I Will Carry You

I Will Carry You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxZhEcTzn6Q (This link has lyrics with images set to the song .)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2CnUtVY35o (This link is tougher to watch - Todd and Angie Smith lost their little girl to another condition that was "incompatible with life." Todd is in the Christian band "Selah" and produced the song in honor of Audrey Caroline; this video is a slideshow that a friend created for them with images of their family before, during, and after the birth of their daughter.)


There were photographs I wanted to take
Things I wanted to show you
Sing sweet lullabies, wipe your teary eyes
Who could love you like this

People say that I am brave but I'm not
Truth is I'm barely hanging on
But there's a greater story
Written long before me
Because He loves you like this

So I will carry you
While your heart beats here
Long beyond the empty cradle
Through the coming years
I will carry you
All my life
And I will praise the One Who's chosen me
To carry you

Such a short time
Such a long road
All this madness
But I know
That the silence
Has brought me to His voice
And He says...

I've shown her photographs of time beginning
Walked her through the parted seas
Angel lullabies, no more teary eyes
Who could love her like this

I will carry you
While your heart beats here
Long beyond the empty cradle
Through the coming years
I will carry you
All your life
And I will praise the One Who's chosen Me
To carry you


I think this song is probably going to be sort of an intro for a number of posts to come.  As I said above with the YouTube links, it's by a group called "Selah" and one of their members, Todd Smith, lost a daughter named Audrey Caroline shortly after her birth to another condition that is "not compatible with life."  It is a beautiful song and theirs is a beautiful story.

Todd's wife, Angie, actually kept a blog throughout her pregnancy and since.  She also wrote a book entitled I Will Carry You that details her pregnancy and her walk with God throughout.  It is a wonderful book and when I'm done reading it a second time, I'm planning to pass it on so that someone else can feel the comfort I've felt from her words.  (You can find her blog at http://angiesmithonline.com/ if you are interested.) 

The book was actually sent to me by my friend Ruth; in my eyes, it was one of those situations where God puts someone into our lives but it may take years before we know why.  Ruth and I met in college, but hadn't really stayed in touch (other than reading statuses on Facebook). Shortly after our diagnosis, she wrote me to let us know that she was praying for us and wanted to share Angie's book with us since she had recently read it.

Not only was I touched by her offer, I was struck by the ways in which Angie's book spoke to me.  There have been so many times that I've been reading and just stopped to think "Wow - that was exactly what I needed to read today." Or "Huh...that is exactly how I've been feeling." Her faith in God is an inspiration and I hope that one of these days, I can approach this all with the faith that she lives daily. 

I plan to do a few more specific entries on passages that were especially meaningful to me, but for now I just wanted to share their story and Audrey's beautiful song.

True Believers

True Believers - Darius Rucker  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qFkMQsEnA4 

Church bells ringin’ on our wedding day
Climb in that limo and we rode away
Guess you’ll always hear some people say
They’re never gonna make it

We settled in and we settled down
In this quiet little seaside town
You were the rock I built my world around
And life won’t ever break it

We are one heartbeat in the darkness
We are one lasting answered prayer
We are one unbroken promise
We are two true believers

It wasn’t easy gettin’ here today
Sometimes you stumbled, or I lost my way
But every roadblock was a chance to say
Take my hand, I’m here beside you

We worked and made it through the toughest parts
Now every day is another chance to start
To look around and see that where we are
Is where we were trying to get to

We are one heartbeat in the darkness
We are one lasting answered prayer
We are one unbroken promise
We are two true believers

We are one before our God in Heaven
Oh, we are one road when the going gets rough, yeah
We are one now and forever
We are one name, one life, one flame

We are one heartbeat in the darkness
We are one lasting answered prayer
We are one unbroken promise
That we are two true believers
We are two true believers

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I heard this on the radio on my way to work one night recently, actually a night after Chris and I had been discussing our relationship and all that we've been going through.  The song fit so perfectly with what we had been feeling and what we had been talking about that it was almost too perfect for me to have found it by accident while scanning through the presets.

