and never would be free again. 

After she returned to God, I expected comfort.  I needed a BIG in your face promise she was safe. She made it to heaven okay and that she was being taken care of.  I am not smart, I'm not really in touch with a spiritual side, I don't know how to meditate. I couldn't have a subtle whisper in my heart. I needed fireworks. AND I figured I deserved it.  I mean I have tried to live a good life, I have tried to live serving others I have lived wanting to make a difference. Then I had a baby, I was minding my own business when out of no where he took her from me. He totally stole her and didn't have a care for my feelings.  He left me empty, he left me broken. How dare he. How can he take her. I would take better care of her than him. I love her more. He has no idea what this kind of pain is. Why would he do this. Anger. Unbelievable amount of anger. Screaming at him. You take her then you never come to me. You stole my daughter and left me alone.  How could you leave me now? How could you not comfort me? Why wont you answer my prayers. I need to know she is okay, I need to feel her around me. Let me dream of her. Every night. I deserve that. I deserve to KNOW she is in heaven.

Its taken 10 months. 10 months to finally release some of that anger. Do I still have it. Yes. I think I might for a long time. But. I realized the other night, while I was crying. Missing her. How much I don't want to be like THIS forever. That I want to make her proud, I want to find joy, I want to find peace, I want to be happy. I want to find a reason again.  I cried. I talked to God. I told him I need him. I told him I don't want to be mad at him anymore. I need to have him take care of her so I don't need to worry as much because I cant spend my everyday thinking only about her and worrying if she is okay. I need to work, I need to find a hobby, I need to smile, I need to get out. I will carry her with me the whole time but I need to not cloud my mind with that over powering MISSING, WANTING, HOPING feeling. That's what take my energy. That's what consumes my everything. The guilt is there. Thinking it might hurt Kenzie's feelings that I don't sit there and wish her back all day. I worry she will think I don't love her, miss her, want her. Even though- I know how much I feel all that in my heart.  Kenzie knows my heart. That's whats important. Its not whats on the front of my mind that she is paying attention to, its the person I am inside. She knows I'm hurting. She knows I miss. I bet she is wishing she could help more. Screaming at me when I'm screaming at God telling me she is right here if I would just be.  I have been forcing this in your face feeling that I wont accept anything less. I asked God to help. I need serious help. I don't know what I want, need, feel. I just hurt and don't want to hurt like this forever. 

He has a plan. I believe that. I know Makenzie had a purpose and she fulfilled her purpose very early in life. Me- oh I have a lot of work to do. My purpose has not been fulfilled and I have to keep going until it is.  I have to make sure I do my job here so that I can be free with her forever.  This time is seeming to take way to long to get through. 10 months seems like a long time but in reality- If I live to be 85. I have 744 more months to get through. That's a lot.  But I cant waste a single one either. When I look back it wont seem long at all. Ill understand. Ill have a pure knowledge of why. The passing of Makenzie was suppose to be part of my journey. As much as I hate that and so DON'T want to believe it. It is. To know I have to go through this in order to get to where I'm going is really hard to wrap my head around. 

Makenzie is in heaven.  My daughter died. I am a mother who doesn't get to hold her child. At 23 I have experienced the greatest amount of loss anyone can experience in their whole life.  I am needing to learn. I am learning because there is something greater. This is not it. This world is just that- the world, earth and temporary.  It will run out, get old and not last forever.  The reality of forever is strange. No beginning and no end. My mind right now cant comprehend it. But Kenzie knows. She can see the reasons why. She can see the reality of forever. She is happy because she doesn't have to go through this icky world to get to where she is now. She doesn't have to deal with girl drama, boy drama, parental drama. She gets to be in the most amazing place ever. She gets to have her parents simply adore her to pieces and never for one second feel a little upset with her. She gets to just experience love. All the time. What a life. She gets to know she has changed the world in a very short amount of time and she helped make it a little better.  Makenzie is smiling, she is playing with all those balloons that never pop, she is laughing at all her friends, she is being snuggled, tickled, hugged all day. 

I don't need to worry. I need to understand God knows me. Even though I worry he doesn't, I have to have faith he does. Because- he promised. I wish I could understand a fathers love.  I wasn't able to experience that in my life growing up but I saw that for a moment with Ryan and Makenzie. I try to compare that love to Heavenly Fathers love for me. To think I'm his child. To think he knows me. To think he knows Makenzie and to think he didn't want to make me suffer. He didn't want to hurt me. He wanted to give Kenzie more. He couldn't let that perfect little girl live in this life any longer and experience the kind of pain I was feeling. She was to perfect for that. She knew to much. She was ready. How can I be mad at the person who saved her.

This song is amazing. You know me and music. I have it on my phone and listen to it several times a day. It reminds me. It gets me through because I know I am being held.
I look back and think, how did I sit next to my dieing child?
How did I hold her as her life was ending?
How did I give her to that nurse?
How did I say goodbye?
How have I not completely lost it?
How am I still breathing?

Because I am not doing it alone. I have an amazing husband. Wonderful family. And a perfect God that is holding me through it all. Those times I'm curled in a ball, he has picked me up and squeezed me tight. Even though the pain was still so great and so there. He helped it pass. He helped me continue.

Here are the lyrics to Held by Amy Grant

Two months is too little

They let her go

They had no sudden healing

To think that providence

Would take a child from her mother

While she prays, is appalling

Who told us we'd be rescued

What has changed and

Why should we be saved from nightmares

Were asking why this happens to us

Who have died to live, it's unfair

This is what it means to be held

How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved and to know

That the promise was that when everything fell

We'd be held

This hand is bitterness

We want to taste it and

Let the hatred numb our sorrows

The wise hand opens slowly

To lilies of the valley and tomorrow

This is what it means to be held

How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved and to know

That the promise was that when everything fell

We'd be held

If hope if born of suffering

If this is only the beginning

Can we not wait, for one hour

Watching for our savior

This is what it means to be held

How it feels, when the sacred is torn from your life

And you survive

This is what it is to be loved and to know

That the promise was that when everything fell

We'd be held

 

So now, I am not forgetting. They are in my life everyday. Because. without them- I wouldn't have her. Life is hard. It sucks. I wish everyone could catch a break more often. The suffering is to great. All around the world. But I'm learning through God- Ill be okay. Ill find my reason again.