Wrapped in a Blanket

Evan came home from his audition rotations for the weekend. He had been gone 6 weeks and has 6 more to go, but I guess he couldn't stand being away from us, so he came for a visit. :) We loved having daddy home and it was such a great weekend! (and I got some much-needed housework done!)

While Evan was here, he told me all about his rotation in Michigan and how much he loved it! The residents, the attendings, the academics, the hospital-he raved about it all. Then, somberly, he started to tell me about an instance that I've been thinking a lot about ever since:

While talking with another student, there were people standing in the hall joking and laughing around him. He noticed a man and a woman, both nurses, walking toward him. They had a different air about them. Ignoring the people laughing and talking, they walked through the hall. The man had what seemed like a bundle of blankets in his arms. Evan knew immediately what was inside. The other student said, "That looks like a baby." Evan said he turned toward her and said, "It is. They're going to the morgue." 

I cried for an hour after he told me about this experience. We talked for awhile about it and how it made each of us feel. It flooded memories into my mind of the hours I spent in my hospital rooms after handing my babies to nurses that I barely knew. Those nurses then walked through the halls of the hospital with my babies, wrapped up in blankets, and handed them to someone in the morgue. They were laid in a cold, sterile, metal room. They were examined. They were measured. Samples of their tissue were looked at under microscopes and sent off to labs. They were sent to the mortuary where they were laid in a box. My sweet babies were wrapped in blankets, where they have stayed ever since. 

I couldn't help but feel heartache for the family of that little baby. They were sitting in a room somewhere in that hospital feeling the same hurt and pain that still plagues me today. 

It's a good illustration of how the whole world buzzes around you when your world has come to an abrupt halt. You feel a deep, palpable, ache and you don't know how you're going to keep going. All the while, everyone around you continues on with their life. Eventually, you do too. It takes awhile, and the hurt returns when you don't expect it. Tears flow freely when you hear a mother calling to her son with the same name as yours. There are a few times a year when I pull out the box of Scotlin's and Kayden's things and crumple into a mass of tears as I look at their tiny handprints and the outfit still stained with blood. It sounds masochistic, but it has a healing power--to feel close to my sons when they aren't here. 

It's a sweet feeling to be able to pick up one of my MiraCole babies and snuggle them to help my heart feel better in these instances. I know that I am a very blessed mother. I thank my Father in Heaven every day for my babies, the living ones and the angel ones.  And when I climb into bed at night, after putting the kids to bed, I realize that we're just one big, happy family-all wrapped in blankets.  

An Answer to an Unsaid Prayer

In my church, we have a huge meeting twice a year called General Conference. We believe in a living prophet that has all the power and authority to speak for God on earth today. This prophet and his apostles are considered special witnesses of Jesus Christ and teach us the things that our Father in Heaven needs us to hear. This is an opportunity to make the necessary changes to adapt to a growing world and to accommodate for the things that God needs his children to focus on in order to prepare to meet him. I look forward to this conference as a time to realign my attitudes and goals with a focus on my Savior and being a better disciple of Him.

This fall as conference approached, I read that one way to prepare for conference is to write down specific questions that I would like to have answered during conference. I have done this before and have been blessed with answers that have directed my life and my decisions.  This time, I couldn't think of a question. But as I pondered, I knew in my heart that I just needed to know that Heavenly Father was mindful of me and the trial I was struggling with. The past month, I've been angry. I have felt cheated and abused; like I've been picked on and forced to endure more heartache than was fair. 

I was scrubbing my bathroom floor while I listened to conference when this talk (above) came on. Elder Bowen described his experience with the death of his son and the pain he and his family endured. EVERY WORD seemed to describe my sorrow in perfect detail. I sat on the floor with my sudsy brush in my gloved hand and sobbed. 

I hadn't written down a question, and I hadn't prayed before conference. My loving Heavenly Father just told me, through Elder Bowen's beautifully expressed words, that He loved me and knows how much I'm hurting. I felt relieved and uplifted. Suddenly the texts, calls, and Facebook messages started pouring in, "I thought of you and your angels during that last talk."

Sometimes I feel so alone, left to grieve my sons' absence with Evan as the rest of the world moves on and we can't. Then I get a nudge like this and am reminded that I'm never alone and have loving, kind family and friends that think of us and pray for us.

I'm grateful that God used Elder Bowen to tell the world that sometimes babies die, and it's heartbreaking. It's devastating. It is not fair. But that there is hope in this bleak existence without them that we are going to see them again. CHILDREN under the age of accountability (8 years old) DO NOT NEED BAPTISM! Jesus Christ loves the children. He implores us to be like them: meek, mild, submissive. How can they be damned?! I'm grateful that I have a knowledge of the fullness of the gospel and that I KNOW my sons are waiting for me. Thank you to all who wrote us, or even thought of us and our angels today. We appreciate it beyond words!

Much Love, 

Whit