Flashbacks

It’s funny how the human mind works.  I was driving down the road, thinking about the dinner we were having that night.  Chicken fried steak, mashed potatoes.. biscuits… white gravy… good stuff.  When all the sudden I remembered a time when myself and my now ex-husband, Jacob’s Father, were dating, and I was cooking him the same dinner. I had been turning the meat in the hot oil, and took my slotted spoon out… and for whatever reason… turned it up toward the sky pretty fast, and flung super-hot, fresh out of the fryer, chicken fried steak breading on his bare chest.  I can’t imagine how bad that hurt.  But, for whatever reason, the other day it made me laugh. Hysterically (yes, I know I’m mean, and this has been over 6 years ago, BTW J)… then I began thinking about how things had changed between us, and then my thoughts turned to Jacob.  In an instant, my sneaky little nemesis – Grief was back.

My mind began racing to the brief time I was on bed rest at home… guilt set in and of course the what-if’s.  What if when my company was at my house, I had agreed to let our company drive to pick up the pizza from the Pizza place… or send my husband who should’ve been willing to do it… instead of sending me.

What if instead of spending the better part of that day outside in my garage watching my husband work on some random project, I had spent it inside lying down… instead of giving in to  his insistence to be out there with him?  Is it my fault that my water broke? Did I do too much?

I know I can’t reverse time, and I couldn’t possibly have changed God’s will.  It’s hard not to go back and look from time to time at what I could’ve done to prevent my baby boy leaving for his Heavenly home so soon.  Before I even got to meet him on earth. 

25 months later, and I still miss my baby boy. I still have moments of grief, even though they are much fewer and farther between.   I still wish I had all three of my babies with me on Earth, instead of just two.  A little piece of my heart hurts each time I muster up the courage to tell people I have two kids, instead of three, because it’s so hard having to explain about Jacob.  I did tell some random man about him in the checkout line at Wal-Mart though… he was talking about Preemies… I said my son was born at 23 weeks.  He asked if that was the 7 year old I had.  I told him no.  He said “oh, he didn’t make it”? I explained that he did not.  And amazingly, he wasn’t afraid to talk to me anymore, he just said, oh I’m sorry… and kept up the conversation. It was a nice to tell others about my sweet baby boy.

Love you Jacob Austin, forever and always.