The Choice

Our nightmare began on January 17, 2016, when my beautiful daughter, Delia Grace, went into cardiac arrest while breastfeeding in a restaurant.  What started as a wonderful day with my family, turned into our current nightmare.

Since that time, I have been journaling my thoughts and feelings.  I was recently moved by the following statement, “Your sole mission is to articulate your suffering so that it emancipates you and empowers other women.”  – Carole Radziwill

This compelled me to begin sharing portions of my personal journey to educate, to lift up, and to guide others.  You are not alone.

Journal Entry – 1/31/16

I am not at peace.  I am not “at” any sort of definitive place.  I am all over the place.  One moment I feel alright.  The next, I’m falling to pieces.  I miss her in everything.  I try not to think about what could have been or the experiences with her that we’ve lost, but my mind just goes there naturally.  I want to know what she would look like, be like, sound like. I miss her ultra soft skin.  I miss her smell.  I miss her head, her soft, wonderful head.  I used to rub my face, nose, and lips on it.  It was so soft and smooth. I loved to kiss every inch of her, and I did.  The day she had her cardiac arrest, I remember changing her diaper in the morning and thinking, “I’m not sure if I’ve kissed her knees.”  Then, I kissed them and kissed them, just soaking her in.  I long to kiss those knees, those shoulders, those cheeks.  I long to be near her.  I want my arms to ache from holding her all of the time.  They ache instead from longing to hold her.  I want everything to be as it was when she was here, and my mind was full of dreams for her and our family.  Now, I have only memories of her, no more dreams for her.

So, I’m faced with the same choice every second of the day.  Do I live or just wait to die?

“Ye have lost a child–nay, she is not lost to you, who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere.”  – Samuel Rutherford