Yesterday marked three months since we lost Julian and Aria. In some ways, it feels like it was just January 29th, 2015 last night. Most of the time, though, the hours seem to drag ahead so slowly. Has it really only been 3 months? It sometimes feels like we lost the twins years and years ago. Time is all mixed up to me, now. Time either moves at light speed or it drags out second by second. The moments of calm contentment are slowly coming back to me. I have missed the parts of me that felt crushed and broken when the babies died – the happy, calm, content me. I felt so safe buying things for the babies, dreaming about the babies, talking to the babies, seeing them every few weeks on ultrasound, planning out our future that included two more children in our family. Now, I rarely feel safe or calm. I have to force myself to focus on all that I do have and how grateful I am for this life I have been given. I can’t always help it. Sometimes, at dinner, I stare at the two empty chairs at our dining room table (there has always been six chairs, and I’ve had this table and chairs set since 2003) and still, I can’t help but feel like Julian and Aria were supposed to sit there. I stare at the empty chairs and wonder what they would’ve looked like. I think about how much we all would have enjoyed them and loved them. Then I have to snap out of it before I fall into a crying spell and focus on the two chairs that ARE filled with my little gifts from God. Then it’s okay. Then I can breathe again.
A few weeks ago, I had this particularly eye-opening day. I had been at home, it was a weekday, the kids were at school and I was working and crying about the babies and feeling very sorry for myself. I went somewhere to eat with my friend Emily and started to cheer up in her company. When I got home again, there was a package on my doorstep for me from a former-client-turned-friend, Jessica, who’d had this gorgeous piece of art commissioned and painted just for me. It came in a beautiful matted frame. I was speechless when I saw it for the first time. The painting is of me, holding my babies in my two hands while Ryan’s hand cradles little Aria’s head so I can see them up close. I was so in love and so heartbroken in that moment.
The artist captured this scene perfectly. I look at this terribly sad but touching painting often, at my desk at home. When I look at my face in the painting, I want to cry. That despair and anguish on my face is captured so well – it looks just like I felt. In real life, their tiny bodies were wet with my tears. I thought that was okay. I let my tears wash their sweet bodies. But when I shift my gaze to the babies in this painting, I feel differently. I see peaceful, gorgeous little sleepy angel babies almost glowing in our hands. I look at their faces and I know deep in my soul that they never knew any pain, any sadness, nor any lack of love. They were talked to and nourished and loved by my whole family, our surrogate’s whole family, my best friends – even strangers loved Julian and Aria. You couldn’t know about them and see their ultrasound pictures and not love them. The painting also makes me feel honored to have been chosen to be their mother, even if it wasn’t for very long. If anyone wants to commission a similar piece of art, the artist is Melinda Walker, and her work can be found online at www.heartmelinda.com.
After the painting arrived that day and I had some time to process it, I was feeling better. I think Ryan was gone that evening, but I can’t remember why. I picked Gracie and Hudson up from school, and found out that Gracie was throwing herself a bigger pity party than the one I’d thrown for myself earlier that day. She was whining and complaining bitterly because she got a bad report card for the first time in her life. Quite bad, actually. She had a D in reading, which is absolutely absurd. Gracie can read as well as an adult. She has always been the master of words and reading and comprehension. Bad grade in reading? Whoa whoa whoa. We slipped up big time. I realized how little attention I’ve given to her schoolwork. I realized I never even ask her if she’s done her homework. I just assume the after school care teachers help her and it’s done by the time I pick the kids up. Apparently, Gracie needed a lot more parental help than just after-school care, but she also never told us anything, so we just didn’t know. I quickly decided it was a good teaching lesson for her, and I started to question and lecture her, calmly:
Me: Why do you think you got a bad report card?
Gracie: Because I never get anything but A’s!
Me: Have you been doing everything you needed to do to get A’s this time?
Gracie: Yeah! I have to read 400 pages by the end of this month though!
Me: This is the last day of the month, so I don’t see you reading 400 pages of anything tonight.
Gracie: But I have to! Otherwise I’ll have a C- for March!
Me: Are you sure there is no other option to raise your grade except to read 400 pages tonight, which isn’t possible?
Gracie: Well, if I read 100 pages, I can get one grade better. But I don’t have time!
Me: Gracie, is this your first week of third grade? I thought you were almost done with 3rd grade. You’re telling me about this reading thing for the first time tonight? On the last day of March? When were you supposed to start this?
Gracie: (mumbling) Since the beginning of the year…
Me: Well, that’s an issue. You have a procrastination issue. We can work on that. Can you read 100 pages tonight? I somehow doubt it.
Gracie: I already read 240 pages from the books you bought me at Barnes & Noble, but none of those books count for the reading assignment!
Me: Okay, calm down. There must be a way to get credit for the books you read.
Gracie: Only if I write a one-page report on the book and what it’s about.
Me: Wait a minute. What? You can move up 2 grades if you just write out two pages on what the books are about?
