What A Weekend

Hubs and I traveled north a bit so we could spent the weekend with his brother and his brothers wife because we had a wedding on Saturday and needed them to watch BabyA along with their son. We get up there Friday night and BabyA is having it rough. He cried every half hour for half the night. How do I know? Well I spent all night in the bathroom with food poisoning. Worst experience ever.  I spent Saturday asleep most of the day until the wedding, which I got ready for and we went to anyway. I couldn’t even hold my arms over my head without getting dizzy… so I rocked a simple hairstyle that was still wet when we left.  The wedding was our friend from college that met her hubby our senior year at a party at my house. So missing this wedding wasn’t going to happen.  I made it through the ceremony and cocktail hour but when food came out I had to leave.  I sat outside while Hubs ate then he took me home. Which was lame, but  I went to sleep at 8:30 and didn’t wake until almost 8 the next day. I felt so much better. My MIL and FIL were there too to celebrate my SILs bday so we all had breakfast and then the thee of us ladies left to spend the day at the Spa. I LOVED the spa. It was a natural hot springs and so wonderful. We spent 6 hours there relaxing in the waters and indulging in spa food. Mud bath, sulfur pools, aloe moisturizer, and floating in a pool on foam mats for an hour.  It was the best experience of my life. I was so relaxed and rejuvenated that I offered to drive home that night. I HATE driving. Hate it. But when we got back I had been recharging all day and hubs looked like he had been steamrolled by the baby. Hubs eyes were barely open when I got back. So I told him I would drive. Then we got home and the cold I caught while my body was compromised kicked in. Now it’s Wednesday and I finally feel half alive. Mon and Tues I had a major sinus headache and sore throat and runnynose. (this post is mainly about the fact I have been sick)

Nothing else has really been happening. BabyA likes to bite. He broke a vessel in my face and now I have a red mark. He likes to eat things now that he didn’t before. Like chicken. We bought Frozen, and BabyA didn’t sit well through it so he went to bed. Aaaaaand that brings us back to today.

365 Days

Right now I am fighting sleep. Dreading waking up one year from the day my brother didn't. No longer was he here this day last year. No, one year down.. A lifetime to go. 

I keep thinking of the cliche bookmark/inspirational poster/fridge

Magnet about Someone walking down the beach and noting that they see two sets of footprints. But then when life got hard they old see one set. "God why did you abandon me in my time of need? When I needed you most I was walking alone." And God answers "you only see one set of footprints because when you couldn’t go on, it was then that I carried you." 

I have had a really rough past couple of years. I lost my son and sunk so far down into the worst season of my life that I look back and cannot recognize the woman in the hospital. Unshowered, makeupless. Red eyed and face swollen from tears. Sitting in a wheelchair holding onto her husband at her lowest point. Sobbing over the body of her son at the only baptism he would get.

Those next months, and throughout that year, God carried me until I could stand again. Then a year later- finally having regained my balance- I find out my brother never woke up. My 20 year old brother died. I was there when he was born, crawling, first steps. 3am Romeo and Juliet over Christmas break. Silly ping pong. Watching him beat Zelda because I was afraid. Letting me sleep in his room when I was scared after the Sixth Sense. Tagging along. Annoying the crap out of me. Tattling.

There are some days I still need to be carried. Some where it hurts all the time. Nights where I cry until my nose is stuffed over my son and my brother. 

But tragedy has tempered me. I have come through it stronger in my faith and stronger in myself. I will carry the weight of my pain for the rest of my life. But I know when I can't handle it anymore that I am not alone. I can lean on God until I can support myself. I don't know what I would have done without God. I couldn't have handled it alone.