parenting

If Heaven Had Visiting Hours

/ adelcambre / Leave a comment

Recently, within the past three months, someone posted on Facebook a meme that reflected the desire for heaven to have visiting hours. As time trudges onward past December 26 (how is it that tomorrow will be three months since we lost you?), I find myself wishing more and more than heaven indeed had visiting hours.

 

If heaven had visiting hours, I think I would explode with joy. I don’t think I would be able to withstand the thrill of the ride to heaven. I would have to go alone that first trip without your father or Lillianne because though I have other loves in heaven (Memaw and PaPa), you would be all I could see to see. Even in heaven, I wouldn’t have the capacity to be selfless enough to share you (after all, I’m still a sinful human).

 

I would run harder than I’ve ever run in my life when I saw you. I would catch you in my arms and hug you so close. I would hold you and kiss the top of your head. You would be a little boy, not much older than Lillianne is now. At a year and a half, you would still have your babyish features, but you would look like you, and you would be you…an exuberant toddler glimpsing at the child and the man you would become.

 

You would have your father’s warm, brown eyes; they would be pools of dark chocolate (which, as you know, your sister is obsessed with). You would have his dark hair –it may even be black. You would be energetic and lively (as your behavior in my womb would indicate). I like to think that you would love to sing and that you wouldn’t be embarrassed by my bad singing.

 

I would like to think that when I could stop hugging you, and when I could look at you, and when I could speak, we would sing, “You Are My Sunshine.” Except, I would mean it to say son shine, because you’re my shining son. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but I’ve sang that to you before. I would ask you that, though, given your age, I wouldn’t expect you to really understand what I meant. I would like to think you would hug me when I asked if you heard me singing to you in heaven.

 

I suppose after I got myself together, I would lift you onto my hip and kiss you cheek, and we would go say hello to other family in heaven. I would make sure you were well cared for. You deserve your mother’s hugs and kisses every day; all babies deserve their mother’s love. Even in heaven, you shouldn’t be without us. I would tell you how much your daddy and Lillianne loved you and couldn’t wait to hug you.

 

Oh, Jude. If you ever got to meet your sister on Earth, you couldn’t ask for a better protector. She always shares her toys, and she loves to give hugs and kisses. She hugs the baby that would have been your friend, Cate, all of the time, and Cate loves it. She passes around toys during story hour, and she is quick to laugh. On the playground, she fears nothing. I know if you were here now like my God you should be, you would be watching her, little one and half month old, itching to move, and she would be more than ready to show you the ropes when you were ready.

 

Oh, my son. I know you should be in heaven because that’s what God chose for you, but it doesn’t help much sometimes when I miss you so much, and when I see how much love your sister has to give. When I know how much your father misses “his boy.”

 

You will show me the splendor of our maker’s kingdom, which I believe is more like a feeling than something we can conceivably see. I think that perhaps more than it looks like the sun rising over a dew kissed Swiss meadow, heaven gives us the feeling of such…where anything is possible. It will feel like a basket of kittens, a crackling fire, or a wave of warm seawater all at the same time. I imagine ever glorious emotion will meld itself into one in heaven, and it will be truly amazing. I won’t want to go home.

 

I will promise you that even though on Earth, you father and I seem okay to the outsider’s perspective, we are broken on the inside. Our depression lacks convention in terms of what most people understand, but it’s real, so very real. Moving onward is like walking on spiked ground. I suffer inside; my work suffers. You father suffers inside. Our minds and bodies suffer for longing for you.   I don’t want you to feel guilty or saddened by this as your ascension was nothing we could control….I just want you to know that outward appearances are only just that, which I feel is probably true for most people.

 

When it comes time to depart, as we must as visiting hours are what they are, I will hug you the same as when I saw you. I will hug you closely and kiss you on the cheeks and the mouth and the neck and the shoulders and then the cheeks and mouth again. I will press you into my embrace so tightly that I think if you were on Earth, I might break you. I’m pressing the memory of your little body into me because I want to remember you and feel you everyday.

 

I’m not afraid to be happy nor am I afraid to forget you, but I am afraid to lose the tingle of your touch and the feel of your little body held tightly and –if only for a moment—protected in my arms.

