Somewhere down the road ...

We woke late this morning, so it was a mad rush to get everyone dressed and breakfasted ready to get Jade to playschool and me to work with Shannon (who is collected by my Dad after about an hour so I can work). So it was only when I was driving past the end of the tiny country lane leading to the church where Benjamin is buried that I remembered it's the 7th anniversary of his death today.

So what's it like, 7 years down the line after losing your first child? Well, for me at least, it's a mixture of maybe 15% missing him and 85% not missing him. I don't know if that's a surprise to you reading - I feel like maybe I 'go on' about it more on this blog than I do anywhere in real life, but then this is my thinking space and exploring my feelings space to some extent, so I guess it's bound to come out here. Actually, I started by writing that it's 10% missing him and 90% not, and then felt guilty and thought, no, surely it can't be that small a space that he has in my life now? When I think about him, my heart swells up with love so much that I feel surely he must still take up 90% of my life - he certainly deserves that - but in reality, no he does not.

I have no idea what it would be like to have a 7-year old boy, and to have 3 children instead of 2, and for Jade to be the middle one and not the oldest one. And would we even have had 3 children, or stuck at 2? Family dynamics would have been quite different, and I have no way of knowing how it would have been.

So here we are, with a family of 2 girls which seems quite normal and complete and OK. And there are 4 places round the dinner table and beds for each of us and most of the time it's not even thought about. But sometimes, and I find it hard to assess how often, I think of him and wonder what it would be like if he had lived, and what would he be like and what would he be doing? And every time (once or twice a month) I drive along the road on which we were driving, approaching Warwick on the way to Birmingham Children's Hospital to get him checked out because I was worried about him, and he collapsed and probably effectively died there in the car, and I remember every single detail and nuance of what happened, and go over it in my mind and wonder if it could have been any different. And every time I feel envious of people who have 3 or 4 children instead of 2, I remind myself that I have had 3, it's just that I have to wait a long time till I get to see one of them again. And when I chat with people about the challenges of having baby number 2, and then I feel a twinge of guilt that I am referring to Shannon as number 2 and not number 3 and am excluding Benjamin from our lives. And when I feel relief that I have girls and not boys, and then feel guilty because of course I did love my boy with all my heart. And when I hear the songs that have special significance in connection with him. And, of course, when I hear of other people losing babies or children and I remember exactly that black hole feeling of the worst thing possible in your entire life actually and really happening and how horrific it is and how the whole world stops and how you can literally think of nothing else for years.

And when I still wonder about exactly how God works in our lives, and why do some people get miraculous healings and others don't, and how exactly do I trust him about difficult and fearful things I have to face, and will He ever intervene, or do I just have to draw courage and strength from knowing He is there, and just keep on going, and then reassuring myself that of course He really was there, most definitely, in our time of need... So the title of this post is an Amy Grant song - "And you say, why why why does it go this way? And why why why, is all I can say. Somewhere down the road, there'll be answers to the questions; somewhere down the road, though you cannot see it now, somewhere down the road you will find mighty arms reaching for you, and they will hold the answers at the end of the road."

However, although on days like today it looms larger than normal, I almost never cry about him these days. We are happy and life is busy with the girls and the shopping and work and trying to get organised and HE and friends and plans for the future and the niggles of everyday life. There's just a little space for Benjamin, that when looked at becomes as if through a magnifying glass and looks enormous and all-encompassing, but then I turn my gaze away again onto the rest of life and it shrinks back down to that little corner. And I guess that's as it should be.