A good day.

Yesterday, in the midst of decorating Branson's grave, choosing a box for her keepsakes and a windchime for the kids to hang in their tree- I had a good day..... My heart rested a little.  That is all....just rested a little...in my Spirit.

A space.....to just be....

As you know, Branson's nursery was complete.....everything we needed to bring her home was at our fingertips, down to two tiny little gowns we had purchased just a week before we lost her.  It was beautiful, right off our bedroom....and was an important part of me walking in my faith that month that I carried her- knowing we might lose her.  

In the weeks that have followed, we have struggled with what to do with the space.  Jaden wanted things left alone...content to sit amongst Branson's things, play babydolls in her bed....just be among Branson.

Eason, on the other hand, was confused by the presence of a bed for a baby who wasn't coming home with us.....confused by baby things being around at all.

So, we compromised, left most of the furniture, added a comfy reading chair and put away most of Branson's things.  She is still in the midst of the room, but as I watched the kids bring down their most special books to add to the shelf and sit and read on the rug, I was reminded that this room is Holy.....a place where I told the Lord that I would follow Him to the end......

Last night, in the lamplight, I snapped a picture of the man I love sitting in this room......thank you, Jesus for the healing balm that you are.

Today we spent some time in the room, placing the sweet cards from all of you and her keepsakes into a beautiful bird box....her journal left out so that I can add to the story....and books, books and books for us to read.....what a wonderful space to be...

One 'B'- left to represent all of us....the other B is in Branson's box....

My sewing.....

Every Long Journey Begins with a Single Step

Branson's gown....It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen

Branson's keepsakes and journal.....

Jaden's letter to Branson.......

Many of you have been asking to read Jaden Lily's sweet letter she read at the burial. She wrote it on Thursday, the day we found out her heart had stopped beating.  She asked for the ultrasound picture of Branson from the preceding Monday....and then went to her room and wrote this beautiful letter.  I was amazed at her emotion and poise in reading it at the burial......she is truly a gift from the Lord.... "Amila" is our Amelia who we lost at 10 weeks in 2006.  My dad, Papa, died in 2007, when Jaden was 6. Her Grandaddy and Grannie died last year, 6 months apart.  These are the people who she knew had welcomed our sweet Branson.....

healing- well.

I am not sure if you have ever experienced doing something the wrong way....but I tend to forget or ignore the natural processes that things are supposed to take. 


For example, in highschool and college when I was supposed to write a rough draft or sentence outline, etc., I would simply write the paper...the Final Draft.  Then, on the computer, I would deconstruct it, piece by piece, detail by detail, error by error until I had, what I considered, to be a decent replica of a 2nd draft, first draft, outline and so on.....It worked, and no one was the wiser....


However, when I injured my right quad in high school, I never took the time off for it to heal. I did not stop punting(which initially injured it), never took a season off, just pushed through with Icy Hot and a lot of ace bandages....Even today, when I occasionally punt a ball or shoot again it twinges...forever scarred by the lack of process I put in to its healing.


This is not how I want to be with Branson. I do not want to be less than what God has in store for me to be. I do not want to slowly process something on my own that He wants me to give to Him, and I do not want to quickly push through something that He wants me to slowly digest.  


I want to heal well.


There is no manual on this process, because no other person is Johnna.  There is no person that has my experiences, fears and wounds...There are similar people, but no one is me......and so it has to be all new, all real, all me.....


I have finished Angie Smith's book about losing her sweet Audrey, her 4th daughter after her twins and daughter Kate......It has been so helpful.  She also has a blog and yesterday I visited it for the first time. It had just felt wrong to see her healing 3 years later without witnessing her pain first.  I pulled up the blog and gasped- hand over my mouth- when I noticed, for the first time, another name in her list of children.....Charlotte.......tears instantly began streaming down my face.


Another sweet baby girl in their family......


