"I'm so proud of you. I love you."

The day after my dad's 18th birthday, his mom passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack when she was only 55. Several years later my grandfather remarried my grandmother, Gigi-- my only grandparent who was able to watch me grow up. I know that Granddaddy married Gigi for her good heart, smart wit, and her clear blue eyes, but he unknowingly gifted me with my precious grandmother who loved me as her own, and ironically was the one who helped me get to know Granddaddy, who lost his brilliant mind to Alzheimer's when we were both too young. I know he was lucky to have Gigi as his wife, but I've always counted myself luckier to have had her as my grandmother.

Gigi passed away peacefully last night, with her hands clasped in prayer, after 95 full years of life. 

As a little girl I remember eating slice after slice of her homemade buttermilk pie, climbing up the big apricot tree in their front yard to pick all of the fruit, hunting Easter eggs in her beautiful garden, and scavenging arrowheads from the canyon behind my grandparents' home. She taught my brother and I how to play Bridge, what life was like during the Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, and WWII, and that eating your dessert first is always the right choice. 

As we grew up, I watched her lovingly and patiently care for my grandfather as he forgot his stories, his sweet-tooth, our names, and our faces. She loved to retell their love story, full of weekend dances at the Dalhart Country Club, building their dream home together, and weekly attendance at the Methodist church. Each time she spoke of Granddaddy she adamantly repeated that they "never shared a cross word" throughout all of the decades they were married, each time attributing the ease and happiness of their marriage to his goodness. "Your granddaddy was such a good, good man." I can hear her say it. 

She missed him deeply-- a deepness that never seemed to shrink with time. In the days before her death she had periods of lucidity-- ones when she shared in my excitement for our baby boy over the phone, and also dreamlike times when she spoke out-loud of her Hawaiian honeymoon with "Doc," as she called my granddad. The one where the 65-year-old lovebirds waded too far into the pacific ocean and the waves swept Gigi's bikini top away so Granddaddy wrapped her in a beach towel and carried her out of the waves.

Gigi lived each day fully and loved her friends and family well. I am reminded of the old Scottish hymn, "Abide With Me," when I think of her passing. "I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness. Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me. Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me." 

I'll conclude my thoughts the same way that she always ended our phone calls for her sentiments towards me and the same ones I have for her. Gigi, "I'm so proud of you. I love you. Bye-bye now."

Half Orange Photography

New every morning

Today marks 11 weeks and 6 days with our new baby and it looks like I will have the immense blessing to wake up tomorrow morning with my round belly still full of life. Maybe we will get to keep this baby.

I've been eagerly awaiting this gestational milestone and dreading this day all the same. I have spent much of this pregnancy grieving my last, fixated on the baby that should already be swaddled in my arms, still haunted by the horror of delivering her into a cold apartment toilet. Though I love our new baby just the same, I have largely and intentionally pushed away my mind's wonderings of who he or she might be, too afraid to dream too far. Miscarriage and subsequent pregnancies can be cruel on the mother's mind: celebrating the new baby feels like forgetting or replacing the last babe-- the flesh of my flesh, the child whose heart beat within me. But focusing on the sorrow of losing a child seems to steal from the immeasurable joy, hope, and love of another child.

 

On that terrible night last February I listened to a song (for hours on end) by Audrey Assad that seemed to express my prayers when I was left without words. (You may remember a journal entry that I shared on this blog about the song.) The lyrics go like this:

"Lover of my soul/ even unto death/ with my every breath/ I will love You. Lover of my soul/ even unto death/ with my every breath/ I will love You. In my darkest hour, in humiliation, I will wait for you. I am not forsaken. Though I lose my life/ though my breath be taken/ I will wait for You. I am not forsaken." 

I listened to that song again this morning remembering Dot, the feelings of forsakenness, and the long, long wait for this baby. Many nights my prayers felt like laments straight from the book of Psalms. "How long, O Lord? How long?"

Then, almost as a conclusion to my lament and a conclusion to this first trimester, the lyrics of another one of Audrey's songs began to play:

"In the beginning you hovered over the waters. You broke an unbroken silence. You spoke light into darkness and there was light. In the beginning we were made in your image. We were naked without shame til we fell for the darkness and there was night. Your mercies are new. Your mercies are new. New every morning."

