Remembering Janessa

Today it has been 13 years since I buried my baby.  

I don't even know how to feel even typing that sentence.  Maybe a little empty and lost.  I had so many disappointments after Janessa died and the graveside service was one of them.  I wanted to see Janessa one last time.  I wanted to put her in her coffin.  I wanted reassurance that her life mattered and that she would be resurrected and I would see her again NOT just a paragraph in a handbook shoved at me to say we have no answers as to what will happen--that hurt so bad that because she never took a breath that I had no promises like other babies who took 1 breath and then died.  I wanted her coffin to already be at the grave, not, my husband and I having to see it in the hearse and then my husband having to carry her coffin by himself to the grave while I walked behind.  I wanted to spend time at the grave not have to rush off.  I wish I had felt comfortable taking pictures because I wish I had pictures of her coffin and the flower bouquet on her coffin.  I wanted some alone time with my baby, but, instead I had people coming up to me hugging me and saying over and over how sorry they were.  I physically didn't want people to touch me or hug me because my milk had come in that day and I was miserable and it physically hurt to have people hug me.  I was sick of people telling me they were sorry and it was God's will and she was in a better place.  A lot of those people who were there have walked out of my life and never spoken with me again and that hurts too.  A lot of those people have never mentioned Janessa again and have basically erased her from existence.  I wanted to release balloons to the heavens that day.  I wanted to come home and cry and find peace, not come home to the neighbors having a rock concert that shook our house because it was so loud. 

I think more than anything, I wanted this to NOT be my life of burying my child rather than having her safe at home with me.

I am grateful that the flower bouquet I bought a week before Janessa's angel b-day this year still continues to keep giving and bringing me peace this year.  I have been able to spread rose petals and a lily on her remembrance stone to bring me peace today and I still have 2 pink roses and purple flowers that are still blooming and that I can continue to enjoy--definitely a tender mercy for today.