Six Months, A Train and Hannah's Blessing.

  “Your secret yearnings and tearful pleadings will touch the heart of both the Father and the Son. You will be given a personal assurance from Them that your life will be full and that no blessing that is essential will be lost to you.”-Boyd K. Packer

 

  Now that life is settling down, reality is sinking in. It is coming on six months since Nick died. That is a REALLY long time, but it feels like yesterday since everything happened.  I have been struggling with a few different things lately now that Hannah is here.  When you lose a child you become friends with so many other people who have been through what you have been through.  Before Colton, I had no idea that losing a child was so common as it is. So many people go through it but you just don't see it until you are thrown into the mix of it all.  Well now that Hannah is here, and the fact that I still see so many families go through the loss of a child and also experiencing it myself, I just worry that something will happen to Hannah.  Honestly it is all I know, I feel like that is just what is suppose to happen and it's NOT suppose to happen and it scares me to death.  Every night before bed,  I always look at Hannah as if it were the last time. 
  Hannah was REALLY sick these past few days, she has RSV.  We were in the hospital for three days, and all I kept thinking was is this the moment that Heavenly Father is going to take Hannah back? I sat there with her in the hospital and yelled at Heavenly Father and talked to Nick.  I begged Nick not to let Heavenly Father take her and I begged him to heal her.  I couldn't help but feel so helpless. After I begged Nick to heal her, just ten minutes later Hannah began to show signs of improvement.  Then I realized that I need to have a little more faith in Nick and Heavenly Father and to not get so mad so quickly.  Hannah will get sick and hurt, she will experience pain and go through difficult times, I need to learn that just because she is going through something doesn't mean that Heavenly Father is going to take her from me.  It is just part of life to have trials and I need to understand that she isn't immune from it, and that she will be ok.  

  Night times are the worst and the silliest things will just push me to the edge. There is this train a few miles from my house, and every night around 10pm it comes down and blows it's horn...several times.  For some reason that train makes me so incredibly sad.  I cry every time I hear it go by.  It really is the weirdest thing. I lay in bed and wonder why of all the things that make me cry, this train is the one that does it. I have realized that the reason why I cry when the this train goes by is because it reminds me that life and the world itself is still going on.  I actually get mad at it because I think, doesn't this train (the world) know what has happened? Doesn't it know what I have lost and yet it continues to go on like nothing happened! It makes me so upset, I feel like because my world came to a screeching halt, so should this train and the rest of the world...when in reality it won't.
 
Hannah's blessing was this past weekend. When they called up all the men to go bless her and when I handed her to Ben, I did not expect to lose it. To see all of the men in Hannah's life gather around her made me so grateful but I missed Nick more than ever.  I kept my eyes closed and just imagined Nick standing there in his suit and tie. Ben (Nick's brother) gave an amazing blessing. It is exactly what Nick would have said.  When Colton died, Nick gave Colton a blessing when we were in the hospital. Even though he was already gone, he gave him a blessing to bless him during the time that he was in heaven and away from his family.  Flashbacks of that blessing kept creeping into my mind when Hannah was being blessed. I have always dreaded baby blessings, it is my own personal struggle that will just take time, so to actually have a baby blessing for Hannah was a mixture of feelings and emotions.  Ben mentioned in her blessing that she will be a beacon and a ray of sunshine to those around her. She has been that from before she was even born. She has a lot placed on her shoulders already but she isn't given anything that she cannot handle.

 

 

It is May, which means it is the six month mark since Nick passed away. I really really miss him. I still feel like I walk around with a sign on my head that says "I miss him and life is hard" I don't know what stage of grief I am in anymore.  Some days I am beyond angry and other days I am sad.  I often think about Nick and Colton being missionary companions, standing side by side looking just like each other, and teaching the plan of salvation to those who are not born yet and to those who have already lived their lives...oh the stories they could tell about families and eternal life.

 Something that I think about often and it is something that I also struggle with;  I often think about the Celestial Kingdom and who will all be there and how to get there. What I guess I am trying to say is how is it fair that those who go through harder trials, and those who don't go through as hard of trials, get to go to the same place?  Lots of people don't lose a spouse or child and yet they still get to go to the same place as I do. Now I understand that you don't have to lose someone to know what trials are, they're are so many different trials and none of them are easy, but there isn't anything like losing spouse, I also understand that to certain people whatever they are experiencing is the worst thing that could happen to them but how come I have to lose my family to get to the Celestial Kingdom, when others don't?

