So I haven't posted in a while and I thought that I should stop by and give a brief run down of what I've been doing...(and I'm bored a work so kill two birds you know?). Anyway...
October 2nd was the Walk to Remember here in Dallas. This is put on by M.E.N.D (Mothers Enduring Neonatal Death). Essentially it is a ceremony and day of remembrance for all of the babies lost to miscarriage, stillbirth and infant death. We were told to bring any memorabilia of our children that we wanted and put them on display. I put together a scrapbook for Aidan and a shadow box that had his onesie in it, the envelope with the lock of his hair, the shell that Andrew used to baptize him, his little hat, his baby blanket, his hospital bracelet, a clay impression of his little hand and a couple of pictures of him. I'm so glad that those items aren't in a box anymore. It was a very emotional day. There were over 300 people there. Moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters all there to remember the little ones lost. Some wore T-shirts that had pictures of the babies, or had the names and birthdays of the babies on the back and then "Sam's Mommy" on the front or "Sam's Grandma". The T-shirts would bring me to tears in an instant, not so much because it was sad, but because it was so sweet that they were being remembered. Some people were remembering children that they lost in the 90's, some just months ago and some had several losses that they were remembering. That really got to me. In one part of the ceremony that they give you a Christmas ornament with your child's name on it and then they call your name and the name of your baby and you walk up and but the ornament on a tree. For example "Amanda and Andrew McCaffrey remembering Aidan Jackson, July 27th, 2010". Then we walked up and put his ornament on the tree. But some of the moms and dads had multiple losses, and not early miscarriages either, some had miscarriages, and multiple full term losses and even older child losses. That just broke my heart...but it also was inspiring because that meant that even as those parents endured loss after loss...they kept trying. They never gave up hope or faith that one day they would have a healthy baby, and for the majority of these parents they did. It was great to see all the little babies there. In the baby loss world the children that are born after a child's death are called "Rainbow Babies". There were so many little Rainbows there; some even had little shirts made that said "I'm mommy's rainbow" or "I'm Sam's little sister".
October 9th Andrew, Me and my best friend Bobbi and her daughter Emme did a 5k for Children's Medical Center. It was lots of fun (and I really needed the exercise) :-). There were several teams there who were running for a child who had died or better, who had lived, who had been saved by the Doctors and Nurses at CMC. There was one father of a little boy who died of childhood cancer at 2 and he held up a huge sign above his head for the entire 3.1 miles that he walked with his family. I have to elaborate here because it wasn't like a little poster board or anything, it was at least 4 feet long and had two big wooden sticks on the end. It had pictures of his son all over it and his name and he held it up above his head the entire time...Just try to hold your arms out straight at your sides even for a few minutes...now imagine doing that for an hour. I just have to say, What an amazing man!
This week the Chilean Mine Workers were rescued from their cave (in case you were orbiting the planet the last week and haven't watched the news). I watched as much of the rescues as I could, it was so awesome and each one brought tears to my eyes. Why are you mentioning this you are wondering? The reason I am mentioning this is because this story was so amazing to me. These men were trapped for 2 months 1/2 mile underground living on nothing but a teaspoon of tuna, a pinched off piece of bread and water every two days. They had no idea whether they were going to be saved, whether anyone up above was even looking for them and the whole time they kept praying to God to save them. The whole time...in the darkest time of their lives they prayed and prayed and never gave up hope...and He answered their prayers. It really was a living miracle. When interviewed the miners said that there weren't 33 men down there, there were 34 and when the interviewer asked who the 34th person was they responded..."God is here. God is with us." How amazing is that? And when they were rescued it wasn't the hugs from wives or children that made me tear up...it was when their mothers would run up to them and grabbed them and kissed them. I would just start bawling. Why? Because they got what I never did...they got a miracle...their son's came back from the dead. These mothers were told that their sons were dead, that they couldn't find them, that there was no hope. Imagine that. You have been told that your son in dead. You have started making arrangements for memorial services, grieving his death, praying to God to bring him back....and then you get a call weeks later that says, he's alive and that he is going to be saved. These mothers got the call that I wanted....this week 33 mothers got their sons back...33 mothers' hearts weren't broken....33 mothers received a miracle.
This weekend we are going to spend some time with good friends of ours who live in Ft. Worth. They are getting married and we were unable to go to their bachelor/bachelorette festivities because of the pregnancy and its complications so we are going to try and make up for it with a fun weekend...and because we haven't seen this couple in a while and we always have such a good time with them :-).
We leave a week from tomorrow to go to Mexico...Alleluia! And to date I have lost 26lbs. and 26inches all over my body. So hopefully I won't get harpooned by any of the fishermen while I am laying on the beach!LOL.
Please pray for my grandma and aunt as they battle their cancers. My grandma has started her chemotherapy and it seems to be working. Unfortunately they say that she will have to go through this for the rest of her life. I just pray that she won't be in any pain and that she can handle it well enough to go into remission so she can at least have 6-8 months without treatments. I'm not ready to lose her yet God. Please don't take her yet.
Love, Me.
