seemingly pointless change

Life happens and like.... that... everything you thought you knew about life changes. Your understanding of God is tested, your faith poked in the chest like ...and, now what? And now what? What can you do? how do you stand in the space of a man who has just lost the woman he pledged to love and say anything? How do you hold a child who will never feel her mother again?

My uncles wife who was celebrating the birth of their daughter on Friday April 22, died yesterday afternoon, apparently due to complications that went unnoticed by her doctor. She was young, in my age range. She was excited about having her daughter. She just glowed with gladness that her child was coming, the last time I saw her, and that her child was now here I'm sure.

Her family is angry, I understand as much as one can without losing my sister, my cousin, my friend, my husband, my mother. They are angry and are setting up to lash at one another. Their pain needs an outlet and they will lash at the in-laws and vice versa. I am praying for strength and direction to help stop it, to sooth if I can but I don't know what to say. I don't know that they will hear that it is not what she would want. They know that, they have to know that already but pain has a way of muting the obvious. Each family is trying to vie for that baby, I know they feel that baby is all that is left of her and that child has her place in each family, but most importantly in her fathers home. I want to tell them to hold on to everything they can of her, every memory, every dream, becasue that child will crave them. I want to tell them to keep her human, tell her daughter everything about her mom. Write down everything before time makes those memories dull and rewrites them. Remember that baby is too small to know why her family is hurting and she needs them to hold together across marriage lines, across bitter histories, she must become the common ground, so I pray that God shapes their hearts once they become open to his love and will

Then I went home last night and held my common ground. I vowed to leave detailed instructions for my family when I die. I will print and bind my blog entries monthly so my daughter can have my thoughts. I'm going to find the letters and jorunals I wrote to her and package them together for her, so they are easy to find if or when the time comes. I went home last night and held my common ground, kissed her, smiled at her happy face and put her to bed, I lit our candle and incense and loved her the way I do every night. I kissed my fiancee, told him I loved him. I thanked my granny for staying with the baby so we didn't have to take her into that. I called my mom and sister, called my aunt, called my father. We made plans to see Jerry's dad this weekend. We promised we would spend more time trying to see our family. We became the people we should be everyday but are too busy to find the time to be.