The Hustle and Bustle

You normally hear all about the hustle and bustle surrounding the holidays. With Thanksgiving and Christmas, we all tend to operate in overdrive with packed schedules.

For me, this whole busyness of the season started a little prematurely.

Since losing Hailey, I've spent a lot of time frustrated with my new 'free' time and wondering how God wanted me to be purposeful with my life. Of course I found ways to be productive in various ways... but nonetheless, I still had a lot of time and moments of boredom. I hadn't experienced that since childhood. High school through college through career, I have overloaded on classes, jobs, and activities. The unexpected, unwanted 'free' time was a hard adjustment. If you've been following my blog for awhile you know the struggles with discontentment I've had over this 'issue.'

Well of course, as all things go, now my life is the opposite. I'm back to the too-much-to-do-and-not-enough-time-to-do-it-in mode. And again, for this week at least, I let myself become frustrated.

I'm bored I'm frustrated. I'm busy I'm frustrated. I'm terrible.

This week the busyness overwhelmed me and brought me to the verge of tears. But before I get into the details, I have to start by saying that never has the story of Mary and Martha and Jesus felt more real to me as I completely feel like a "Martha" to whom Jesus said, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing" (Luke 10:41-42).

Anyway, as I explained to my husband and a friend, this week I felt like I was working at least 4 full time jobs at once. I had my normal role as the housewife taking care of bills, budget, cleaning, cooking, and so on with the added job of home buyer and traveler as I drove to Tennessee and back to Alabama (a 7 hr drive each way) in a 36 hr time frame. I also had my role that I took on a few months ago as substitute teacher. So while I spent Monday and Tuesday driving to TN and back. I then spent all day Wednesday subbing at a local junior high school. Then there's my role as project leader for Hailey's Hope with Project Sweet Peas, a role I am ever so grateful for. I do absolutely love having the privilege of being in charge of my local project with PSP, but as the date approaches for delivery of 50 basic NICU bags and 10 "angel" memory boxes, things become extra busy and time consuming, aka like working a full time job and putting in overtime, as I work on accounting and donation forms, inventory, filling bags, crafting, and so on. Then there's the side job I picked up this week which was holding a garage sale this weekend. On their own, I love these roles I have, but when they're added together it can feel like a bit too much.

Thankfully, yesterday and today things have slowed down to a more managable pace for me. Yet I'm thinking this could only be temporary as the normal busyness of Thanksgiving and Christmas and the busyness of closing on our house, packing, moving, and other related things approach in December and January.

And here's my concern with me being this busy and stress looming around the months of December and January ...

I'm afraid of not having the time I want and need to grieve, remember, and celebrate Hailey.

Hailey's birthday is December 1st. In less than two weeks, she would have celebrated her first birthday... This a huge milestone in my grief journey. I need to take the time to reflect and reminisce and pray... Yet I'm fearing I will be too busy taking care of my nagging, seemingly endless to-do list to have the proper time to do those things. Last night as I lie in bed thinking about this, a new fear crept upon me... the fear of not being able to remember. I tried to remember her actually birth day. I tried to remember the first time my eyes saw her, the first time I held her, the first time I looked into her eyes...and I couldn't. I couldn't remember anything but the physical pain of my labor and the emotional turmoil I felt after her birth. It wrapped me in fear.

As I've mentioned before, sometimes it seems like the more I try to remember her the harder it is and the further away the memory goes.

But then I thought of one of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard about this aspect of losing a loved one.

Think of something specific.

Tom Hanks' character Captain Miller says it to Matt Damon's character Private Ryan in the movie Saving Private Ryan. After learning he lost all his brothers, Private Ryan becomes frustrated he can't picture one of his brother's face anymore... Captain Miller tells him the key is to think of something specific... a specific memory...

And it's true. Anytime I can't see Hailey's face in my memory, it honestly terrifies me... but then I think of something specific. I think of holding her late at night and looking into her eyes as I rock her back and forth.  I think of giving her her first bath. And so on. But I have to admit... even that doesn't always work as well as I want it to... and sometimes it seems like I'm only able to remember the moments we've recorded on film.

Anyway... come December 1st, I hope Josh and I can have the time we need to remember Hailey, and I'm already praying we can find that time and find comfort on that day... and the same goes for January 6th, the one year anniversary of her passing... I don't just want those days to breeze by because of trivial busy things on my to-do list.

It's easy for me to have the urge to start worrying about how I'm going to do it all and handle it all in the upcoming months... but thankfully I learned years ago that that's me talking, not God. So even though there's no getting around many of things that will in deed create a busy holiday season for me, I will continue to turn to God in prayer instead of allowing myself to worry. One of the many things I will be praying for is that I don't let the little stuff consume me, stress me out, or keep me from having times of rest with God and times of remembering my daughter.