On another note, the other day I woke up and my first thought was  of Nick as usual, but this time I didn't think Nick/Accident, I just thought of Nick. Because of what happened, whenever I thought of Nick I always associated Nick with his accident but the other day I thought of Nick and I didn't even think about the accident, I thought about how much I missed him and I thought about good memories. It is weird how you notice those things, it was a relief to remember my husband the way I have always thought about him and not about a horrible accident that happened to him because that doesn't define him.  I feel like that is progress in the grieving stage when you don't think about what happened but rather what you had and still do have. Don't get me wrong everyday I think, what happened to my life and Nick's life, but it was nice just for a second to think about my husband and not an accident.

 

I was reading through my old posts, and came across this, I am not sure if any of you have noticed this but this is what I wrote before Nick died, I was writing about Colton's birthday coming up and how I felt like something was going to happen the day of his birthday.  This is what I wrote....

"I have my journal typed up on my computer; half of it I have put in a book online, I am hoping by next year I will be done.  I took a break from it for awhile, and the other day I was reading it and I couldn't believe some of the stuff I had forgotten. While I was reading, I said to myself "I am SO glad I wrote this down!"  I have this feeling that someone close to me or in my own family will have to go through what I did! I don't know who and it could be 20 years from now, but I have it for that person to read one day BUT then I got to thinking, wait a minute, what IF it is meant for ME AGAIN.  What if it is me who will lose another and I have to read this book during that time. That thought has haunted my brain for days now.  I can't even handle the thought so I keep trying to put it out of my mind."

 I wrote that nine days before Nick's accident.  I had this feeling for awhile and I believe it was my Heavenly Father trying to tell me something, I am now am terrified that whenever I think that something bad is going to happen, that it actually will. I get afraid that it is Heavenly Father trying to get through to me.   

Life has it's up and it most certainly has it's downs, but because what my family has been through, I know I can do anything I want in life and NOTHING is harder than what I have already done.  Whenever I get stressed about something, I just think that this is a breeze compared to what I have seen and done.  I may walk through life on my tip toes for awhile, always paranoid or preparing for the worst to happen, and I may not be this chill relaxed person because I am so scared of what might happen but I will say that I am one very blessed person and I have a lot of be thankful for. I have a lot to look forward too in this life and ESPECIALLY in the next.  Is it weird that I literally want to jump up and down when I think about the resurrection?   I have been blessed to have the Holy Ghost as my constant companion these last six months, I know when I see my Savior again I will thank him for letting me feel His love through all of this.  I will thank him for not abandoning me.  I will thank him for letting the veil be so thin so that I can still have a relationship with Nick on a daily basis.  I will thank him for allowing Nick to have Colton with him so that Nick has one of his children with him, even if it means that I don't get to have my son right now.  I want Nick to be happy and he deserves to have his son.

“Our challenges, including those we create by our own decisions, are part of our test in mortality. Let me assure you that your situation is not beyond the reach of our Savior. Through Him, every struggle can be for our experience and our good.”-Robert D. Hales

 

Top 5 favorite memories with Nick:

 

1. When we went to the batting cages and arcade. I pretty much broke my thumb when batting but I miss just hanging out and going on dates with Nick.  Nick and I would just walk around the arcade and play games, and eat junk food.

 

 

 

2.Texas Roadhouse. If you know anything about Nick and I, it's that we loved eating at Texas Roadhouse. We would go like 3 nights a week when we were first married.

 

 3. Carving Pumpkins.  We loved going for a hay ride right before Halloween and carving pumpkins. Nick was pretty much the bomb at it.

 

 4. I loved how happy Nick was when he was coaching football. Friday night games may be stressful when your husband is the head coach, but he loved it so much.

 

 5. Easter of 2013.  Easter was a time of healing for Nick and I, it was right after we lost Colton, but we had a blast. Hanging out in California on the beach, just being around each other is just what we needed.