Finding Things to be Thankful For

Life just really doesn’t make sense sometimes. I’ve known this for a long time of course, but the evidence of this has never been more apparent to me than now. Not a day goes by that I’m not left shaking my head thinking how could this happen? How after everything, were we only destined to bury yet another child? At times it just seems ridiculous. If I think about it too much my mind is blown by the sheer absurdity of it all. I have to admit, a lot of times my conversations with God lately sound frighteningly similar to a SNL “Really!?!” segment.
How does one even begin to process an experience like this; years like this? It starts to feel like we’re doomed to always be the couple that’s hoping and then grieving; always with empty arms in the end. I think back to 3 ½ years ago when we first started planning and trying to have a family. We were so full of joy and anticipation. We had no idea what was ahead of us, what we would face in the years to follow. It’s probably better that we didn’t know. I doubt we would have tried at all, and then in all honesty there are certain things we would have missed out on.
During my sad depressing day yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine, and she pointed out to me that amidst my grief and sadness I was inadvertently finding things to be thankful for. She, like many of my friends, just feels ill right along with me in the aftermath of our most recent loss of Noah; but she suggested to me that when I find myself realizing something to be thankful for amidst all the heartache we’re experiencing, I should remember it, even right it down. It obviously won’t make me hurt any less, but it might put some of it in perspective.
I’ve thought about this for awhile and I think there’s some definite merit to the idea. I’m realizing, although I wish I could have gone about it another way, that throughout these experiences I have learned and grown in a lot of ways; and I do still have a lot to be thankful for. One example that comes immediately to mind is my husband. If I ever doubted for an instant that I did the right thing in marrying Brian, after what we’ve been through in the short amount of time we’ve been married, any shred of doubt has been obliterated from my mind. I have to be one of the luckiest women out there to have a husband who is so strong, supportive and loving; who has stood by my side through everything we’ve been through thus far, and who has demonstrated time and time again he always will. I’d like to think this would have been affirmed to me in any other life circumstance; but I must admit weathering these storms together has made me uniquely and abundantly thankful for Brian in a way that I think could only have come to fruition through what we have lived. So even though it’s been awful and painful, for this knowledge I can sincerely say I am thankful.
There have been several other examples I have thought of as well, but I won’t list them all here because believe it or not, it would make for a fairly long blog post. Instead I’ll just note that even though I still shake my head at the situation, and wish with all my heart that things could be different for us. I acknowledge that if they were in fact different, so we would be also; and in all honesty that might not be such a good thing. So, I suppose that’s yet one more thing to be thankful for.