It was too much....I broke instantly like the bandaid that I had been afraid to remove finally was ripped off- and it hadn't hurt nearly as bad as I had feared it would.  They were able to have another child- a daughter even.  This woman, that I trusted because she knew how to grieve well, had been able to lean on the Lord, prepare her body, conceive and carry another child....who lived.  She has been able to continue healing well....


I haven't yet connected her loss and the birth of her sweet Charlotte....There are 2 years worth of blog entries to read....but just knowing of Charlotte's life allows me to stop and focus on my Branson without allowing the fears and what-ifs to drown it out. 
 I just want to grieve my baby girl.....and talk and not talk, and praise Him, and ask questions, and rest and share and love my children well, and be sensitive to Will's needs....I want to heal well...as we follow where the Lord leads us......

..so we fix our eyes on not what is seen.....

If You are who you say you are, why did You not do what I know You can do....


If You are the Healer and Great Physician, why did You not heal.......


If You love us, want our devotion and faith, why did You not Love us by Blessing our devotion and faith......


Why, Lord.......




Are you stuck here with me........These are the questions that swirl late in the night....when I awake suddenly or even today as I did laundry.
It was so easy to believe in Him 5 months ago, as I began to see my belly swell....when I found that I would share the week of my delivery with two dear friends, when we told Jaden Lily over Cracker Barrel breakfast, when I was blessed to hear the news that my three dear "sisters" were due within months of me......as we dreamed of finding out if this baby was really the little girl Will had hoped for.


Today, it isn't as easy.  He is the same God He was those months ago, and I love Him today just the same.  It is so hard to end a discussion with "I don't know" or "Fine"....that is how I have been ending my heart's discussions with the Lord.  They are something like this:


God, You said if I asked in Your name......
It isn't fair( as I pack away the quilt I made her, the mobile from her room)
You said to trust You.
I wanted people to see You, Lord...What a miracle You could have done. They would have believed, Lord.  You could have shown yourself.  
Why did you not?  
I. Don't. Know.


and sometimes even:


How could I ever really trust you again.  
How am I supposed to feel that there is a bigger picture when all You let me see is the incomprehensible mystery that is Your will.
How do I know that I didn't just fail this test and trial you gave us.
I don't WANT to be an example of faith, testament to the faithfulness of the Lord, write a book, give advice, tell my story. I WANT my baby.
FINE.


There is much left unseen......and I am not sure the light gets brighter. I can't even be sure that this isn't just the beginning of a bigger, more heartbreaking trial. Could this be the beginning of many losses. Could we be headed towards the loss of yet another child? Is this the beginning of an empty feeling I will continue to have because we will have no more? Who can say that this will get lighter, better over time.....I do not pretend to see what is unseen.....


The past few days I have watched my children like a hawk, tended bumped heads like they were ER emergencies and worried at the slightest tummy ache. The realization that they are HIS and that at any moment He may take them home has been almost unbearable.  How do I balance respect of His will and not live my life in fear of it just the same.....


I have to release it...release it all before it attacks my body with bitterness.  As I struggle to pack away her things, make boxes of maternity clothes, pacifiers and baby blankets, I am struck with the realization that I am physically holding my breath as if unable to breathe in what is happening.  Will I not feel the same when I look at the boxes piled in the basement. Will I become obsessed with it?


So I am here standing at the edge of the woods, knowing she is no longer lost in them, yet unable to leave the edge...the edge where I stood believing, trusting, gathered in the arms of My Father....willing to follow Him anywhere......I wish I did not have to follow Him deep into them but I did. And He did heal her..... in the unseen.....

Therefore, We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes on not what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal.

II Corinthians 4:16-18

Weeping...and waiting for Morning.

The weeping continues...off and on.....as I push forward.....and try to map out the rest of the Spring....Jaden has auditioned for a play, and tonight begins Eason's t-ball season. I am so thankful to have them...to dive deep into their lives, pray for them.  They continue to make me laugh, and they continue to help me make it through the day. 


