"Mama, you know when I walk by the changing table and I kiss that box I am kissing Hazel right?" -Toliver age 5

I can't believe my baby boy is 5 already. He is the sweetest most sincere little boy ever. Tolly always tells me that he loves me more than I love him, its just not possible...

He is always talking about Hazel and talking to her. He prays everyday and thanks God for taking care of her. Tonight my two oldest girls are having a sleepover with Neeni (Grandma!) and it hadn't been 10 minutes since we dropped them off before he was saying "I sure miss the girls already!"

Toliver has such a deep love for Hazel, I love to watch him hold her urn. He talks to her and prays for her everyday.

My girls all love Hazel and grieve for her in their own ways of course. I see it different in all of them.

But something that is the same is they all talk about her all the time. I love this, I love that they include her in just about everything we do. They talk about her, even Penelope who isn't even 2 yet will occasionally walk over and talk to her and ask about baby Hazel. I love that even though they are little and only got to hold her earthly body for a few short hours they know that she was a real person, their real sister.

I am blessed in so many ways, I just wish it wasn't so hard to see some days.....

Look for your blessings today,

Meagan

(started this almost 2 weeks ago, just now posting oops!!)

Unworn Clothes.....

I walk by Hazel's dresser every morning. Every once in a while I think about the little outfits she never got to wear.

I never got to dress her in a favorite outfit.

I had already bought her first Christmas outfit, it still has the tags on it. As do the cute little clothes bought just a week before her birth.

We have blankets, a few lovies, all embroidered with her name. All of these things sit unused....

I have kept them all sitting on the changing table and tucked in the drawers of her dresser.

I haven't changed anything other than to add her beautiful urn and angel box.

Her angel box is full of the few momentos we have from her short time with us. A lock of hair, a hospital bracelet she never wore, a beaded bracelet that my sweet nurse made for us. a few pictures

.

That is all there is.

There will never be anything else, nothing else to add to the scrapbook of her life.

I have many things, poems and thoughts written on little pieces of paper. Things I have jotted down when a thought crosses my mind or I saw something that made me think of her. But these are the things that go in the scrapbook of her memory.

I miss her, I want to hold her, to learn all her little sounds and her favorite things. I want to watch her interact with her siblings. They all love her and miss her so much but Tolly is the one who expresses it the most freely.

I love to watch him, as he talks to her. He loves to hold her or whisper to her picture. Its so sweet and helps so much, to see him love her in a very real visible way.

I know that one day I will hold her and know her. I know that it I will hold her longer than I won't. These are the things I remind myself of everyday, when the days are long and I am missing her more than the day before.

~Meagan

14 things I love....

Lately my post have been sad... today not so much! In honor of the holiday I am making a list! I love lists!! I am making a list of 14 things that I love.....

(These are in no particular order, so don't judge if you think I should value number 10 above number 1!!)

#1. A hot cup of coffee!! Specifically a Cafe Mocha! More specifically one shared with a friend.

#2. Thumbprint cookies with jam! These have been my most recent baking obsession, I make them with a shortbread recipe and eat way too many every time!!

#3. Music, I love putting together a new playlist, my most recent includes 'Beautiful' from Mercy Me, 'Hello Sunshine' from Barlow Girl and 'A Room in my Heart' from Faith Hill. I love when a song speaks volumes in just a few verses. I love it even more when I can share that song with a friend who needs to hear those same words.

#4. A good book, any book really. I have contemplated getting a digital reader for a few years but I love the feel of the pages, the smell of a new book.... I am also a compulsive highlighter! I can't read anything without a pen or highlighter... :)

#5. Being pregnant. I love feeling the first flutters of life deep in my womb. I love the secret... being the only one that feels those first movements. I love my belly as it grows. I love the little hiccups, the flips and turns. I would love to feel it all over again so I could savor each moment just a little more, stay awake a little longer to delight in each movement, because you just never know.....