Gracie: I coooouuuuullld, but I can’t even do that because I don’t have any sharp pencils. My electric sharpener doesn’t work anymore.
Me: That’s a lame excuse. Come on. You couldn’t find one pencil in the last 8 months? I don’t think so. Now I KNOW you’re just making excuses.
Gracie: I’m not! I don’t know what to do!
Me: Really? Really? Okay, I’m gonna show you this, but you’d better remember it for next time, because I am not one of those parents who believes in doing children’s work for them. You have to take responsibility, learn from your failures and try again until you succeed. It’s really not that hard to get straight A’s when you’re as intelligent as you are. Pay attention….
We proceeded to figure out how to empty the pencil shavings from the electric sharpener, which magically restored the sharpener to its former glory. We threw out anything that wasn’t a #2 pencil, because those off-brand pencils have always sucked. Then we sharpened a bunch of #2 pencils and put them in her desk drawer. Then we got out the two books she’d already ready that month. Gracie couldn’t remember all the details of each book for her 1-page report. I told her to flip to the beginning, middle and end of each book and read a couple of pages from each to refresh her memory. After that, she buckled down and wrote one of the two book reports. I checked it over, she did it perfectly (in under 10 minutes, by the way). Then it was time for bed, so we agreed she could do her second one in the morning before school and still get her grade up to at least a B. That’s what she did, and it all worked out just fine.
This is the interesting part. I could see myself in Gracie in every single thing she said to me that night. Not just about schoolwork, but about life in general. All those lessons I taught her about how to be a good student can be applied to almost any challenge in life. We all just need some tools to cope when life gets difficult. I saw parallels in everything. My 9-year-old wants straight A’s without doing her work. I’m 34, and I still want things like that. I want more children and more abundance and more joy and more relaxation – without doing more work. She thinks her outcome (an irreversible lower grade) is a devastating and permanent loss, just like I think my outcome with the twins was a devastating and permanent loss. I think the only difference is our age and perception. She was just as anxious about her predicament as I was about mine.
Gracie and I continued to talk in her bed that night before bedtime. I explained to her all the lessons I’ve learned since the twins came and left too soon. The ideas were pouring out of my mouth so fast, it was almost as if they were all divinely inspired. My heart felt unusually full and light as I talked to my daughter in the dark. I could tell she understood by the comments and questions she asked me as I talked, and I had a good answer for everything. The basic message was, none us are in total control of our lives or our futures. Something much bigger than us has worked out some plan for us already. Like a loving parent, God steers us in the right direction by giving us hard lessons and carrying us when we have to walk through them. Our souls grow and expand with each lesson, each experience and each lifetime. I believe there is no such thing as real death – only moving from one life to another and back again. Souls escape dying bodies and have incredible experiences when they die. From countless near-death-experiences, we have learned that dying is a fairly universal experience for everyone on Earth. Our souls leave our bodies behind on Earth to be free again and be with God again in spirit form. Heaven is a wonderful place. Anyone who has ever been there can tell you, it’s a place void of pain or fear or negativity. It’s a whole dimension of pure love for our spirit selves to learn and grow and give us more choices to learn more soul lessons by going back to Earth as a new person.
I told Gracie, it’s a very real possibility that the psychic I talked to right after we lost Julian and Aria may have been totally accurate when she said Julian and Aria are a pair of soulmates. They like to arrive together and leave together, and they are very evolved souls. The mere act of being born changed many of our lives, forever. The psychic told me the twins were telling her to tell me they love me, its nobody’s fault, and not to worry because they’ll be right back with perfect bodies and perfect timing. I hope so. I miss them so much. They do seem to be up to something on the other side. That’s for another post, on another day.
After Gracie and I had this long, uplifting talk about souls and reincarnation and Heaven, Hudson was begging me to read him a book in his bed. My kids share a huge bedroom, so I switched to lying with him in his bed and agreed to read them both just one book instead of the normal two books, because we had already talked past their normal bedtime. The kids couldn’t decide which book I should read to both of them, so I said “Mom gets to pick which book, and I’m gonna pick a random one and then you’re both going to sleep after I’m done with it.” They agreed, so I grabbed the first book in a boxed collection of Mickey and Friends books. They love when I read the Mickey Books, even though Gracie has outgrown such books, because they love how I do the characters’ voices. I can do a pretty good Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Goofy voice. I’m not very good at Donald Duck, but luckily he doesn’t talk too often.
The story was called “Mickey’s Birthday Surprise” or something like that. I was hardly paying attention when I started to read it, because my mind was focused on the babies and Heaven and reincarnation. But pretty soon, both Gracie and Hudson were giggling at my Mickey and Friends voices in the story, I started to pay attention to the story itself. In this book, Mickey wakes up on his birthday and sees all his friends carrying party supplies past his window. He thinks to himself, Oh boy! My friends are going to throw me a surprise birthday party! I can hardly wait! Next thing Mickey knows, Donald Duck runs over asking for help with a broken hammock at his house. Mickey sets off to help his friend, but he thinks it’s probably just a trick to get him to his surprise birthday party, which must be at Donald’s. So Mickey is all excited, then terribly disappointed when he discovers that Donald really did have a broken hammock and there was no birthday party in sight. Mickey felt dejected and sad, but he helped his friend with the hammock and then went home.