 

I would leave heaven, my heart heaving with a gaping, open wound. You live so far away from me, and it will –most likely—be so very long before I can come live with you (and that’s only if I’m good enough, which I try to be). It would feel like the day I lost you all over again. I would feel like I was gashed open and left to die for pain and misery because that’s how Earth is. Where you are, darling, there’s none of that.

 

I think that’s why heaven doesn’t have visiting hours. Discovering the bliss of where you are would make returning to Earth –despite its occasional strong points, completely and utterly grey. You have all of the colors, darling, and I’m happy for that because if you cannot have mommy and daddy and Lillianne’s hugs and kisses ever day, at least you have the Son, my son.

Hey Jude – “Would Be Birthday”

/ adelcambre / Leave a comment

Hi, Sweetheart. Today was February 10, 2015, which means that tomorrow is your “should-be” birthday. Today I spent the morning with your sister, I let her spend time with Emie and Aunt Ding Ding while I worked for a bit, then she and I napped, and then we did Mellow Milers with some close friends (their daughter turned 6 months today; she would have been your friend, darling).

 

I know it doesn’t sound like I had much downtime, and perhaps I didn’t. In my spare time, my thoughts were with you. I thought about how “normally” today, I would be savoring my last day with your sister as an “only” child because I knew that life would change beyond my comprehension once you arrived. I know it’s so silly, but I worried about her once we had you. Truthfully, I worried about both of you. Would you receive enough attention? Would she feel neglected and abandoned? What would happen to you when and if we had a third baby? Would I make mistakes relegating you to a life as the classic “middle child”? Would you have retentive issues as a result of that predicament?

 

Frivolously, I worried endlessly about those things –in the back of my mind; rarely at the forefront, that is. And then, on December 26, your birthday came early. I remember sitting in the hospital bed feeling utterly ridiculous for worrying that Lillianne would somehow be missing something when our attention wasn’t solely devoted to her. Never was it more poignant or obvious to me that what she will miss will always be you. She won’t even truly know it, but I will. I will always miss you, sweetheart.

 

It also occurred to me that I will never have a “middle child”. Even if you have two or three more siblings (let’s be realistic –it will probably be two), no one will be a “middle child.” As intuitively as I knew that something was going to happen to you (certainly, I never expected you would ascend immediately into heaven), I also recognize that I will never have a “middle child.” That concern –the one where I might ruin a baby by sandwiching it between two others—was turned over to God when you were. Like everything associated with losing you, it’s a bittersweet revelation.

 

So, tomorrow is not your birthday. I’m not packing a bag or getting one more night’s rest before the much-anticipated moment of meeting you. I’m not giving mom, your Emie, the gift I hoped to give her (a perfect new grandbaby, you) for her birthday, which you two would have shared. Your father and I aren’t cuddling Lillianne knowing how much life will change. We didn’t spend the last week hurriedly getting the essentials together for your arrival. We did none of that.

 

I refuse to say we “should” be doing those things because what happened, happened. You are in heaven by God’s own will for I know I did everything to keep you on Earth and with me. God knows how much I love you and how much I would have cared for you. So, I am placating all of this with the firm belief that what “should” have happened is what happened and that tomorrow, your would-be birthday is actually a day like any other day (other than the special feature of it being my mother’s birthday).

 

Tomorrow, I intend to spend time with your sister and visit your Emie and seek comfort from your father. I intend to spend time with our family, darling, and we will think about you. In my heart, I’ll be sad for love and longing of you, but I’ll trust that you want us to be happy together and to be “okay” (a subjective concept).

 

I miss you, Jude. If it’s not too much trouble, please feel free to visit me in my dreams and tell me how heaven is for you. It will surely be a while before I get to see you there. Please know how much your father and I love you and miss you. Please be with us in our hearts and help your daddy and me sustain in these turbulent times of what should be and what is.

 

I love you, Jude David Delcambre. Happy Would Be Birthday, darling angel.

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Hey Jude – “Should & Would”

/ adelcambre / Leave a comment

February 7, 2015

My darling Jude. Since Wednesday, I’ve been preoccupied with the fact that in one week February 11 should be your birthday. I’ve thought about all of the things I was anticipating for this time. I would be getting ready to take a leave from work. I would be preparing to spend some precious time alone with your sister. Your father would be taking his last drill weekend just before your birth. How exciting that we would miss the charade of Valentine’s Day this year because we would be indulging in the greatest love of all –our love for our baby boy, for you, sweetheart. We were so looking forward to doing nothing more than pouring out our love for you and devoting our time to loving you.