#6. Snuggling with my kids! I am a lucky Mama that I have four little ones that love to cuddle. Judge me if you must, but they all still love to sleep in my bed and I let them! I love to fall asleep to the sound of four individual breathing rhythms. I love the way they cuddle each other, I often say they sleep like puppies all piled on top of one another!

#7. Baking. Recently I have developed a love of baking, I love how I can get into a recipe and just be in the moment. I can concentrate on the measuring and mixing and not worry about the grief, fear, anxiety of life for that 20-30 minutes. I also love that my kids love to bake with me!!

#8. Slow days at home. Ok so in reality we don't have 'slow' days, ever! But we have been home a lot more the last two months and I am enjoying it so much! I love spending our days together letting our interests of the day lead what we study.

#9. Writing. I love the written word, I love to read it and I love to put it on paper myself. I keep a daily journal, a gratitude journal and write here. Plus countless lists scribbled on paper all over my house!!

#10. Spending time outside in the sun! I can't wait for warmer days, yesterday Ivy and I pulled chairs over by the window so we could soak up some much needed sun! I love to play outside with the kids, we are all getting a little stir crazy waiting on spring this year.

#11. Running. I love to run, I don't take nearly enough time to do it. I love that my mind is free to wander or to think of nothing at all. Its one of the few times its just me, doing something for me.

#12. Spending time with friends. I am lucky to have many good friends, friends who have been so supportive throughout the last year. I have felt overwhelmed with the amount of support that has been shown the last few weeks as my world has taken another crazy turn. I am certainly a blessed girl.

#13. To Garden. We started a garden about 3 years ago, we have had so much fun picking out seeds, plotting where they will go in the large area we laid out in the back yard. I love the excitement as the kids check everyday to see what is peeking up out of the ground, I love when things finally start to grow and we watch and wait for the vegetables to be ready for picking... and eating!!

#14. The Lord! This should have been number one!!!! I am so blessed to feel the Lord in my life, sometimes it is hard to see through all the heartache and frustrations but He is there. He is there in all the little joys, I just have to look for it. I have been blessed to come across the book One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp recently, and in the book she says that if we can just find one joy in a situation that it can change your whole outlook. This has proved to be so true for me the last few weeks, I am lucky to have a friend who reminds me of this everyday and keeps me going when the days don't seem so 'joyful'. I am a blessed girl!

I have so many more and could 'list' them forever but for now there is 14 of my loves!!

~Meagan

A long couple of days....

The last few days have held so much emotion for me, heartbreak..joy..love..sorrow...the list doesn't seem to end.

February 9th was the anniversary of my younger sister's death 3 years ago. Jennifer was just 26 years old. It was a very sudden loss and we were all shocked and devastated. We had been preparing for the death of my father who had been home on hospice for 8 months and now during his last days on earth we had to tell him that his baby girl had gone ahead of him. It was the hardest thing I have had to watch my Mom go through. At this time when she was already carrying so much on her tired but strong shoulders she had to look at the love of her life and tell him something that she knew would break his heart. She did it with so much love and compassion. Maybe in some way it prepared me for telling George the same news almost 3 years later.

The next 12 days were long and difficult, we watched the life slowly drain out of my Dad's body. I recieved the call on a cold snowy evening on Feburary 21st that he had taken his last breath and it was time to come and kiss his earthly body goodbye. I drove only 45 minutes that night but it seemed like hours... I wanted to be there to hold him, to hold my Mom. After getting to the house and kissing him goodbye for the last time, we gathered in the living room with loved ones and talked about what a wonderful man he was. We talked of all the little quirks that made him who he was, the things we would see in each other, in my children, the things that keep him alive in us all today. It was a beautiful evening in the midst of so much agony.

For two weeks we planned and prepared for a memorial service where we would say goodbye to both my sister and my father. My mom had decided to wait and do them together because this way, in her eyes she would be comforted by the fact that they were together. It was a wonderful service and many came to celebrate the lives of these two very special people with us.

