The pendulum affect

I have had many people ask, "How do you do it?" I think sometimes I would like to say back, "how do you not?" I am asked, "Do you become numb? " The answer is, "no". Sometimes I think I wish I could become numb.........but then if I were numb I would be numb to all feeling and I would miss out on the good. The pendulum affect as I call it. As far as the pendulum swings in one direction it swings just as far in the other. Yes, the bad can be really bad. It can be so hard and yet, the good is a good that nothing can be compared to.

I realize I am not making any sense here. As I have thought about trying to write this down it flowed much better in my mind than it is here.

It is bittersweet really but then isn't life? It has been a painful ride. Each time I go through the grieving process AGAIN I think, "when am I going to get a grip and stop grieving" and then we go through a good spell and I think all is behind me and then something happens and I go through the grieving process again.

I remember one day looking at my fridge and on it were Levi's hand prints he had done at his special needs pre-school and I felt so sad inside and felt like crying. I walked over to the fridge and touched the hand prints to my own hands and felt as if my baby had died. I called my sister and told her how ridiculous I was feeling and she told me absolutely not! In a sense what we thought when we'd had Levi had died. Levi isn't the perfect normal little child running around that we'd dreamed and thought of for nine months. Do you know how hard it is to watch your two year old pass up his older brother? We knew this day would come but I think secretly I hoped it wouldn't. That Levi would keep progressing at his own little pace and somehow stay ahead. I knew he wasn't on level with children his age but having his baby brother passing has been harder than I thought. Levi seems to have plateaued a bit. I've joked to Brian my husband many times that I wish I knew the future so I could plan for it............I wish I knew if Levi was going to get past this plateau.........

I've lost track of the times that I have knelt next to Levi's crib and bed pleading with Heavenly Father to spare Levi's life and then having to dig down and say, "thy will be done--but if it is thy will that Levi should leave this life You are going to need to help me get through because I do not know how I am going to." Levi is such a part of me. The relationship I have with him is different. I do not know how to explain it excepting that I guess you could say we're conjoined.......My senses are tuned into him. I've had to. I've had to watch him so closely.....listen for him.........try to feel how he is doing because his outward appearance doesn't always let me know. When you spend so many years being that tuned and keyed into someone you become meshed somehow and I do think if he ever does leave this life......because he is such a part of me........how would I go on? And yet........I know I would. I don't know how.......but I would because I know I'll never be given more than I can handle in this life so if my Heavenly Father knows that this must be.........then it must be.

So, the pendulum sways. I used to read about people saying their hearts swelled inside them and wonder what in the world they meant. Now I think I kind of know. You can't help but look at Levi and not have your heart swell in you. Angels do walk this earth. I know they do because one of them is named Levi and I would never trade the blessings we've had of having him in our eternal family.