Why I Love My Wife ...

Joseph surprised me with the post below. Even though we missed the link-up, I'm tickled that my husband, who writes all day for a living, took the time to jot down some thoughts in this space.


On this Saint Valentine's Day, I am happy to appear as a guest on Melanie's blog following Joel's example from The Practicing Catholic's event: Why I Love My Wife.

I am reminded of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous poem, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."

1.  She is a daily image of Christ in my life. With her patience, her forgiveness, and her passion, she truly lives out the vocation of marriage and family. Especially when times are challenging, I can count on her to be the face of Christ to me. That is my greatest support and foundation and helps keep me from falling, as I know I would without her.

2.  She is called to her vocation. Melanie lives her vocation with a passion. She is an excellent mother. Even when I had doubts about the financial realities of her leaving her full-time employment to be at home with our children, she persisted. It was the right decision for our family and the right decision for our children. She definitely puts our children above her own concerns. It's not martyrdom, but a glorious example of having divine priorities.

3.  She helps me be a better man. Without Melanie, I would certainly fall away into darkness, a life focused on work, career, politics, and nothing of greater worth. She keeps my compass pointed in the right direction, helps keep our relationship with Jesus at the forefront with our relationship and children right behind. In short, she helps me keep my priorities straight.

4.  She is truly beautiful. Inside and out, Melanie is truly beautiful. She is radiant in her kindness, thoughtfulness, and empathy. She reflects the light of Christ in all her relationships and endeavors and I count myself lucky to be loved by her, and I often do not feel deserving of her grace.

5.  She is the love of my life. I love to be with her, talk with her, share time with her, and to be her partner is this journey of life. In fact, we feel that we have precious little time to be together. From the demands of work, to the rigors of family life, it is so difficult to set aside enough time to be husband and wife. Melanie, I love you and every day while we are apart, I miss you.

{pretty, happy, funny, real} - Christmas 2012

It's been so long since I posted anything on the ol' blog that I thought the best way to make my reappearance might be by linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter for {pretty, happy, funny, real}...

{pretty}

We started a tradition a few years ago of photographing our living room on Christmas morning before the sun comes up and the kids wake up. We were thankful this year to make it to bed by 2:45 a.m. on Christmas morning, which is much earlier than our record for Christmas morning preparations of 4:30 a.m.

There are years for which I have no pictures to document anything that happened in our family. I truly consider it a grace that a byproduct of my business is a nice camera and a photography habit for Joseph. It has assuaged my mommy guilt about not capturing important moments for our children. 

Next year when I'm feeling overwhelmed and think the house will never be ready for Christmas, I will be able to look at the photo and remind myself that, when the time comes, all will be well. I had to look at the photo from last year several times to bring some peace to my heart as time kept ticking and the house wasn't ready to receive the gift of Jesus. My external reality and internal reality are so linked; it's scary.

So, this next picture isn't pretty, but behind it is something truly beautiful. One of my regular customers contacted me with a request from her grandmother. She wanted to have a personalized Rosary made for every daughter and granddaughter in her family. I was thankful to be a part of such a meaningful gift, and I was genuinely moved by the maternal spiritual leadership of a woman making such a sincere gesture—a Rosary pointing them to the Savior and his mother. When she has long left this earth, they will hold that Rosary and, because of their relationship with her, will be pointed to God. Wow!

{happy}

We don't often get the opportunity to really surprise our children. Through a series of events, we came into Legoland tickets a few weeks ago. They expired a few days before Christmas, so we decided to take the family on Gaudete Sunday. Rejoice! There are few things after all that bring my boys as much joy as Legos! I was so impressed, and my gaggle of little ones are the perfect age for the park! Check out this Christmas tree! It was one of many impressive Lego creations.

Aniston is in her last year at the sweet school that she has attended since kindergarten. The 8th grade class gets all the big parts in the Christmas program and she was thrilled to be a narrator. It pricked my heart to see all those little kids being the big kids on campus. I really love them! Perhaps one of the best things about sending our kids to a small school is that we get to watch their little community grow up together.

Another reason for mommy guilt—there are so many: I have a child with a Christmas birthday. Ander was born on the 26th, and I make extra attempts to make his birthday special. This year was interesting because he was sooo excited about it. Ander is a chill kid, so to see him light up about anything is gratifying to me.

