Beach Week

This is an entry I wrote in my pregnancy journal that I thought I would share. Above are some photos I have been taking at the beach this week while our family is on vacation.

8/10/11
Darling River,

By now I know you were born a precious baby girl and by now we have been missing you for some time. It’s hard to believe it has been 2 months—10 weeks and 2 days to be exact. Here I was preparing for your arrival when I was really preparing for your departure. Such a big hole you have left. Such a big hole.

I know that by writing to you it is more for myself than for anything else. You cannot hear me or read these words. Your home is no longer of this earth. Sometimes it makes me happy to know that your home is in Heaven. For now though, it makes me sad. Only sad for me. I know you are in Glory and would honestly never want to live here but I can’t help but wonder what it would be like. As I sit here on the beach with the sun to my back and the ocean waves to my face, I wonder what I would have been doing with you today. I wonder if we would be sitting on the sand together, enjoying the warmth or if we would be down by the water, walking along the shore. Or would we be walking the town, finding little mementos to take home with us to remind you of your very first trip to the beach?

Your little turtle jacket and beautiful ashes sit next to me, keeping me company. How I wish they would come alive.

I’d like to think there’s a beach in Heaven—that maybe you are running on the sands of Heaven’s shore, giggling and smiling…waiting for me. It’s hard to keep my mind in this world sometimes. I find that I often dream of the day when I will meet your spirited soul, wishing it could be today…that I didn’t have to wait a lifetime. But then I remember your Daddy. Oh, how I love your Daddy. And I think about the life we’ve made together. I have to say, it is quite remarkable. In the distance, along the cliffs of the northern shore of gorgeous Manzanita, I see Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain. And on that mountain sits The Getaway—the place your Father and I retreated to on the first days of our wedded union. I think of where we were three years ago and what our hopes and dreams were. We dreamed of you, sweet River. Even then we knew we wanted you and still now we miss you. Holding you on this beach was the first of many dreams to be fulfilled. Or so I thought. Now is the time for re-evaluation, I guess—time to consider more closely what the Lord has in mind since He is the one who now holds you and kisses you each day.

Deep down, I know that you will be so happy someday to meet your brothers and sisters in Heaven but right now, my heart is so heavy with you gone. It is difficult to free myself of the guilt I feel—guilt for considering another child to bring to the beach, to hold, to love. But my arms are so empty…and you will never fill them…here anyway. Oh, but how sweet Heaven will be when our family is complete and whole. What a day that will be. And what a day that will be when my Jesus I shall see. And I look upon His face…and He hands you to me. How glorious. And He takes me by the hand and leads me to the Promised Land where we can live together and Death will never separate us again.