We are so grateful for the ways in which God has breathed life into our souls and for all four of our children who were created in His image. 

I will wait for you. I am not forsaken. His mercies are new. 

a letter to the new baby

My new baby,

You will never know how happy we are that you are here today. We love you deeply-- even if you are only with us today. We pray that we have unending time to love you even deeper still. 

We thank God for the promise and gift of new life and pray fervently that we get to hold you, our tiny miracle, in our arms next May.

4 weeks

All our love,

b + c + m

Eight plus

My maternal grandparents gave birth to nine children, five girls and four boys, between 1940 and 1954. On the days (and nights) that are hard to parent my little girl, I think of Nanny scrubbing dirty cloth diapers by hand after waking from another sleepless night for more than a decade, preparing meals and cleaning laundry for nearly a dozen people each day, and all the other joys and frustrations that make up each day as a parent. 

I try to imagine her sorrow after losing her first-born son only three months after meeting him during a penicillin shortage in World War II; my imaginings stop short of the horror of burying a child and returning home to an empty basinet. I try to imagine all of my aunts and uncles as loud, funny, opinionated children moving several times across the country, and the world, as army brats. I've heard the story recounted several times of how she brought over her oldest five children (all seven-years-old and below) across the atlantic on a military ship by herself to meet my grandfather who was working in Germany after the war. Each night after lulling all of the children to sleep, she stayed up to clean and polish each child's shoes because she did not want anyone to pity her or her beloved children. How did she parent with the patience and grace that seem synonymous with her name?

Nanny slipped away quietly in her sleep when I was just a kindergartener. I remember the smell of her three-bedroom home which still held onto the markings and memories of my mom's childhood. I remember the clothes line in the back yard, the outdated kitchen still without a dishwasher, the pretty trinkets on the little table next to her chair, and the antique wooden toys that entertained my aunts and uncles and still fascinated me and my brother. But those are the only details that my 5-year-old mind saved for me. 

My grandfather passed away before he got to walk his youngest daughter, my mom, down the aisle and my grandmother passed away before I could store away her gentleness, compassion, and sacrifice. But my grandparent's legacy of goodness, faithfulness, and joy expound and multiply in the faces and works of their eight children and their spouses, their 25 grandchildren, 33 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-granddaughter. Every few years we gather again to laugh, pray, and remember together.

With almost 80 Gahans these days, we decided to color-coordinate by family.

The sisters put on this same song and dance at every family follies night (and really any other time they get a chance).

All of the cousins circa 1995?

My talented cousin, Jenny Watts, snapped the rest of these photos at our family reunion this summer. 

All our love,

B + C + M

The Months of May: August

It's 28 months of May! 

In the past few months Mary Allison moved into her first house and survived two weeks without a working refrigerator or air conditioner, foul sewage spewing all over the basement, and the incredibly dramatic bird excavation of 2016. With all major issues resolved (for now), she has reaped the benefits of home ownership, too-- plenty of space to run and play inside and out, kind neighbors with huge gardens and berries to share, hot summer days jumping through sprinklers and cool mornings of side-walk chalk. She splashed through the Chesapeake Bay on Memorial Day, wore her "favorite flamingo swimsuit" for a day at the beach, dyed her face blue with heaping spoonfuls of blueberry pie on July 4th, visited the ER for the first time after nearly knocking out her front teeth, and finally met her entire 80-person Gahan family at our reunion in the Smokey Mountains. She started falling asleep by herself in her own room and even slept through an entire night...once. (Huge eye roll.) She joins the rest of the girls on the planet with a fascination for Queen Elsa and the rest of the Frozen cast, loves Play-Doh, trains, and puzzles, and, of course, her baby dolls. She dances wildly, adamantly refuses to give up "mama milk," turns everything into a nursery rhyme, and screams out letters and numbers everywhere she goes. Every day she continues to grow more and more into a little Brigid. Lord, help us.

All our love,

b + c + m