{funny}

Miles doesn't try, but he always cracks me up. I don't even know what he's doing in this picture, and I didn't notice when taking it, but it's exactly the kind of thing that makes Miles unique. Is he wondering how they made that pretzel out of Legos, is he trying to take it from the sculpture, is he pretending it's a weapon, is he just being silly, who knows!

Maybe the coolest sculpture in the park.

{real}

Daddy is Genevieve's favorite, for reals. Gramma is a close second. Joseph is the only one who can get her up & ready in the morning without major drama. No matter the problem, her answer is, "I want my daddy." Is this a youngest child thing or what?

Genevieve has two speeds: wide open or passed out. Moments before this photo was taken, she was singing Christmas carols while riding on a trolley through the streets of St. Augustine. Moments after, she was running through the streets sightseeing with her cousins.

After having my heart stirred while in prayer, and with the help of my sister, niece, Joseph, and Aniston, I recently took on a rather daunting project during the last week of Advent. I hope to share more about this experience very soon—once the kids are back in school following Christmas break and I have a few quiet moments to gather my thoughts. In the meantime, here are the fruits of our efforts and prayers: thirty one-of-a-kind, custom, personalized, remembrance Rosaries:

Be sure to visit the lovely ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter to see more PHFR posts.

Does the pain of miscarriage ever go away?

This is a question that I asked myself for an entire year while suffering over the loss of our son, Jude. I wondered—when will this end?

While I was grieving, a lovely friend in her 50s whose children are grown said to me, "Every time I hear about someone experiencing a miscarriage, I think about the baby I lost 30 years ago."

I'm not quite as removed from my experience. This Friday marks two years since that dreadful night when I awoke to the familiar pains of labor. Joseph and I panicked, as we knew this was it—I was having the baby. It was too soon, far too soon.

It was cause for celebration just a few weeks earlier when I made it to the second trimester. The specialist told us that only a tiny percentage of pregnancies are lost once you make it past those first 12 weeks. We knew it was unlikely for a full-term delivery, but we held onto hope for 24 weeks, knowing even then there would be significant challenges.

We had not experienced the typical Hollywood portrayal of going into labor, rushing to the hospital, and experiencing a natural delivery. I did it with Aniston many years earlier, but experiencing natural childbirth was something that was denied to Joseph when I had a c-section with each of our three children together.

Still, the body and mind are able to go back and recall the most peculiar things. I had felt guilty for years that I let myself get talked into a c-section by a doctor eager to wrap things up with his last patient and get home. There are many blessings from Jude's life, including the opportunity for the return to a somewhat natural delivery. I got to experience labor pains again, contractions, and ultimately have my son enter the world without major surgery. It was redeeming, even though the result was not what we had hoped. Now, it is a small glimpse into the great care of a loving God. In that moment, he used one of the worst experiences of my life to heal another part of my heart.

My sister called this morning to check on me, opening the floodgates. As my family has returned to the back-to-school routine, Jude has been in the back of my mind. We have scheduled our annual trip to the Monastery on his birthday to visit his grave and spend the day there. But it's all been process until my children's godmother, that knower of my heart, let me be vulnerable. The pain may not be as sharp as it was at first, but it's always under the surface.

Miscarriage creates an unusual bond among women. Different faith walks, different professions, and different socioeconomic conditions—the pain is the same. When I meet someone or read about a blogger (like Dwija, Sarah, or Lisa) who has experienced miscarriage, I immediately feel a kinship to her. It is a club to which I wish I didn't belong.

I guess the answer to my original question is, no. The pain doesn't go away but changes over time, not quite so strong and present. My grandmother experienced pregnancy before ultrasounds. She experienced each day of her pregnancy without the benefits we enjoy in the digital age that tell us exactly which day the baby will develop eyelids and eyebrows (I'm looking at you, Rebecca!) :) Still, a woman in her 70s at the time, my grandmother told me that she mourned the loss of her miscarried baby as much as the death of her 16-year-old daughter.

Gramma Crocket may have shared those feelings while I was just a little girl, but my own life experience has proven her wisdom and the truth of the very real pain caused by the loss of a baby.