My Week In Pictures

Here is my week in pics…. I have no energy today to write words of significance.

Cupcake decorating

Limey has some flowers

Spoiled in the HunterValley!

Ted’s Adventure finding new flowers!

We love you and miss you bub.

New Year Resolutions

I have never really been a New Year Resolution kind of person, I kind of just thought that it was another day but my head has always thought differently since knowing of Joshies existence. When I was pregnant the new year looked exciting and scary but you knew it was going to change BIG TIME! I thought this time next year we will have a bub in our arms eyes wide and full of hope… The next year… as our hearts were trying desperately to heal there was an expectation of change for the coming year full of hope (it couldn’t possibly have been as awful as 2007)… the next year… there was no change and I sat there expecting change for the coming year again but the hopes fade… although you never expect to be in the same place a year later…. You are…  and while you heart may ache a little less a different part of it starts to hurt a little more…. I do remember though that last year and this year, in the midst of lack of change, my head tries desperately to resolute to be content! Be happy with the life God has given me for the here and now. It’s a wonderful life with a God who loves me, a wonderful husband and family who values me. It is can be a lovely life without little people here. We can do what we want when we want and can help other more freely. It is a wonderful life, even without little people. Isn’t that enough? It should be, and I am trying desperately to turn my head and heart into believing it…… Then why the tears… why the longing… why the thinking…. why does my body physically respond without my permission!

Be Content! Be Content! Be Happy for others! Be Content! Take 2 of this resolution… I didn’t a very good job at it last year… Maybe 2010 will be the year.

Ted’s Tour

Ted took myself and a beautiful friend of a ‘Ted’s Tour of Tomah’ today.  He took us to all his favourite places…. The sphagnum bog where you can see the carnivourous plants!

The black succulants!

And to his favourite gum tree which has planted itself in a rock!

It was an interesting tour on a beautiful day.

We love you and missed you bub.

Holidays at Hawkes Nest

Jimmys Beach = Beautiful

A few words and pics to sum up our Holiday.

Antennas

Messing about in boats

Picnics

Goannas!

Petrol?

DOLPHINS!

Swimming

Sunsets / Be Still

Family

Reds!

Donuts!

Birthdays and Baking

Joshie was missed so completely, oh the tears I have shed in the past week…. I wish he was here to play too.

I love going to Jimmys Beach. I love being still in God’s creation, spending time with Tim, playing with the fam. Praise God for holidays!

Christmas Adventures

T’was the day before Christmas and we were missing Joshie lots…. so we trekked up the mountain to play in the shade of Joshies tree on a beautiful blue day.

Ellie found another spotty creature to bond with!

And Tim tried out his camera…

A Christmas Snap infront of a Giant Wally Wollemi as our Wally got a bit sunburnt in the recent heatwave. Ted remembered to take Joshies Angel ornament and took the bell we got at the Sids Memorial Service.

Our 3rd Christmas without our beautiful boy. He is so very very loved and so very very missed. Happy Jesus’ Birthday!

For Anyone You Have Every Loved And Had To Say Goodbye To:

Tim and I went to see Wicked the musical last night. It was fantastic! The girls who played the lead witches were so very very talented! The music, the sets, the storyline, the dancing, costumes, company…. all brilliant! There were 2 outstanding songs in the show for me. Defying Gravity, which I recognised from ‘Glee’ (of all places) and ‘For Good’. For Good touched my heart as words and thoughts we think about those we love but never say to them or get to say to them. A beautiful song, with beautiful lyrics.

For Good – From the Musical Wicked

(Elphaba):
I’m limited
Just look at me – I’m limited
And just look at you
You can do all I couldn’t do, Glinda
So now it’s up to you
For both of us – now it’s up to you…

(Glinda):
I’ve heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true
But I know I’m who I am today
Because I knew you…

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

(Elphaba):
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You’ll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend…

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?
But because I knew you

(Glinda):
Because I knew you

(Both):
I have been changed for good

(Elphaba):
And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I’ve done you blame me for

(Glinda):
But then, I guess we know
There’s blame to share

(Both):
And none of it seems to matter anymore

(Glinda):
Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood

(Elphaba):
Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood

(Both):
Who can say if I’ve been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better

(Glinda):
And because I knew you…

(Elphaba):
Because I knew you…

(Both):
Because I knew you…
I have been changed for good…

Christmas Is Coming…

Our 3rd Christmas without Josh or prospect of other little people.

I love what Christmas means…. the hope Christ bring this world…the love God shows me…. the power God has to hold this world in his hands…. the God who holds my life and Joshies life in his hand… I am more thankful than ever!

But…

My heart just aches as I see parents delight in their children open their presents….. Grandparent cheer as their grandkids discover new things…. Christmas morning…. christmas clothes for little people…. singing joyful songs…. I know this is how it is meant to be for these people and I would not take any of that away from them but (and I probably shouldn’t admit this) I am so jeaolous… I want all of it too… and to those whose response is… “Don’t worry you will have it one day”… you don’t know that and it will always be tainted with a longing for the gorgeous boy who is always missing. For this reason I find Christmas exhausting…. the longing and holding it all together is exhausting and trying to be happy for the rest of the world is exhausting.  I wanted to Josh to share God’s world with me and feel my love for him and God at Christmas.

I still can’t see the good in all of this… I want to know the plan…. but I have to trust the plan..

So I hold on the to Joy and Hope Christ brings this world… but struggle still with the ‘Merry’ part…. so very thankful for the joy part though…

I love you and miss you bub.

What To Say…

I am always thrown by the question “do you have any children?” The answer is yes! a beautiful son! but I was unable to bring him home…..then silence…. but sometimes that answer isn’t appropriate…. to the parent of my school kids who asks…. to the stranger who sits next to us at a wedding… everything within me want to tell them all about Joshie…. I hate saying ‘no’ to that question, I feel like I let him and my whole family unit down… but the answer comes with sadness and burden and further questions… how much easier would it be for him to be here, for me to pull out his picture and tell the world of the crazy antics he gets up to! How much happier we would all be… but instead I either get silence or I have to deny his existence… either way someone is uncomfortable.

I wish you were here bub.

Shocked

I got a book for my birthday which is Dawn French’s (comedian) memoirs and she is writing it as a series of letters to significant people in her life that shared these memories… it is hilarious! Anyway… she starts with a letter to her dad and says “So you’re still dead. It’s been 31 years and every day I have to remind myself of that fact, and everyday I am shocked”… That is so true…. and ’shocked’ is such a good word to describe the sadness and disbelief and to be without words. I am still very much in shock that my son has died or even existed! and it all tends to be amplified every month we get further away from the day of his existence or hope of other bubs.

Ted’s Rescue Mission!

We ventured up the mountain because we were missing Joshie so much this week and wanted to think of him smiling…. so off we went for a picnic.

We always go to the big pond to play with the fish.

Today Tim was standing on the stepping stones near the edge when one of the fish snuck over the barrier and got stuck on the other side in a little creek! This fish got named”Winslow”. After Ted had stopped laughing we had to try and work out how to get him back into the big pond.

Ted and Tim on the lookout for Winslow to swim back to the barrier. Tim tried to pick him up to chuck him back in the pond but he was a slippery little sucker! We waited and watched for him to appear again to try and help him but he was too shy.

We had to leave him there and hope that he was going to do a nemo style leap to get back when no one was looking! Poor Winslow!

On our way back to the car Ted found a fascinating ‘monkey puzzle tree’ which was incredibly spikey!

A beautiful day. We love you and miss you bub! So very very much…