Next, Minnie and Daisy run over and tell Mickey they have something really neat to show him at their house. He follows them, thinking he’s going to his surprise birthday party finally. He arrives at their place and finds out the super cool thing they wanted to show him was a new garden they planted together. They asked Mickey if he would help water their new garden. Mickey is once again disappointed that it wasn’t the party he was hoping to find, although he had to admit he did enjoy watering those flowers. On his way home, he runs into Goofy, who wants to show Mickey the most amazing thing he’s ever seen! Mickey follows Goofy excitedly, hoping he’s going to his birthday party now. He soon discovers what Goofy was so excited about – two snails “racing” each other on a rock. Goofy has Mickey get down close to watch the world’s slowest snail race. Mickey is sad that it wasn’t a surprise party for his birthday, although he agrees with Goofy that snail-racing is kind of a fun and unique thing to watch.
At the end of the story, Mickey walks home, reflecting on his day. He decides that even though his friends forgot his birthday and didn’t throw him a surprise party, he still had a lot of fun helping and hanging out with his friends. He goes home feeling happy and proud of himself. When he opens his front door, all of his friends are there with birthday decorations, cake and balloons, and they’re shouting SURPRISE! And Mickey gets his surprise party after all, even after he decided he didn’t really need a party to be happy.
Gracie and I were giggling at all the parallels in the story and in the discussion we’d just had about life and school work. Even in a preschool-level children’s story book, you can find the same lessons. Want for nothing, stay true to your loving and generous soul, be a good friend, enjoy the journey as well as the destination, have faith, be patient, learn from your mistakes, keep trying, count your blessings and pray (Mickey didn’t pray, but I think we all should). If we follow this preschool advice, we will be rewarded with the kind of gifts so good you never could have dreamed them up or believed you were worthy of anything so wonderful. If you are a parent, you probably know what I’m talking about.
We said our prayers that night, like we do every night. Even Hudson can mostly say the Lord’s Prayer with us: Our father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.
While I lay there in their room, lit only by the fading glow-in-the-dark stars we put on the ceiling, petting my little boy’s hair, listening to the soft sound of both children’s breathing getting slower and deeper as they drifted off…. It felt like Heaven is already right here. I’m already in Heaven whenever I’m with my family. I love them all so very much. My brain was spinning that night, and my heart was full. I couldn’t wait to tell Ryan and all my other favorite people what I’d figured out. This one day changed my viewpoint and caused me to have a spiritual awakening like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
I kind of get it now. Why we had twins, why they had to leave. I’m not exactly sure of the details, but my basic understanding is that Julian and Aria came into our lives to teach us all different spiritual lessons. They want us to be a very tight-knit family who are all on the same page. They wanted me to have a spiritual awakening and a deeper understanding of motherhood and soul connections. I hear you now, sweet angel babies. They love us unconditionally and without judgment, and they’re busy on the other side, taking good care of me and Ryan, our surrogate and everyone else whose lives were touched by them. I believe they may very well find a way to come back to us, if we’ll just open our hearts and minds and allow them to work out the details.
I now know we aren’t really separate from our loved ones on the other side. Their spirits send us signs all the time that they are happy and they want us to be happy, too. And by the way, Gracie now has an A+ in reading (shameless mom bragging!).
I found this poem in a wonderful book called “Growing Up in Heaven” by James Van Praagh. The poem was originally written by a woman named Doris Stokes, an acclaimed British medium. She said about it, “whilst I was grieving over the loss of my baby, the spirit world sent me a poem, which has been a great comfort to me all these years. I hope this poem will bring comfort to parents who have lost children.” Thank you, Doris.
This poem comforted me tremendously (modified a bit to fit my babies here):
My Babies
In a baby castle just beyond my eye
My babies play with angel toys that money cannot buy.
Who am I to wish them back,
into this world of strife?
No, play on my babies,
you have eternal life.
At night when all is silent
And sleep forsakes my eyes,
I’ll hear their tiny footsteps come running to my side.
Their little hands caress me,
so tenderly and sweet,
I’ll breathe a prayer,
close my eyes and embrace them in my sleep.
Now I have a treasure that I rate above all others,
I have known true glory – I am still their mother.
As for Julian and Aria, I will learn and love and grow and be happy, because they want me to. I will nurture and love any souls who want to join our family. I will do my best to see the magic in everything and to feel gratitude for my many many gifts. I’m going to have a beautiful custom scrapbook made for them, to include all their gifts and notes of love and pictures. I can’t wait to see them again, in this lifetime or beyond. I am so blessed.