 

Yes, that is what we should be doing. Today, on February 7th, your sister turned 20 months. I should be feeling bittersweet sentiments because Lillianne is about to share the limelight with another little family star, the one who would become her best friend, who would beat up anyone who would speak ill of her and the one she would fight like a tiger for. Mommy should know, for that’s how mommy and Uncle Adam were. That’s how Mommy thought you and Lillianne would be. Jude, I feel like Lillianne lost the best friend she should have had when you went to heaven.

 

In my mind, I’ve replaced should with would because faith knows that what should have happened is what happened. God took you home on December 26. That is your birthday, not February 11. It would have been your day. You would have shared a birthday with your Emie, your grandmother.

 

As the days pass since your actual birthday (December 26), I feel like things should get easier (of course, I feel ashamed for this). The opposite is true. As days pass and we get closer to your should and would date, I find that the weight of missing your is crushing my heart like a raisin. I feel like I’m being sat upon a little harder every day and it gets harder and harder to breathe. I want to scream and to be buried all at the same time. I want to be cradled and beaten to within an inch of my life all in the same emotion. I have no recourse for expressing what I’m feeling. I just know that I miss you, and I shouldn’t have to, but I do. I have to for reasons that I may never know, and I both feel and accept the unfairness of that all at once.

 

I’ve already realized how amazing you are, Jude. Without taking a breath on this Earth, your little life has touched more people on behalf of Jesus than I ever will. In the interest of being noble and virtuous, I’m glad that I could somehow be a part of that. You are, I believe, both my and your father’s salvation; however, what a sacrifice you were.

 

Before we lost you, I thought about the sacrifice that God made for us, giving up his son. I readily acknowledged that I could never deliberately be so selfless as to give up my son for the sake of all mankind. (Sorry, mankind.) I would want there to be another way, somehow, whatever that way might be. The only thought I had that possibly changed that notion would be for the thought of your children and your children’s children; however, if you were sacrificed like Jesus, then how could your children and children’s children exist, yes?

 

Those were my thoughts, and I’d forgotten them until now. Of course, now my only hope is that you accomplish all that I would have selfishly chosen not for you as I would have greedily wanted you all to myself. I still do. If I woke up tomorrow and this were all a nightmare, I would be so happy I would be beside myself.

 

I know it’s not a nightmare. I know it’s real. I know that every day, morning comes, and I’m just a fat and flat woman. I have no baby growing inside of me anymore. I know that God determined that I shouldn’t, which is why that as your would-be birthday approaches, I’m not thinking about what should be happening, at least not in a way that is unhealthy. I’m only thinking of you and that I love you and I miss you.

 

I don’t intend to spend either of our lives speculating about what could or should or would be had you been here because what could and should and would happen did happen. I can only miss you. I won’t exhaust my time on Earth speculating about the alternative. I do want you to know how much I miss you and how much I want to kiss you and hold you and nurture you. You’re my darling ‘son’shine, and you and your sister make me happy though these skies are grey.

 

You never know, dear, how much I love you, so don’t take my sunshine away.

Hey Jude

/ adelcambre / 2 Comments

(This is the first thing I wrote for Jude; I wrote it on December 28, a day and a few short hours after we lost him.)

When Sean and I found out we were expecting a baby in 2012, we did what any excited first-time parents would do –we started looking at names. There were dozens of girl names that we liked, and then there was one boy name that we both agreed was perfect –Jude. Specifically, Jude David. When we found out we were having a girl, we decided we would keep Jude David tucked away in a special place until we had a son. As the months and anticipation grew in 2013, we kept our daughter’s name secret until we had her on June 7, 2013. On that glorious day, Lillianne Myra was born, and we joyfully shared her name with everyone.

 

On June 7, 2014, I revealed to Sean in an early Father’s Day gift that we would be adding to our seemingly perfect growing family. The early months passed quickly and at around 18 weeks, we were overjoyed to learn that we were having a little boy. Jude was the first name on my list; I really felt the need to look no further; Sean suggested we explore names, which is when the name Aedan came to me. Though I was always so sure that Jude would be my son’s name, Aedan Sean had a certain music to it that Sean and I both liked a lot.

