Facing my stuff instead of stuffing my face...with cinnabon!

Okay y'all so you know when you have a scab and sometimes the scab comes off and there is no bleeding, just fresh skin underneath, all the while the wound is healing, but if you are to bump or scratch that fresh wound it is like a gaping wound that bleeds and bleeds...that is how my heart feels right now!  I feel like I have been on the mend and I have been working through my grief daily.  Two weeks ago when I ran into the family from Texas with the child who has the same CHD disease as our Zech it was like ripping off the scab that had started to form over my heart and the skin underneath was fresh but healing...but then today happened.  Before I explain it I have to tell you how ironic that Derek and I started our grief share class today.  So after church Derek dropped off at the front door so I can run into Old Navy and exchange a shirt that didn't fit well...guess who was there, the family from Texas.  I almost had a panic attack right in the middle of Old Navy.  Right then and there my wounds was gushing, I took a some cleansing breathes and paid for my items as quickly as possible...I feel like every time I see these people along with some other people from Texas and even from home at times, they look at me like I have the plague, or with sympathy or like I am pathetic.  I feel so sad when this happens because I feel like I have dealt with Zechariah's life and death really quite well.  I feel like I am a strong woman, with strong faith.  I just want people to see grief is not the plague you don't catch it but we will all have to deal with it at some point!

I do have good news to tell you...I fought the urge to drown my sorrows in Cinnabon!  I just said no to eating my feelings and my thighs are thanking me!  I am facing my stuff instead of stuffing my face!!!

Life is beautiful make sure and tell your loved ones how much you love them because life on this earth is short!

Blessings, Tab

Eating My Feelings...

Lately I have been struggling. Not  only emotionally but weight wise.  These last ten pounds have been the hardest to loose.  I don't know if it is a mental struggle or if it is just that I am pretty much at the weight I am supposed to be.  Yesterday I had a slip up, I totally ate my feelings, but good news is I reigned them in before it got too out of hand and tracked every last point I ate.  However, I have been exercising like a maniac, and have indeed seen my body changing, my legs becoming so slim and my arms toning up, but my weight has pretty much been stable anywhere between 165-169.  Either way I am calling the general surgeon tomorrow to schedule my follow up and get the balls rolling for my stomach reconstruction.  I know I haven't been losing tons as of lately but I have losing inches thanks to my MWF spin instructors.

Today has been a hard day, it was so hard for me to go to bed last night, the thought of being left alone with my own thoughts scares me, so today I have been dragging, and just trying to make it to bedtime.  Derek is gone for training, and I am quite frankly having a bit of a pity party.  Disclaimer, I am not normally so very blunt but right now I need to be.  If you have never held your child in your arms when they are born and then had to advocate for their lives in a foreign country only to almost watch your child die in said foreign country, finally to make it to America, only to have your child die in your arms because you had to make the decision to turn off the ventilators, and then try to piece your life back together, you don't know how I feel.  I am a super patient person and I am so good at letting things roll off my back, and usually can always find a silver lining in anything, however, I have been so hurt lately by people telling me how I should feel or making me feel bad for how I feel.  It is not wrong for me to feel sad that I can't start over here in Washington with out the constant reminder of what I lost in Texas.  I get it that the family from Fort Sam whose child has CHD like Zech is probably really nice, and so happy to have their child, but I am hurting. I am heart broken.  I feel betrayed.  I feel angry. I feel mad at God at times.  I feel ALONE.  However, until yesterday I felt hopeful.  Felt like I have been able to give my resentment, anger, and bitterness to God.  Until yesterday I was on the mend.  Does this reminder of my son who left me way to soon stop my healing.  The short answer is NO.  The long answer is that God is big.  He is bigger than my feelings.  He is big enough to take my anger, resentment, and bitterness.  He is big enough to deal with my anxiety over this constant reminder of my loss.  In some way shape or form this is shaping me and shaping my future, and somehow this is apart of my healing process.

This video depicts the story of the song How He Loves, by Mark McMillian, and how it came out of a deep pain and the loss of Mark's friend.  I listened to this after a friend sent me the link shortly after Zech died, and it was like reading my diary and expressed my feelings like no one else could.  This song is bittersweet for me, we sang this song at Zech's funeral, but it also has given hope. 

So, today I choose hope.  I keep reminding myself that there is always someone who has it worse than I do...but God is bigger than my emotions and pity parties.  Life is for the living and worth living to the fullest!

Cheers, Tab

Two Steps Forward Five Steps Back...

Today I had one of those days.  One of those days where you have a moment that takes you right back to square one.  Today I took Faith to the Commissary and I ran into someone I knew from Fort Sam Houston, someone who has a child with the same Congenital Heart Disease that Zechariah had...well friends it took me back to August 1, 2010, the day I lost Zechariah...my heart raced, my hands started sweating, my face had a fake smile plastered on it, I was on the brink of a panic attack...It took me back to the question that has no good answer.. Why us and not them?  Well the no good answer to that is...Why not us.  It has been what I have feared since hearing that this family would be moving to Fort Lewis.  Just as the Reese family is on the mend we take 2 steps forward and then 5 steps back.  It may have been a rough day but one true thing remains, God is still good, and He is still in control. 

Cheers, Tab

Conflicted

Lately I have felt conflicted...I wonder if I will ever be as satisfied as I feel when I am in California?  Will I ever not feel all alone when surround by a million people?  Will the void in my heart ever be filled now that Zechariah is gone?  Will I ever be able to answer someone who asks me how many kids I have without stammering or feeling sick to my stomach?  Will my husband and I find a way to find peace separately but also together?  The truth is I am not sure.  I don't know the answers, but right now I know my heart feels so sad.  I kind of feel like I am all alone, like I don't fit in.  I feel like damaged goods.  I guess that is what death and heart ache do to you...leave you lonely.

I guess apart of this journey is to continue to find myself.  Find where I belong, find what drives me, find a place where I feel wholly excepted.  I have not felt truly and utterly excepted since I left my home in Manteca, CA.  The comfort of Audra who is my best friend but more like a sister, and my dear sister Tam.  I miss them dearly, two of the only people who I know I can pour my hurt and broken heart out too and never worry about judgement or ridicule, but know a kind and tender word is there waiting for me.  I guess part of my process is to find out who I am outside of them.  Life has changed for me, and I need to re-discover who I am, what my new dreams are, and how I am going to take my tragic loss and turn it into some rock star story of God's healing and the journey.

Life has changed in the 7 months 3 weeks and 2 days since my Zechariah went to heaven...but I still have to believe God is good.  I have to believe that there is amazing plan that God has for healing and a new path that He has in store for me.  I have to believe in me and believe that I am worthy of a life full of joy and happiness.  So here's to today, tomorrow, next week, next month and the following years to come on this long, long journey, because I am worth it!