 However, the only place I want to be is under the arm of my husband.  This is such a new feeling.  I have always loved him. But I have also always been extremely independent.  Even in crisis and sadness, I have usually watched myself draw from many others' strength. I usually tend to process information and thoughts as a way to grieve or heal. I have not ever found myself in the position of needing the actual physical closeness of another human being for security.   

He has been amazing this week. Crying and holding me...fixing breakfast for the kids, talking about the fears and anxieties of the future, preparing to go back to work.  He and Jaden had planned a hike for last Saturday to do Rainbow Falls in the Smokies. She had really been looking forward to the daddy time. Since his job gave him the week off, they were able to go yesterday. 

What an important trip..proclaiming that she was valuable, that she was secure and loved, that she could be listened to.  

And now, after several deaths in the family, miscarriage and even financial hardships, not to mention 6 years of marriage, I find myself unable to stand on my own two feet.  






As I write, Will is at Home Depot, a trip he wanted to make alone to fix a few things at home....I reluctantly agreed to stay home while Eason napped, but I am desperate for him to come home. He has been gone only 30 minutes.  I am smothering him.....quite literally. I know he would say I am not, and that he is there for me..whatever I need. I know that he needs the space, the distraction, the movement out from under the weeping.  I want him to have that.....but it is so hard to be away from him.  


If nothing else comes from this trial in our lives, there will be glory given to the Lord in our marriage. I resolve to never forget the grace that my Will has given me in this....the amount of Love and Thankfulness that I feel for him in this season.  I choose to love him every day......for what he has been to me, through the good and the bad, sickness and health, poorer and....poorer........I choose to glorify the Lord in this marriage...even if I had NO idea what I was really promising in those vows as I stood- a broken and bleary-eyed 22 year old- to promise him my wholeness.  I vow again to love him continuously..... and to learn how to do it without smothering him.


God grant me the strength to even attempt such a vow. 

daddy loves Jaden

Branson's Burial....

We decided to bury Branson. I know that doesn't seem like a decision, but it was. With all of the hope that had filled our hearts about her healing, a burial wasn't something that I wanted to discuss in length. I had said a few weeks ago, if she did not make it in this world, we would not have any sort of service, however if she did make it, but not survive, and people had been able to meet her, hold her etc, we would have a funeral.  Some things are just to painful and foreign to even predict.  People HAD met her....loved her......prayed for her.....walked the road with us....We were not prepared for the love and outpouring we received...and MUCH less prepared for the amount of love that people had simply- for her.


My dad died suddenly in 2007 and was buried awkwardly and thankfully in one of the plots that my Grandparents had bought previously in a cemetery I had no ties to. We were so thankful that it was available, but it was always sort of separate and lonely.  Needless to say, we had no way of knowing that this cemetery would suddenly be a place we were forever again tied to.... Last year, we bought a house just a mile up from the cemetery.  In the same cemetery they have plots reserved for babies that do not survive this earth, and we realized that Branson would be close to our home, close to my Papa's grave...a cemetery that my kids were already comfortable with.  We spoke to the cemetery and although not cheap, they were able to come up with something we could afford to make payments to.  
In the meantime, our friends at Mynatt's funeral home prepared Branson for burial calling us many times for confirmation that she was perfect, dressed in her tiny yellow flowery sleeper and white cap.  They were so gracious and generous, as they have always been.....we truly were blessed to have them take care of us.


In a way, it is comforting to drive by the cemetery where they both are.....


We awoke Sunday to some rain, and then it began to pour. Our yard was soaked, the clothes I had lain out for the kids were not going to work, and we struggled to even know how to prepare for this day.  I struggled to find anything to wear....What was I supposed to do....Look pregnant? because I still did....not look pregnant? because I wasn't.... what about the children who would be there: who knew what had happened, saw a box, saw my stomach? Wouldn't that be confusing? Was I supposed to wear make up, look pretty, be awake, be crying, be social.....what was this even going to look like......


Will had prepared what he would say(it is posted on the blog as "words from Will")...even Jaden had words to place at this event. I had nothing.  I didn't know what to say and looking back, said some very strange things to people that day.....the silence was too loud, and I felt the need to fill it...


