Dear Mason,

It’s occurred to me that I’ve used this blog to express my heart and soul about the loss of our precious daughter, but I rarely share with the world my heart for you and Finnegan.

And for those reading, I also feel that I’ve held back a quite large chunk out on how I’ve been able to cope with our loss. Yes, its been by the grace of God, but it’s also because God created this man I call my husband. He’s shown me and many others how an incredible and supportive husband, father, and friend he truly is… 

Tomorrow is one of the days that I’ve been dreading. It’s the date that the doctors gave us when we first learned we were pregnant for the second time – January 29, 2016. Gosh we were so excited. It was the 40 week mark that we mentally noted, but basically shrugged away, since we knew we would be scheduled for a c-section a few days/weeks prior, but it’s a date that you and I know lives in infamy. It’s so hard for me to think of today as anything, but painful. Yet there were such sweet memories I do have as we dreamt of this day.

I remember reading about grief shortly after her birth (4 months ago now), especially around how husbands and wives grieve differently and it honestly scared me. You hear tragic stories of failed marriages after going through what we went through. I took that reality to heart and made a promise to myself that this wouldn’t be us. This wouldn’t break us. I was keenly aware of what was happening to me and between us. I was probably more verbal about my feelings, which you know is hard for me to do in general. But knew that if I could tell you why I was snippy or frustrated or any other range of emotions, that we didn’t live in this emotional battlefield, trying to figure out each others moods.

You cried when I cried. You listened when I just needed to talk something out. You never once shut me down or marginalized my woes. You carried me when I had nothing left to give and you still do. You pray over us and for us. You are truly my rock.

I have to admit that I feel like I fail you everyday as the wife you need me to be. You give me wide open space to grieve the way I need to grieve, yet I feel like I take so much more than I give back right now. Please forgive me.

We promised one another that our perspective on life would be different, that we would reprioritize and never look back. Yet I find myself falling back into old ruts and habits…the blood-sucking daily grind of life creeps back in and I feel like you end up with my scraps at the end of each day. Please forgive me.

An ‘a-ha’ for me lately is that I feel like the Lord is leading me to pray for you…not just in passing, but to purposefully set time aside to pray…just for you. Now let me back up, I used to do the big ‘eye roll’ when girls would talk about praying for their husbands…it just always came across to me as…pretentious…prideful…but for whatever reason just bugged that crap out of me…clearly my heart was not in the right place!

Prayer has been the only thing I know that’s gotten us through the ugly and I know that’s the least I can do, yet the most meaningful.

I love you, Mason John, more then ever before.

 

Your Loving Wife,

Michelle