"Take my hand, I'm here beside you" is probably one of my favorite lines.  I can't imagine going through this experience with anyone other than Chris by my side; he is an incredible father and an amazing husband.  There have been a lot of times in the last two weeks where the only thing we can do is to hold one another's hands or share a quiet hug.  Even without saying a word, sometimes such a simple gesture is all that is really necessary.

I suppose I took it for granted that he would be by my side and that we would walk this path together.  But after reading the words of several other mothers who have faced the same or similar situations, I realize how wrong I was to make this assumption.  (Depending on what you read, the statistics for divorce after losing a child vary wildly but it doesn't take much more than common sense to realize that it's going to put a strain on any relationship.)  The fact that we have been able to come closer together instead of being pushed apart is no accident and it certainly isn't a given.  We've been honest from day one that we know how difficult this situation could be on a marriage; it was actually a part of our discussions in the hotel room the day we received the diagnosis.  We agreed that throughout the months and even years to come that our relationship needed to remain a part of the discussion and decided to be aware of how we were doing individually and as a couple.

I'm not crazy about giving advice and it isn't something I intend to do so explicitly here, but for whatever reason I feel compelled to do it with this subject.  ~ I suppose this rings true for any couple, but especially for those who are facing the loss or illness of a child:  Don't be afraid to be honest - you have to be there to support one another because at the end of the day, you are the only two people in the world who are inside of your situation.  You are the only two people who will ever be able to fully understand what the other is going through because you both share the life and loss of a single child.

With Arms Wide Open

"With Arms Wide Open" - Creed

Well I just heard the news today
It seems my life is going to change
I close my eyes, begin to pray
Then tears of joy stream down my face

With arms wide open
Under the sunlight
Welcome to this place
I'll show you everything
With arms wide open
With arms wide open

Well I don't know if I'm ready
To be the man I have to be
I'll take a breath, I'll take her by my side
We stand in awe, we've created life

 

 

I heard this song tonight and couldn't help but let myself sob a little bit.  I know the lyrics weren't actually meant to sound the way they sounded to me tonight, but they seemed to fit, at least in my head.

 

* With the news we received last Tuesday, our lives did change forever.  We have always envisioned ourselves as a family with four children - but now we are not only going to have to watch one of our children die, we aren't even sure we want to have any more biological children.  Instead of 1 in 10,000 - the odds for another child with a neural tube defect are about 4-5% (or 1-3% with extra folic acid).  I honestly don't know if we will ever be ready to take those odds and try again.  We have agreed to wait a set amount of time before we make any final decisions, but I know what my answer would be if I had to choose today.

 

* We will absolutely welcome this little life with open arms. He or she won't be able to see or hear for the short time that we have together, so we may not be able to show our little one everything we would have liked but we will show this baby all the love that it is possible to give in such a short period of time.

 

* I don't know that either of us is ready to face the man/woman, husband/wife, father/mother that we will have to be in the upcoming months, but unfortunately we don't really have a choice. We'll be taking a lot of very deep breaths and standing by each other's sides because that's the only way our family will make it through this. We have two children at home who need us to still be there for them and we have another child on the way who needs us to make a lot of decisions and do the best we can to make his or her time on Earth as special as possible.

 

* We have created life.  No matter how short his or her life may be - there is still a child growing inside of me.  Every once in a while, I can feel a kick or a movement and it brings tears to my eyes every time. I know it will continue to bring tears to my eyes for the next 4-5 months, but I can not imagine giving up that precious time with the life that we have created. 

 

I am not usually one too deeply affected by song lyrics; I tend to listen more for the beat and focus on that (it drives Chris crazy that I can sometimes listen to an entire song and have no idea what it was about).  Tonight, however, I just couldn't help but reflect a little.