Saying Good-bye

We said good-bye to Sara Hawley today, scattering her ashes at Topsail Beach where we were vacationing the week before she was born.  We aren't exactly sure when she died, but sometime between my appointment on May 30th and early the week of the June 2nd (when we were at Topsail) she passed away, and we both feel like the beach is where we lost her and that is why we wanted to return here to say good-bye.

It was just the three of us. We rented a smaller house on N. Topsail closer to where the house is where we stayed this summer, but unfortunately the realty company discovered that the heat was not working the day of our arrival and switched us to a house further south down the beach.  Of course we are much happier being warm with the crazy cold that is covering the country.  We arrived, dropped off all our stuff, then hurried back to the car to drive down to have dinner with my aunt and uncle and cousins. It was a lot of driving but it was great to see them and they cooked us dinner and Aunt Priscilla left all her Christmas decorations up for us (well for Emmy) and she goes all out for Christmas, so that was lovely.

After we got Emmy to bed Charles and I spent a good bit of time just talking, crying and mentally preparing for the next day. We read back over the prayers we had selected to read and the "order of service." After my first miscarriage before Emmy, I purchased a book What was Lost: A Christian Journey Through Miscarriage. (Which if you know anyone who experiences a miscarriage early in a pregnancy I recommend it). It was written by a United Methodist pastor (who is a div school friend of several folks I know and the wife of a fellow Wofford grad), and she includes suggested prayers, orders of service, and sample sermons for services following a miscarriage or for pregnancy loss remembrance.  We took some of these and pieced together what we would say/do.

Just before we ate breakfast this morning, Charles saw a group of porpoises not too far out, so that was something nice to wake up to.  After breakfast Emmy was dying to go down to walk on the beach, so we bundled up for a walk. She had a great time looking for shells and she was so, so sad it was too cold to go in the water. Sorry kiddo!


We checked the tide tables and decided that when the tide was going out would be the best time to have our service. We came on back in, napped, ate lunch, and then when Emmy was awake we headed out. Charles really wanted to return to the part of the beach where we stayed this summer so we drove to the north end of the island and parked at the house where we stayed this summer.  We forgot that the name of the house where we stayed is Heaven's Edge.

We read three prayers, scattered her ashes, and put flowers into the water.  We kept it very simple.  I was hoping for some quiet, reflective  time to think and listen, but with Emmy running around, that wasn't very easy. :) Emmy understood, as much as a four year old can at least, why we were there and we thought it was important for her to be with us. 

This prayer was my favorite (hopefully the Rev. Elise Barrett doesn't mind if I post this here):

    Merciful God, all that you give us is yours. 
We give you  thanks for the time we have known and loved this little one. 
We grieve that our time together is over so soon. 
We have given her the name Sara Hawley. 
"Whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord's," and so we give Sara Hawley back to  
    you, knowing that her life is safe in your keeping. 
Bless her in the life to come. 
Giver her unending knowledge of your steadfast love and outpoured grace. 
Allow us to stand before you one day, no longer seeing dimly through a clouded glass, but finally
     seeing face to face.
In the name of Jesus the Christ we pray.
Amen.

Cross-stitch from my friend Sarah and the urn where some of her ashes will remain with us.

The tide swept in as soon as Charles finished scattering the ashes and took her out to sea.  The roses we tossed in kept coming back to us, so we pulled the petals off and sent those out to our girl. It was lovely to see them floating out. And of course then the sea gulls thought we were feeding them and came swooping in.

So now we get ready to make the journey back home. Tomorrow we head to Meredith's for the night, then back to Greenville and we fly back to Colorado on Saturday.  I wish we had more time to stay, to reflect, to walk the beach, but we will hope for a return trip this summer.  Charles and I both feel relieved to have this behind us. We've said good-bye and cried plenty of tears in the last (almost) 7 months, but this was an important day for us. The holidays and then this first trip "home" have been difficult. We lost her last time we were here, so this was bound to be a difficult few weeks, even without the anticipation of today. Now we try to take a big step forward. Time to go home and move into the new year, renewing our efforts to take care of ourselves better in all aspects of our lives. 

Some of you have asked "how can we pray for you?" (And I now think this is a wonderful question to ask people who are grieving or struggling in anyway.) Pray for peace for us and for all of our family. We know that time will continue to heal, but a piece of us will always be missing. A member of our family will always be gone. Pray for a new life to come into our family. We still very much want another baby, and as 35 approaches for me this year, we hope it happens soon so that my becoming "Advanced Maternal Age" doesn't add the extra layer of complication concerns to my already complicated situation. Pray for Emmy. She wanted to be a big sister so badly and seeing her love on other babies brings me joy and breaks my heart for her all the same time. Pray for other dear friends of ours who suffered a similar loss last month.

We pray that 2014 will be a wonderful year for each of you.  And for those of you regularly checking this blog, I promise I will get back to posting more regularly (Jo, Uncle R, Nancy B. and Mrs. Mac are I believe our most loyal readers). Coming back here is hard for me, these are not the types of updates I should have been posting, and that's sometimes emotional for me. But we'll get back to more "regularly scheduled programming" in the new year.

**Operational security: Dear Internet, we have friends staying at our house until we return home so it is not sitting unoccupied, thankyouverymuch.