 

Like any parents picking their child’s name, Sean and I were decidedly undecided. After all, a Jude David wouldn’t be the same person as an Aedan Sean. Initially, Sean leaned more toward Jude while I preferred Aedan. Simultaneously, we switched perspectives with Sean leaning toward Aedan for our son’s name and me preferring Jude again.

 

Jude was a special name for us. Sean had been named after John Lennon’s song, “Beautiful Boy”, for Sean Lennon. Sean’s family is all very musical. I had been named after Amy in Little Women, and I thought that giving our son a strong, uncommon Biblical name that was the subject of a song created by the iconic band from whose leader my husband’s named stemmed was utterly poetic. This was the initial reason Jude appealed so deeply to us.

 

The reason Jude fell back into my favor was that during our second trimester of our son’s pregnancy, we attended a Beatles tribute concert with another lovely couple and Sean’s brother, Michael. Ironically, this couple was the one we were thinking most strongly about asking to be the baby’s godparents, and I remember thinking of seeing if my husband wanted to ask them to be the baby’s godparents on December 26 when we exchanged Christmas gifts, but I forgot.

 

During The Beatles tribute concert, they played “Hey Jude.” I’ve never been a strong lyricist in the musical sense, and I often get the words to songs wrong. Of the song “Hey Jude”, I knew the first two words and the “Na Na Na” part. So, I sat and listened closely to a song about keeping an open heart and “taking a sad song and making it better”. Sometimes, I feel I’m often too hard or busy and forget to (or am afraid to) let my heart be as open as it should, and that night, the song’s message touched me. I kept thinking that was the song’s meaning –to be open-hearted and to be loving and receptive to feelings and to look for the beauty in even painful things would be a quality I would want my son to have for I believe that part of the way to experience life is to feel and to not close ourselves off from pain. I inwardly hoped that perhaps if I could teach my son to do this, he could teach me, too, to become a person who let others into my heart and that “would start to make it better.” That was the night the name Jude slipped back into first place.

 

As the months crept on, I asked Sean what he would want to name our baby. Sean still wasn’t ready to decide; he only said he didn’t know but that he was leaning toward Aedan. I told him we didn’t have to decide until the baby was born even though I went ahead and got an ‘A’ stocking to decorate our house for Christmas. Sean was uncomfortable with this level of commitment, and I assured him that a stocking wouldn’t decide our son’s name; we could wait until we met him.

 

Time hurtled onward, and before we knew it, we were seven weeks away from February 11 when we would meet our beautiful boy and would be able to pick a definite name. On December 26, Sean and I made an unscheduled visit to the doctor because our otherwise healthy, active baby had stopped kicking his mommy with the aggressive frequentness she had become so fond of.

 

For reasons known only to God Himself, our baby went to Heaven instead of our open, loving arms in the 22nd hour of December 26. Sean and I opted to do an emergency C-section to give our son every possible chance he had to live; however, God had other plans. The first words I truly remember hearing as I gained clarity coming out of anesthesia was that our son’s name was Jude David. And it was perfect.

 

As reality washed over me, it occurred to me that I would never be able to teach my son to “take a sad song and make it better” or to let others into his heart; however, it didn’t eclipse my awareness –despite the static of my pain—that Jude, my little Jude, had already started teaching me those lessons with more gravity than I ever thought possible.

 

Losing my son has shattered me; the intangible qualities that make me human have been sliced open and are bleeding together forming an image that is haunting and beautiful. Jude is in the palm of God’s hand now, and I know that he wants his mommy to use his lesson to become a better person, just as she hoped she could inspire him into becoming. I realize now that Jude was and always will be perfect; there is no need to teach him anything because he already knows all of life’s lessons. Instead, just as I have taken his suffering, I will also learn the lessons that I thought were meant for him.

 

My darling Jude, mommy will forever honor you by letting this pain open her heart and make her a better person. I only want to be with you again, son. I will do whatever it takes to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, so I can hold you in my arms and thank you personally for being my beautiful boy and for making my life better.