Xander Cole…1 year later

I can’t believe it has been a year since we met you and held you. The last year has been pretty horrible, I didn’t know a person could hurt that badly, and still walk around it’s indescribable really.  I year ago I would have said that losing a child unfortunately doesn’t kill you, now I can say surprisingly it doesn't.   But it does kill parts of you, but you learn how to live with those dead parts.   Overtime I have learned how to wrap them in a cocoon of hope and faith and live, but I can still feel them, and they’re heavy and at times still overwhelming, but not so sharp to carry.  I don’t know if that makes any sense to anyone who hasn’t lived it but that’s how I feel. 

Someone once asked me a couple of months after Xander died if I had learned anything from our “trial”, I said “Yes, I learned something, I learned that it SUCKS when your child dies!”

But this is what I have come to learn over the last year.

First I learned what real pain feels like, and I learned how to understand it in/for others.  I’ll never be grateful that our son died, or be happy about it or say looking back “I’ve learned a lot and I wouldn’t change it” all those sentiments people think and say after going through a particular hard thing.  But I am grateful that I understand grief better, and hopefully I can be of a little help to someone else someday.

 I learned that there are things that I can be grateful for, if I look for them I can find them.

I've learned that often times people dismiss the pain over losing a baby, like it's not as sad or as hard for us because he was a baby when we died and we didn't have him that long. I want to say to that, imagine any of your children, imagine the day they were born, what it was like to hold them for the first time.  Then what if someone had taken them away from you a mere 30 minutes later.  Are you telling me you would be okay with that?  I truly don't understand this sentiment, but I deal with it. 

I also learned I don’t have to be happy about him dying, (I am so not going to explain this very good, but I’ll try) So the first Sunday I went to church after Xander died was Easter Sunday, the lesson in Relief Society was the Immortality of the Soul.  The teacher of the lesson proceeded to talk about how we can be happy in death.  Okay, so it had been about 12 days since Xander died and I had felt a million different ways, but happy was never one of them.   I remember thinking, this is crazy I am NEVER going to be happy about this.  I’ll be forever grateful for a sister in our ward who then raised her hand and said basically that grief was okay and we are going to feel it anyway so we should just let ourselves go through it and not be too hard on ourselves for feeling the way we do when someone we love dies.  But this thought that I had to somehow come to be happy about him dying was really, really bothering me I couldn’t figure out how I was suppose to ever be happy about this thing that had happened.   Then the next morning I had a “light bulb” moment.  I finally figured it out, I don’t have to be happy about Xander dying ever.   The happiness is in the knowledge of the Atonement, the gospel the good news the fact that I will hold Xander again, the fact that Christ did overcome the grave that is where the happiness is.  When Cam and I hold Xander again then we will have a fullness of joy.  I felt such a burden lift off my shoulders that day, He really can make our burdens light, if we let Him.

I little note about grief, I learned that it’s a process and just because you pass through one part of it doesn’t mean that won’t find yourself there in that part again.  I learned it’s okay to be angry, hurt and sad it’s what you do with those feelings that will make the most difference in how you progress down the path of grief.   Isn’t it so awesome that we can love someone so much that it hurts so badly when they die.  What a blessing love is.

I learned that you can be happy and sad at the same time, and that is pretty much where I am now.

After Xander passed away almost immediately, Heavenly Father tried to teach me something.  What He quietly told me over and over again was that we hadn’t really lost anything.  That feeling came to me so often in my darkest moments along with the unbelievable feeling of peace.  You haven’t lost anything, you haven’t lost anything, you haven’t lost anything.  I was like a little mantra that kept beating it’s way into my skull.  I’m grateful for it because I know it’s true.  Xander is our son, he was born to our family and we are his parents.  No, he isn’t going to be sharing our Earthly life, but eternity compared to our time on Earth is so insignificant. 

Next, He really keeps his promise of comfort.  In John 14 it says
vs. -18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
vs.-27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

We of course wanted to Xander to get better and live with us, but that wasn’t God’s plan for us or for him.  Even though that prayer wasn’t answered the way we had hoped, never once in the last year has my prayer of peace and comfort gone unanswered.  I feel myself sinking into the darkest moments of my life and then I ask for help dealing with Xander’s loss and I get it and I get it immediately, peace fills my heart and I can breath once again.  I will forever be grateful for his healing peace and comfort.  I couldn’t do this without it and without Him.  Plus I have the opportunity to share it with all of you.  I know that scripture is true because I have lived it the last 12 months.  Losing a child is not something you could get through unless you have that peace, I have literally felt Him holding me all together.  I could have easily shattered into a million pieces, but He never, ever left me comfortless and even though I didn’t get the miracle of healing for Xander that I wanted; I have felt in real ways the miracle of peace on a broken mommies heart.  What a blessing.

I learned a lot about trust.  Putting my faith and trust in Him and his plan for me and our family, goes along way in keeping the despair at bay.  Sometimes I literally have to say it out loud, “ I trust you” it helps. I’ll never know the why of Xander’s death but I do know I trust Him with our family and his plans for us.

I’ve learned he loves me and knows me personally, God isn’t some unknowable being. He loves me and knows me in all my faults and failures, and I can know Him.  And because he knows and loves me, he can give me comfort and peace.  I can feel that deep inside me and I’m grateful.

I’ve had small glimpses of the future, it’s like I can almost see it, feel it, but I can’t totally grasp it. He teaches me that there is an unimaginable blessing in store for me if I prove faithful, a blessing so big I truly can’t even begin to understand it.  I know that Xander is a blessing to us and not just because he is one of our children and I know it has to do with the “why” of his death.  It’s hard to explain.

I also know that one day my joy will equal my pain.  That was an interesting thing I learned.  Some of these things I’m talking about came quietly to me overtime, but this one was dropped on me one day, it was very clear.  You know opposition in all things, well I know that one day as deep as my pain is/was my joy will also be that deep, and that is a whole lot of joy.  Not everyone will get to know that kind of joy because they never experienced this kind of pain. I knew that, but I never connected it on a real personal level before.

There are some more personal things I have learned too, about myself and who I am.  I can do hard things, even if I don’t want to.  There are other things but they’re a little too personal to share on the blog about the person I really am, and the person I’m going to be.  He wanted me to have these experiences for a reason.

 I miss him so badly sometimes it’s hard to breath but I will do this and I can do this, but only with help for Him.