At this time of so much sorrow, my belly was growing bigger every day with new life. Just 24 days after my Dad passed away I gave birth to my fourth child, a little girl who would never get to meet Paw Paw or Aunt Jenni. This has been something I have struggled with, with mixed feelings of sadness and anger. However, I had a good friend remind me the other day that although Dad and Jenni are not here, my children will get to know them through the memories, love and experiences that I had with my Dad and Sister that I share with them. It made me realize just how close they still are and how much I really do try to keep their memory alive in my home. I am blessed to have such good friends and family surrounding me during these difficult times.

"Our hearts still ache in sadness, and secret tears still flow, what it meant to lose you, no one will ever know" ~unknown

~Meagan

Chicken Soup for the Angel Mommy's Soul.....

Today I came across a facebook page with this title. I was excited to check it out and after everyone was tucked into bed I looked it up. I am not sure how I feel now....

Since the death of my precious Hazel I have felt so many things, heartbreak, denial, anger, disgust, extreme sadness, even the physical ache of wanting to feel her in my arms. Through all of it though I felt this strange peace that this was her plan and that God was holding her close. Almost everyone I know has given me that strange look when I express this feeling. It came so soon after we found out, really the whole pregnancy I had a lot of focus on mothers that had lost their little ones. I just felt very connected to their stories and read them almost daily the last few months of the pregnancy. So just hours after we found out, I told our pastor about this and asked if she thought it might be God's way of preparing me. I think she thought I was nuts.

I have had plenty of moments where I am mad at God, mad that I don't get to hold my little girl or watch her grow. But they are just that, moments. Moments of anger that pass, the tears come and my little ones here on earth come running to hold and comfort. I am so lucky to have such caring children. Tolly says a prayer every night thanking God for watching over Hazel and holding her since we can't, it is the most precious, heartbreaking thing.

I don't hold this anger, the pain doesn't leave but the anger fades.

I am blessed. I have many friends and family that are there for me, not always asking about her but if I need them they come running.

I am blessed. I have four beautiful children here on earth that love me so much and love each other, they are the best of friends and I couldn't ask for more. More than that they love the Lord, Tolly and I play the "I love you more" game and it always ends in "I love you more, mom-mom but I really love God the most! He amazes me, they all do. They inspire me to have that same relationship with God. Where I am in awe and just thankful for everything in my life. (That being said they are still little monsters sometimes, who are not thankful for anything and demand ice cream for breakfast sprinkled with m&m's, but they are kids what do I expect!)

I am blessed. I have found a relationship with the Lord that fills me up when I don't think I can go on. I want to live my days to the fullest, to fill up my children so that if this is the last day we spend together they know I gave them everything I had. I want to be proud of me. Some days I fail, but I kiss them goodnight we say our prayers and I hope for another day to show them how much I love them.

Back to the facebook page, there was so much anger on the page.... I felt consumed, almost guilty that I wasn't holding this anger... should I be angry? Am I not being a loving mother to my angel if I'm not more angry about her death? ....... I don't think so, I think I am a mama who desperately misses her angel and knows that I will one day hold her for much longer than I am missing her here on earth....

I think I am.... BLESSED.

~Meagan

Unsettled....

Tonight I sit here not really knowing what to say.... interesting right? I feel so beat up after the events of the last two weeks. I am at that point where you say, 'Ok God, I know you are there, help me to see where this is taking me'. 'Help me to stay on the path that you wish for me.'

I found a quote last night that I posted on my facebook page,‎

"Thank you for letting me talk and letting me cry. Thank you for cheerful hellos and tearful goodbyes. Thank you for asking questions and saying her name. Thank you for not understanding, but sharing my pain."

- Jacqueline M. Savageau

I had a lot of people comment on how much they liked the quote. But do they really hear the words? Do they understand how much I need that? I have to admit I have VERY few people (maybe two) that even mention Hazel anymore. It breaks my heart, I fear her being forgotten.....

If you know another Angel Mama, call her ask her how she is doing. Ask her about her angel, what is she doing right now to remember her/ him. Let her know in some way that you haven't forgotten, send a note, a card something that says that you remember. It will mean the world to her, I promise.

I have a sick little boy who is in need of some cuddling so off to bed I go...

Goodnight, Meagan