Rose

Today is the anniversary of Rose's accident. Most people's worst fears in life do not come true but ours did. The terrible day of the beginning of the trauma of losing her.

Thank you our dear friends that have reminded us of how our Blessed Mother and her most perfect and loving Son were there holding Rose when she needed them.

Dearest and loving Savior,
Continue to look with mercy upon us.
Continue showering your abundant grace upon us.
Continue sending your angels to protect us.
Continue filling our hearts with Your love
to heal us.

Sweetest Rose, pray for us.

Grace

I have always believed in God, in Jesus, our mother Mary, our Holy Catholic Church. I do not understand how people do not believe because I have seen the hand of God throughout my whole life. But on the day of Rose's accident as I was calling on Father God I was waiting for Him to physically come down from heaven to heal her. And although he did not create the miracle we begged and pleaded for He stayed with us through each painful and terrifying moment and healed her by taking her home with Him. We know He was here with us because Rose's death did not physically take the life out of us and we know He was here because we have been carried through each scary and sorrowful moment from the day of the accident to up until now.

Now we know grace isn't just a theory. It is tangible. You can cling to it for dear life. It is here for our taking.

After losing Rose, Kevin and I discussed if we ever were to receive another daughter we would consider Grace for her name. Well, our newest addition made her way into the world 4 days before her due date and out of all the 365 days of the year she chose to arrive on the Feast of St. Gratia. Another sign that God is truly present in our lives.

Bitter Sweet Days

We are six weeks out until the new baby arrives. We are gearing up for the emotional journey we know will come with our newest blessing - the reminders of Rose when she was a newborn and her too short sweet life which is still so fresh in our memories, praise God.

I know the experience with welcoming our new baby girl will be bitter sweet like every blessing in life has been since we lost Rose and I am sure will continue to be until the end of our days here on earth.

It is hard to explain welcoming the feelings of sadness, pain and grief but we gratefully accept these feelings as they always take us back to our Rose.

People mourn our so loss deeply because they themselves cannot imagine losing a child and thankfully most people will not not have to. What I want people to know is amazingly with time and faith God gives us a way to work through the grief. When we believe in God the Father, that Jesus was the Savior of the world and He died to open the gates of heaven then we know no matter how deep our grief goes we always come back to the same point - although we miss Rose with all our beings, we know she is happy and at peace. We know she will never have the opportunity to sin, she is in the arms of our loving Savior, she is where we want our children, our loved ones and ourselves to be. We just have to be patient while waiting for our journey here to end. Isn't this why we are here on earth? To live a life of love in accordance with God's will so that we may live with Him forever in eternity?

Dear God, help us long to be with Jesus the way we long to be with our Rose.

On Fear

What is it that keeps us from growing in life and at times from doing God's will? Of course the culprit for all lack of forward movement is fear.

By the grace of God my husband and I were taught how to be open to life before we were married. Deciding not to contracept in marriage takes away the fear that prevents most married couples from being open to multiple children. When we understand the beauty of the teaching behind living out our vocation of marriage it is a moment that will forever change the marriage and allow the married couple to continually blossom and grow.

The fruit of this gift is obviously our children, and in our family, especially our sweetest Rose. If fear ruled over our married lives (mainly over our fertility) and we created barriers between us or just decided we were "done" having children we never would have experienced the blessedness of Rose. If fear ruled over our lives after losing Rose we would never have been open to the possibility of a new life after her death. But praise God for teaching us how to be truly giving of ourselves in our sexuality as we are expecting another little one...

The fear remains but since our lifestyle is not conducive to letting the unknown rule our lives we have been entrusted with another soul to love and care for.

During this past year this has been the hardest scripture to accept but it has been the most profound when it comes to needing to continually trust in our Lord:

"The Lord gives. The Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Job 1:21

The fear remains but the trust is stronger.

On Our Loss

As our closest family and friends know, it has been six months since we lost our youngest child, Rose Marie in January of this year. Although our hearts are physically broken it is our faith that continues to sustain us.

Through God's love, mercy and grace God is healing us through the many special souls he has placed in our lives all along the way but especially through the lives of our other children.

So in the depth of our pain of losing one of our blessed children the Lord in His infinite goodness continues to use our other blessed children to find and bring out the joy that remains and to create new joy along our new journey without our sweetest Rose. Here we are again realizing the blessedness of our lives through the gift of our children even when we are grieving the loss of the most profound one - our precious baby.

web.me.com/babyrose

On Being Open to Children...

Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute greatly to the good of parents themselves. God himself said, "It is not good that man should be alone," and "from the beginning [he] made them male and female" ; wishing to associate them in a special way in his own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: "Be fruitful and multipy." Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage, are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate vailiantly with the love of the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family from day to day.

(Catechism of the Catholic Church #1652.)

Gifts

Today I held my youngest child as she fell asleep in my arms. What a gift to be able to hold her at such a peaceful and perfect moment in time and to realize what she and her siblings are to my husband and me - absolute gifts! Having little beings that love us unconditionally was not the motivation for bringing them into the world but what an awesome God we have that somehow deems us worthy of this blessed by product of a child's life...

Through parenthood I feel like I am learning how to better love and serve others through the gift of my children. God seems to use each child to chip away at our pride, shifting our focus from ourselves to others, and softening our view of ourselves and others. For today I am feeling that my moments of selfishness do not seem to run as wide or as deep as they once did...

So far having children has helped us to put aside thoughts such as, "What about me?" "What about my feelings?" "What about my needs?"

I used to tell my husband constantly, "This is what I need from you..." But thankfully this is changing as I grow in love for him, see that he is doing the best he can to meet all of our needs, and knowing his intentions are good and pure for our family. But it is also having little beings to intimately love and care for that helps shift the focus away from ourselves - praise God! Let us continue to ask God what it is that He is asking of us in our life as a family and thank Him for the glorious gifts of one another...

Prayer of Abandonment

Father, I abandon myself into your hands;do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do, I thank you:

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,and in all your creatures -

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul:

I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,for I love you, Lord,

and so need to give myself,to surrender myself

into your hands without reserve,

and with boundless confidence,for you are my Father.

Charles de Foucauld