Saturday, August 9, 2014

Anniversaries: Some good, some bad


We have two major anniversaries that are hitting us this weekend. When you first hear the word anniversary I think that weddings are the thing that comes to mind.  People are always celebrating how many years they have been married and what that means to them.  I love celebrating the anniversary of my wedding. My husband and I just had our ninth anniversary and we are looking forward to our tenth (which we will be celebrating at Disney World next year). I was pondering over the word and decided to look it up. According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary the word anniversary means,

1:  the annual recurrence of a date marking a notable event; broadly :  a date that follows such an event by a specified period of time measured in units other than years <the 6-month anniversary of the accident>
2:  the celebration of an anniversary 

As I got to thinking about the topic, I came to the realization that anniversaries are not always good.


I had been doing a lot of thinking yesterday and kept going back over my mind to August 8, 2013. That was the day that the doctor called me and told me the scariest thing I have ever heard, "Your 13 year old daughter has cancer.".   I was in shock, I just didn't want to believe that was what was wrong, but it was.  We made it, with the Lord by our sides, through all that chemo and time spent in the hospital and here we are one year later the stronger because of it.  I am not sure if yesterday was good or bad anniversary. I mean it was bad in the sense of the news we got, but I guess you could also look at as good. Why? Because it is a reminder of what happened and how good God has been in our daughter's life. He has healed her and continues to do so. Next week is her nine month check-up with her oncologist and we are hoping and praying for continued healing and good news.




The second anniversary that we have this weekend will be tomorrow. On August 10, 2010 I went to the doctor for a routine ultrasound with my third pregnancy. I had never had any major problems early in my pregnancies, but from the moment I got that positive result I just had a feeling something was not right.  That day would prove that my "feeling" was correct. The ultrasound revealed that our precious little baby's heart was not beating. I will never forget the intense pain of that news. We decided to name our little angel August. It means one of royal birth. I think it was a perfect choice since our baby was born straight into God's family. At first I seemed to be fine, but as the days went on my emotional and mental pain only worsened. It has been a long difficult journey, with two more miscarriages since the first. I continue to have my good days and my bad days. I know this is something I will never "get over", even though many people keep telling me I need to. It is those people that have no clue about what it feels like to be missing not only one, but three pieces of your heart. It is those people who think having babies is the easiest thing in the world. I can tell you with a certainty it is not. I always dread these loss anniversary dates, but I try to remind myself at each one that God had a plan and purpose for taking my babies on to heaven. Do I understand it? No. Will I ever understand it? No. Will it matter in the end? I don't believe so. I believe when I get to heaven and see my precious little ones for the first time that I will be so happy and joyful that I won't even care about the why.




"That's my 'two-cents worth', what's yours?"




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