Awareness

First--I'm sorry that I've been lacksadaisical about my posts lately. I'm actually working on getting my blog redesigned, so I've been thinking about that lately and forgetting to post :) Anyway, lately I've been wondering how losing Faith has changed my personality. One of the biggest things I've noticed is that I am now completely aware of how fragile life is. I think that this can be a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing.

I remember the night Bill and I came home from the hospital after losing Faith. Jenna, Ryan, mom, and dad were at our house waiting for us. Everyone, except my dad was planning on spending the night. I don't remember why my dad was planning on going home, but he needed to. The weather was terrible and snowy. As he was getting ready to go, something inside me just freaked out. I was terribly aware of our mortality and realized my dad could get into and accident and DIE. I started to sob and begged him to stay (which he did). And I think that was the beginning of my awareness that bad things can and do happen.

Most of my life I went through hearing about bad things happening--but they always happened to other people. When we told my mother-in-law that we were pregnant and that my parents had bought us a bib and rubber ducky, she said, "Well, I'm not going to buy anything right now, in case something happens." I brushed off her remarks, because I thought, "nothing's going to happen--that stuff doesn't happen to us." Obviously I was wrong.

I think it's a good thing that I am aware of the fragility of life now, because I cherish moments so much more. I make a conscious effort to hold on and remember each good moment as it comes. But this awareness also comes at a price. I know that life can be taken in a second, so my worry is probably worse than it would have been before Faith. For example, yesterday Liam took a two hour nap--which has been highly unusual lately. I had to go check on him after an hour and a half because, even though he is well beyond the age of SIDS, I have heard of SIDS-like things that happen to toddlers. The percentage is teeny tiny, but now I know that I can be in the teeny tiny percentages. It's a scary thing, knowing that you can be in the teeny percentage, where unusual tragedy's can occur. I've realized, somebody has to be the person to make up the percentage, and there's no reason that it won't be me. I just have to trust that God's plan for my life is His good and perfect one. I know that I need to not worry--because the Bible comes right out and says, "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?" Easy to say--but not easy to put into practice!

Anyway, on a totally other subject, I wanted to say that I used to hate dinosaurs. I made a big stink out of how much I dislike them and how I was going to have to learn to like them since I was going to have a boy. Well, you know something kind of funny? These are my favorite pajamas of Liam's :)