Guest Post - Dusty's Perspective

I offered my blog as a vent space for my hubby, and he recently took me up on it.  When the time was right, I knew he would.  Below is Dusty's post. 

I’ll apologize in advance, because there probably will not be any flow whatsoever to this post.  It’s merely my thoughts. 

Where do I begin? 

The day I’ve been dreading for weeks is coming Sunday.  I feel like lately I can’t turn on the television/radio or walk into a store without seeing and hearing about Father’s Day.  I’ve been a KLRC (Christian music) fan for years, listened to it all the time, then got away from it for a while.  Since last October, my truck radio has been on nothing but KLRC, because I’ve felt like I needed it.  Recently though I’ve found myself getting frustrated and flipping channels a lot, because I just cannot listen to any talk or mention of Father’s Day.  I was listening to a local sports talk show on my way home yesterday thinking that might be safe, and wouldn’t you know there was a mention of one of the station interns becoming a new uncle.  To me, all I heard was yet another baby born that wasn’t mine.  It’s everywhere.  As Michelle has mentioned in previous posts, we’ve hated Father’s Day since losing her Dad on that day in June of 2010 and my Dad in July of 2012.  So, Sunday will come and go.  I’ll make it through one way or another.

Of course now, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day will never be the same for us, even if we are blessed enough to have children here to raise.  Chandler & Paisley were our whole world and always will be.  There is nothing we want more, than for them to have brothers and sisters to watch over and meet someday.  I pray we do…Michelle deserves it more than anything.  She is a great Mother to our angels and she deserves to be a Mother to rainbow babies.  I really hope and pray to see Michelle with a baby bump again.  She’s a very gorgeous woman, but with a baby bump…are you kidding me??  I can’t even describe it.  The first time I saw her with a maternity dress on, I don’t believe I smiled that much on our wedding day!  Told ya, my thoughts. 

Every single day is a struggle.  Sometimes I wonder why either one of us are still on social media.  Thankfully, amidst all of the baby pictures, happy & joyful families, baby bump pictures, pregnancy announcements, on & on, Michelle has friends going through the same thing that she’s met through loss support groups, and I have friends who check on us.  If it weren’t for that, those accounts would be long gone.  A simple trip to the store can hurt; by the time you pass a large happy family, notice a pregnant woman, see baby items even though you purposely avoid that section of the store, etc.  Who are we to judge and ask why, but we are all guilty.  In this case, it’s easy to do when you stand in the checkout line behind a parent with a child and the parent seems absolutely miserable, like it is a chore to be a parent.  My first thought when that happened was why, why if being a parent is such a dang chore, how are you one and a pathetic excuse for one at that.  You don’t deserve to be.  Or a family with 4 or 5 children that you know has no means to support them.  Why did you get to have children here and Michelle and I haven’t been able to yet?  So many people take their children for granted and it blows my mind.  They’re in their own world and nothing else matters.  I see/hear folks griping about their children and my first thought is always, shut up and be glad you have children here.  Michelle and I have said virtually every day since October, how much we would love to be absolutely exhausted from no sleep, but it would be just fine because we would have our Chandler & Paisley in the nursery.

Before we lost Chandler & Paisley, someone would ask how I was doing and I would say good.  Now, I always say I’m ok or hanging in there.  People will often look at me perplexed and sometimes even ask, “You’re just ok.”  I’ll reply with, well, I’m ok considering…like you have to remind people.  No, I’m not “good” anymore and I never will be “good” anymore.  That implies everything is great, all is well, and life is great.  People are very quick to forget, like we are just supposed to get over it.  It amazes me.  We lost our children, period.  Our lives are forever changed.  People just don’t get it. 

I think about Chandler & Paisley constantly and miss them badly, Michelle and I both do.  People thought it was crazy that we were so excited, not scared to have two at the same time.  We were overjoyed and couldn’t wait.  We were so happy.  It doesn’t matter what we are doing, we talk about how it would’ve been with them.  We went to Omaha with our good friends Chris & Mel to watch the Hogs in the College World Series last weekend.  More than once while we were there, we said to each other, we shouldn’t have been able to go because we were home with the babies.  When we got in the truck to head home Sunday night we said, while we had a great time in Omaha, we shouldn’t have been able to go.  We were so happy to be pregnant with twins.  We couldn’t wait to do everything with them, take them to church and show them off, lay on the floor with them, push them in the stroller while we were walking our crazy dogs, make them beach bums like us, take them to baseball games, I could go on forever.  Now, all we can do is keep their memory alive, pray for children to raise here, and look forward to the day we are all together again.  What a glorious day that will be indeed.