We arrived as it continued to rain.  As we neared the cemetery, we talked about the lack of activity that there would be for a Sunday in the rain... Then, as we rounded the corner, we saw two long lines of cars....Surely, this was not just for Branson...... As we began to recognize cars, it became evident that, yes, these cars were representing people that were here for us...here for her....it was almost unbearable...the amount of love that rushed though us as we waited to near her tent, her tiny white casket, the small peach flowers, the surrounding mud and grass.....




People continued to show, to walk from their cars....without umbrellas...the rain had cleared.

There sat her casket, and beside it we placed her "duck".... the toy and comforter we had sought and purchased especially for her.  Jaden Lily made a bead charm that simply stated "Branson Has Life"....


I had no words, but I did have song. I knew what my heart wanted to say and had asked Raychel to sing....knowing that this may be too difficult of a favor...and then, it happened....The worship my heart wanted to hear... as      Jo played the guitar and Michael and she sang..

"There is power in the name of Jesus...to break every chain.."
This had been my prayer and the chains had been so many things...  They had been kidney failure, and limbs that would not release. They had been fluid stuck within brain spaces and umbilical restriction. They had been my bitterness, my lack of faith, my anger and jealousy. Now the chains were around the disbelief, defeat and disappointment that my heart felt.  Take them, Lord Jesus...that is NOT the person I was created to be...that will NOT be what defines the rest of my life, my marriage, my parenting.......Why? because HE loves me....that's why.

They continued to sing.


"He is jealous for me....Loves like a Hurricane, I am a tree.
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
and I realize just how Beautiful You are and how Great Your affections are for me.
He Loves Us, oh How He Loves Us........"


We wept. As Will rose to speak, Eason instinctively followed. He stood beside Will as he spoke and even gently touched his hand to her casket.  Will spoke- the most healing and beautiful words that I had ever heard.  My husband, the Father of my children, her Daddy.....the man that God had gifted me with......My heart bled for him, and at the same time I have never been more satisfied or proud of him in my life. 

As he stood behind, holding her up, Jaden Lily read the letter she had written about Branson the day she found out we had lost her.  It was delicious, full of truth.....and full of sadness...








"I cried when I heard she was in the womb. I laughed when she kicked my hand. Now I don't know whether to laugh or to cry..she is in    Heaven."


My cousin and our friend both closed in prayer. Their prayers were cries of comfort and praises for the mercies that God had already poured out.  They were both beautiful.


As it concluded we began to filter through the crowd to hug and cry with all of those that had come. It was the most overwhelming experience of my life....not unlike the fog that a wedding reception can be.....only catching glimpses of long-time friends that I had no words for, close friends that I seemed to barely see that day and family members that simply could not bear the grief.  As we all waded through the mud, many pointed out that the rain had stopped.....it had...and there was even a patch of sunlight.....
I wished it had mattered more to me..the weather just seemed to mimic the unexpected nature and mystery of my God.  The following day, a Monday, it would storm and rain all day...enough to flood all the nearby creeks and rivers....my God was experiencing what I was experiencing...because He loved me....enough to know He was right and sovereign and still scoop me up in His arms and cry with me.

People began to slowly drift away.

Will needed to spend a few more moments there. Will pulled me away, and I am so glad he did.  The time we spent in those last few moments at her grave were beyond precious. I was also able to pull Eason aside and I gave him some words to repeat.  
"Branson, I love you. You are in heaven with Jesus. We miss you. You are safe and not sick."

I was so grateful to have those moments there. Will lingered a few more minutes and we left......and drove home.... a mile down the road.  I have attended children's funerals before. The first one when I was very young when a young baby boy died. I watched as his mother and father openly wept for him.  It is so powerful to watch the stories of others unfold.  This same family decided to adopt a beautiful little girl in their later life, after raising their own children....these experiences and openings into people's lives shaped who I am, who God sculpted me to be.....your stories are so important.......