My year isn't going like I wanted...

Here's why the blog has been neglected and ignored the last year: 

It's been a HARD year.  A very hard year.  One of the hardest I've been through in all my 42+ years.  It has in no way gone like I thought it would. 

 It started with my mom being on vacation one week in April last year to not being able to walk across the room 10 days later.  Many tests, pushing and advocating for herself and arguing to get a final diagnosis of Stage IV non-small cell lung cancer in a woman who hadn't smoked.  She fought well, fought hard but it was already just everywhere and kept spreading because it was so very aggressive.  She passed away November 19, 2011.  We miss her still.

In the midst of all of the final months and days for my mother, we lost our dear friend Dawson.  He was a man of integrity, love, honor and just an amazing friend to all who knew him.  Our sweet Charlotte is named for his beloved wife Charlotte.  We never met her but the stories we heard about her spirit, her sense of humor, and her heart caused us to want to capture that joy in one of our daughters.  I'm happy to say our Charlotte's sense of humor is an entity in and of itself - just like her namesake. Our sweet Henry Thomas is named for Dawson too.  He was Thomas D. Spivey.  Someone asked us where the name came from and we said "From all three sides of the family." and got the strangest looks when we explained it was from my side, Michael's side and the Lord's side (church).  We miss Dawson still.  He loved so well.  If my Henry Thomas loves as well then I will count his a good life.

 The day we said our last goodbyes to Dawson we came home to several inches of water in our downstairs.  The water main inside the house had burst and sprayed water all over our laundry room, family room, our closet etc.  It was a huge mess. Overwhelming in it's hugeness.  Thankfully our insurance company was very good at working with us and assessing what needed to be done very quickly.  Still, it took (and is taking) some time to repair the damage done. We've had to rip out the floor again by the a/c unit because it dumped water under the floor!  So we're still fixing and repairing the damage done nearly a year later.

Then Mom died. Our relationship was complicated and while I was able to visit her just a few weeks before she died to say goodbye it didn't seem like near enough time to say what needed to be said for a lifetime. I still pick up the phone and dial her number about once a week.  To be honest, I had a very hard time dealing with the huge losses of Mom and Dawson back to back coupled with the chaos my house was in through the winter.  My kids were struggling to deal with it all and then there was their mama falling apart.  It was a very dark time in my life.  I don't think I have ever been so sad, so overwhelmed, so lonely in spite of the many people in my life.  Thankfully, I have people who love me enough to say "Honey, you have to do something.  You aren't yourself."  And I got some help.  Thank the Lord for doctors, meds and friends who care enough to say something even when it is hard to say.  

Imagine our surprise when the Lord blessed us with another pregnancy this year.  If you know me at all, you know that having another child is always considered a blessing but just because we are pregnant doesn't guarantee we bring home a babby.  It is what it is.  We had a miscarriage in June.  We had just announced three weeks earlier.  We are very sad and working through our grief.

The transparency is hard in this situation because truth of the matter is people just don't know what to do with the rawness of it.  That we would be so very sad when we know this may be the outcome of any pregnancy is hard for some people to fathom.  Of course, many people don't understand why we'd want more children - don't we have "enough" already?  We see children as a gift, a blessing and we love them - no matter how they come.  That's hard for a lot of people in our lives to understand.  So that adds another level of grief and one more thing we can't talk about to anyone.  I would like to be able to talk about it but I completely understand that people are uncomfortable with the depth of our grief.  Of their own emotions.  It is ok.  But it doesn't discount that we feel this way.  I really won't fall apart if you ask me how I'm doing.  Most days. 

My year did not go the way I thought it would. My summer isn't happening the way I thought it should/would.  Yet in the midst of it all the Lord is there.  He is there in the way my people helped us travel when Mom was sick, there when the water was everywhere and the floors needed ripping out, there when I was so sad and alone to put a hand out and say "Come out of the dark, you don't belong there."  There when we announced we were pregnant - as many people who are sceptical about the size of our family there are three times as many who think another child is a blessing and are so happy for us.  And then those same people were equally heartbroken for us when the pregnancy ended in a loss.  The Lord was there in the midst of it when friends brought dinner, came and stayed with my people while I had surgery, when friends just came to sit with me as I recovered and he was there in the room when my beloved put his arms around me and prayed for strength for me to get through it all when I said I can't do this again.  So while things have not gone the way I thought they would they have gone exactly the way the Lord knew they would and he is there every step of the way.  I sit in his lap more often than not.  I'm thankful for the option. 

So I say all this to say I haven't posted because to be honest the filter is gone and I would not have wanted to alienate any more people than I already do just by being me.  I want you to want to read because - well, truth of the matter - I'm vain like that.  I want to share my heart and my life but have you walking away thinking and laughing more times than not.  Bear with me.  I have no idea where I go from here but the Lord does and I most want to be used by Him in all things.  So my year isn't going like I wanted but it is going somewhere. 

In Clear View and In His Love,
Peg