Sumi’s corner

It’s insanely late and this may just turn out to be an experiment to see how coherent I can be past midnight. Heehee!

Today I:

Swallowed hard and watched the oldest boy go off with his youth group to visit the same water park we visited earlier this month. I didn’t swallow hard because he was going (I prayed instead). I swallowed hard because I was not going. I really wanted to go too.

Tried on an insanely expensive dress just for fun whilst hanging out with a sweet friend. We were at the ‘droolingest’ store in the whole wide world. (Anthropologie, if you must know.)

Played Bejeweled Blitz on facebook for much longer than I care to divulge.

Listened to the hubby teach at bible school. He did good.

Walked down memory lane as the two younger boys reminisced about a long-standing and very silly game they used to play with their stuffed animals. It was a classic. Maybe one day I will tell you more about this game. (Appropriately called Funny Animals.) My kids don’t read my blog and they will never know.

Stopped by the school to decorate my classroom, only to discover that there was a leak in the ’storage’ classroom and everything had been moved from that classroom to mine. Murphy’s law, I tell ya.

Hung out at two bookstores and didn’t get what I went there for. I did walk out of the one with a teacher’s discount card though. Cool beans.

Wished I could go with my son and my friends to a waterpark. Did I say that already?

Stayed up insanely late to write this little bit of trivia.

<3

Right now, I am going to clean the cat litter in my room. After that, my nose and I will be able to go to sleep.

She does. Like her mama.

I used to be so enamoured with Jenna’s eyebrows. They were the perfect frame for those big blue eyes, and I loved staring at their exquisite shape when she was asleep next to me. But most of all, I loved them because they could talk. Those eyebrows said a lot. On the video that a sweet friend took of Jenna and I at a park day a few months before she left us, I noticed that my eyebrows talk too. Go figure.

I like to think that Jesus is just as enamoured with little Jenna, including her eyebrows, as he spends time with her up in heaven.  Perhaps she tells him things that he already knows, just like any child tells his/her parents, but because he loves her and loves being with her, he arches his eyebrows and says: “Wow! That is so cool! Tell me more.” I can’t imagine what heaven is like, but I know that there are relationships there and I am sure Jenna and Jesus are enjoying theirs.

I sat next to Sarah at the back of church yesterday and watched her ‘talking’ with baby Zoey. Here was Sarah, in her grown-up fullness, totally capable of having scintillating and eloquent conversation with her peers (when she isn’t making fart jokes, that is ), taking the time to reciprocate the adoring gaze and precious coos of that helplessly dependent little girl on her lap. It was such a picture to me of our great and glorious and mighty God who steps down from that lofty place to meet us face to face and who takes the time to whisper sweet words in our hearing. And he delights when we return that gaze, and smile up at him.

So I did just that. Right there in church, sitting next to my Sarah friend, I turned the mental gaze of my heart to Jesus and smiled at him.  I could feel his pleasure in that simple act of worship, as he smiled back at me. Oh, sometimes I get so complicated and think I need to do this or do that to win God’s approval. But at times like these, I realise that his eyes are on me, his little sparrow, and he simply longs for me to have a relationship with him in spirit and in truth. And he knows every quirk about me, and (gasp) even likes me for it. He is probably enamoured with my eyebrows too.

What a precious God we serve.

OK, I am seriously musing now. My intention was simply to post a happy birthday greeting to Jenna. And to tell her that I miss her eyebrows. I miss her.

I cuddled the two younger boys in my big king sized bed this morning. As we lay there, the youngest piped up and expressed something a friend told him at church this weekend. He thought it was weird to celebrate the birthday of a little girl who is not getting older here on earth. I told him that we are not celebrating how old she is, we are celebrating that she WAS born, she WAS here, we were blessed to have her.  (We celebrate Christmas, don’t we?) I went on to tell the boy that just about everything is weird about losing a little girl so young. Her things are here, she is not. Her friends are growing up before our eyes, she is conspicuously absent. There is nothing normal about that.

I suspect there are people who think we are making too much of a fuss on Jenna’s birthday. Whatever. We would be remembering her today anyway. I’d rather do it with laughter and ice cream and friends, than alone in sackcloth and ashes.

So, we celebrate. We praise God for a little girl who danced into our lives and sprinkled laughter and love and plenty of pink into our home. We miss her, but we are glad that she came.

Happy birthday, my sweet little Jenna girl.

It’s been almost two months since my last post. Whew! I am askeered to look at my blog stats. I think I am staying away from that page for now.

It’s Jenna’s 5th birthday tomorrow and I am experiencing the familiar roller coaster of emotion that precedes a big Jenna day.  I announced at church this morning that we’ll be having ice cream in her honor at a Baskin Robbins tomorrow afternoon, and I couldn’t keep the tears from flowing as I did so.  It surprised me. Once again I have misjudged the way this thing sneaks up on you when you least expect it. I felt fragile and teary all through the service, so much so that I had to leave my seat next to hubby in the front and go and sit at the back in order to compose myself. 

Still, I am really, really OK. It’s hard to explain. Sometimes it feels like my heart is ripping in two and the pain of missing Jenna  is searing and sharp. But I am OK. I will be OK. The acute, searing pain is temporary. Underneath it all is a peace I cannot explain which carries me.

We have had a long , hot, lazy summer here. I feel slightly ‘consternated’ (I just like that word, even though I don’t expect to see it in a dictionary, so there) because the remaining weeks of summer are starting to slip through my fingers at an alarming rate. Once again I didn’t do half the things on my wishful thinking  to-do list. Soon school will be in full swing and will consume my time. Why didn’t I use my summer time more wisely? It’s the story of my life!

I did have fun though – going to a waterpark with the boys and a friend, playing canasta with girl friends until the wee hours of the morning, reading some interesting books, painting a room and furniture, visiting with sweet friends.

I appreciate all the sweet little notes I have been receiving from you all, to check in on me and see how I am doing. A friend asked me at church why I haven’t been blogging. When I told her I feel like I have nothing to say, she told me that I ALWAYS have something to say. Hmmmm. I am not so sure anymore. My life is what it is and it has become pretty un-profound lately. Nothing new, just me pressing on and trying to walk with Jesus. Boring, actually.

I do sometimes feel as though I have a book churning in me. It is not about Jenna. I might share what it is about some time.

Well, there you have it. I haven’t written in a long time, and here I sit, wondering what to say. I think I will end this post, but first I want to share two things. First(ly), baby Stellan needs your prayers again. He is back in hospital and his SVT is dangerously high, his little body is growing tired of it.

Secondly. We went to see My Sister’s Keeper last week. I am surprised that I even went. It promised to be a disturbing movie, after all that we have been through. As it turned out, it was sad, but cathartic in a way, and the story was sufficiently dissimilar to ours to not spark too many painful reminders. (There were a few.) I HAVE to share with you the last few words in the movie though. It is somewhat of a spoiler, so if you want to see the movie without knowing what happens in the end, don’t read what I am about to type, OK?

The movie ends with a narration by the younger sister’s character:

I had a sister. She was fantastic. I know I will see her again. Until then, our relationship continues.

I could so quote those words:

I had a little girl. She was fantastic. I know I will see her again. Until then, our relationship continues.