(Sorry for being MIA lately. I do plan to continue telling the story of the days and weeks after Joy's birth, but today's post is a little different.)
Today is our daughter's 3rd birthday! It's hard to believe that Joy would be an energetic, opinionated, spirited (based on her brothers' personalities at least!) preschooler now. I say that at every birthday - "it's hard to believe that Liam is 5" came out of my mouth several times over the past week - but in this case, it's really is nearly impossible to believe. Joy will always be "baby Joy" to me. I actually know of 4 little girls who were born to friends within a few months of Joy. Honestly, at the time, that was really, really hard, and sometimes it still is. But now, three years later, I am beginning to see it as a blessing as well. I don't just have to imagine how big she would be and how she would be developing - I have living, breathing models of how Joy would be growing and changing.
Of course, Joy isn't here to celebrate with us, so it's not your typical birthday celebration. Every year on this day, I struggle with how to spend the day and how to commemorate her birth and life. Birthdays in our family are kind of a big deal. Not a big deal in an over-the-top "hire a petting zoo and give expensive gifts" kind of way, but a special day to celebrate you and another year of your life; a day to celebrate the past year of life and to look forward to what's to come; a day that's full of your favorites things and foods and places. Liam woke up on his birthday and said "this day is all about me". I told him the day was MOSTLY about him, not ALL about him, but he has a point.
But of course when the birthday girl is not alive, it's a little different celebration. It's hard to have a day "all about" a person that's not physically present; a person you never got to know. It's a day when nothing feels quite right. I'm sure this sentiment is shared by anyone who has lost a child. I'd love to sit quietly and peacefully all day and think about Joy and her life and life in general, but with two crazy little guys running around, that's not exactly feasible. On the other hand, the lack of activity also feels wrong. Our older son's birthday is just a few days before Joy's, and the week has been a flurry of fun activity - birthday treats and adventures, family and friends and food and gifts, telling friends and strangers that today is his big day. It's actually the absence of activity that is hardest for me. Especially on her first birthday, it was sad thinking of the excitement that is usually present at a first birthday party - the commemoration of so much growing in one year and of surviving that first hard year of parenting. This year on Liam's birthday, though I enjoyed the day, a part of me couldn't help but think of what was missing. With their birthdays so close together, it probably would have been a shared party. I had twinges of sadness as I thought that the dump truck cake should have had a princess driving the truck and its bed filled with glitter...or something ridiculous like that! There should have been princesses and dresses sprinkled among the pile of car themed gifts. (Okay, I'm not a girly girl, so I don't actually miss the pinkness itself, just the life it represents! And yes, these are ridiculous gender stereotypes and not everything in our house is car themed, but there is a noticeable absence pink and glitter and princesses.)
But now today is quiet - it doesn't feel right to do anything too fun on this special day. I know other families do balloon releases or other large celebrations for their babies who have left this world too early, but that doesn't seem to fit my style either. So we've made our own traditions. We usually have an ordinary, quietish day at home. Then in the evening, we take a balloon and some cupcakes to the cemetery and have a picnic near Joy's grave. The first year we took Liam; last year Eric and I went by ourselves because I didn't want to be wrestling a baby and answering a curious 4 year old's questions about what we were doing. This year, weather permitting, all 4 of us will go. As Liam has grown, we've explained a lot more about Joy in the past year, so he now understands that today was her birthday and that's she's in heaven but it's still nice to think about her and celebrate her today. Then in the evening, we will probably watch the video of her memorial service.
(I need to get a better picture of her headstone, but I really love how it turned out. Those are her actual footprints etched into the granite. The verse is Psalm 139:13 "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.")
(I need to get a better picture of her headstone, but I really love how it turned out. Those are her actual footprints etched into the granite. The verse is Psalm 139:13 "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.")
I certainly don't expect all of my friends and family to remember Joy's birthday (I definitely don't remember all of THEIR kids' birthdays!), but I treasure the few cards and messages that arrive every year around this time. This isn't a plea for cards and messages, and I don't purport to speak for everyone who has lost a child, but I know people are sometimes unsure of what, if anything is appropriate on days like today. I certainly fell in this camp before Joy was born. From my new perspective, I think it's always helpful to send a card or a greeting of some kind. It's not as if your card will suddenly remind that person of their loss - it's on their mind anyway, and for me, it's comforting to know that others are joining me in remembering Joy. It doesn't have to be anything sage or spectacular - I think the importance is in the gesture itself. I have to say that sharing her birthday with all of you this year is really cathartic too - so thanks for allowing me to share Joy's life with you and for your encouraging comments along the way.
I have to say that God has been gracious to me in giving me little reminders around Joy's birthday each year that though her life was brief, it was not without impact. On the day before Joy's first birthday, I was really at a loss about how to feel and what we would be doing the next day and was just kind of down. Eric and I were on our way to a baseball game with my extended family, and stopped at a restaurant downtown beforehand. Eric went up to go to the restroom and was gone for a LONG, LONG time. I was starting to imagine he fell in or something! Eventually he came back and told me that he had run into an acquaintance of ours from our old church. After some small talk, the friend apologized for taking so long to deliver this message, but that he had heard about our daughter and was sorry for our loss. He works in IT for the large hospital system that runs the hospital where Joy was born and went on to say that he had heard of our situation at work (names weren't mentioned, but he knew enough details to put two and two together and know it was us) and heard talk of how our decision to carry Joy and her birth really positively affected the nurses and staff at the hospital. When he was telling this story to Eric, he had no idea that the next day was her birthday, but I really felt like God used him to remind us that Joy's legacy was living on. Even this week, I found out that this little blog has really been impacting someone's life in a positive way.
This is getting long, so I'll close with a song that I think of as Joy's song. Well, there are actually three of them altogether, but I'll save the other two for another day. The song is called "I Will Carry You," and couple that wrote it (Todd and Angie Smith) also had a daughter with a fatal birth defect that they carried to term. They wrote a book by the same title if you're curious. So grab a tissue and take a listen.
So happy birthday, sweet girl. "I will carry you while your heart beats here, long beyond the empty cradle, through the coming years. I will carry you all your life, and I will praise the One who's chosen me to carry you."
