Filling the Empty Space Inside Me

A month after my miscarriage, I lifted my head and peeked out at the world around me. I wrote a blog and admitted I’d been sucked into a strange, dark place. After writing it down, I decided to return to life. Maybe I thought: now that it’s out there, I can move on, heal. Written words are often little echoes of the things I feel inside me, the things I can’t understand until I see them written out before me.

I might as well still be eleven when it comes to needing to see my words. Only now I use this laptop instead of pencil and paper. Blogging helped me, writing helped. Returning to life was freedom, hope. I tapped out words and more words, filling in the gaps left in the LDS teen novel I’m working on, ready to face a future of possibilities.

And then I miscarried again.

The day it happened, I tried to pretend it wasn’t. I didn’t want to go back. I’d been there. It was dark. Empty. Lonely. And so many things I didn’t understand at all.

People wanted to fix me. Maybe this will help, or that. My friend tired this. But I wanted to let it all go. I wanted to live like another child wasn’t tightly wound around my happiness. I wanted to be strong.

I poured myself into my book. I stayed up all night. I was going to finish it. I wouldn’t let another miscarriage put me more behind. I would move on, and it would be easier this time.

It was only after a week of this—when the pulse of my story world faded under the tender touch of the Holy Spirit on the sound of primary songs—that I found out I was not okay.

I’d been filling up my book with words, but I was still empty. So, so empty.

The answers were around me, little whispers left by my Heavenly Father that I’d yet to explore beyond the muted sound of His Spirit’s voice. He’d been speaking, but I’d been writing, writing, writing.

Four days after miscarrying, I took my nine-year-old son to walk the Provo Temple grounds. The Spirit bubbled out on his words, “I’m so happy, Mom. Why am I so happy?”

His joy was beautiful to me, but I found myself wishing that the flowerbeds we passed hadn’t been emptied already. They were also beautiful just weeks before. Now nothing but dark earth remained. We circled to the fountains at the front of the temple and sat watching the sunset, a large, empty flowerbed directly before us.

My thoughts converged. I’m empty too. Will something like flowers eventually grow in the spaces that have been dug out of me? What could I learn by seeing myself as empty as those beds? Was it simple hope in something coming someday? A distant Spring I’d been prepared for?

A memory of snow came, of walking up to the Provo Temple in the dark of last winter and seeing that very flowerbed in front of me filled, not with flowers, or bushes, but with a Nativity.

This was the place where they put the Christ Child at Christmas.

The bed was empty for Him.

The truth of that thought stayed with me. I held it tucked inside, a soft burning light that didn’t lose or gain anything for weeks. Since then, I’ve waded through the ups and downs of emotions, and more than anything, waves of unhealthy anxiety and anger. I’ve been drowning in unreasonable guilt and worry.

At our ward Halloween party, I found myself confiding in friend. I wished at once that I hadn’t said anything, but her love for me wasn’t uncomfortable or awkward. She didn’t try to fix me. She listened. She shared her personal experience without making me feel judged. Her love, somehow, freed me again.

I went home and every time my anxiety tried to horrify me with the thought of, “What were you thinking telling her!” I replaced that thought with a prayer. “Father, thank you so much for Sister Tolman.”

And the light inside me grew warmer.

I read conference talks, went to the temple, sat in my living room pondering, and returned to a pen and paper to write out my thoughts. I studied how to put the Savior at the center of my life. I stood in the warmth of an autumn darkness as my children played with flashlights in the backyard, and I laughed freely for the first time in a month. My burden lifted. I told Him I was ready for Him to take it. I needed Him to take it.

I breathed.

And I kept writing.

I’m empty. No child grows within me. The spaces inside me have been hallowed out by loss and then rubbed raw. I’m broken a little, and oddly enough, the title of the book I’ve been writing so obsessively is Break. But when things are broken, that is when the Savior finds His space.

These places inside me are empty for Him.

I know Him a little better now. I believe Him a little deeper. I love Him a little stronger.

My healing is in Him. Not so empty, not so lost. I am not alone. My night has been full of angels and flickering lights of hope. Darkness can be warm and beautiful too. It was, after all, night when the angels appeared to the shepherds. And under a starry sky, the wise men searched until they found their Savior.

Grief and the Real Me

My kids and I on our way to visit my sister. 

I miscarried last month. Normally I’m a little more reserved about sharing stuff like this, but what’s the point of writing non-fiction if not to share something real? And this is as real as it’s got for me lately.

This last month has been hard. There’s this disconnect between what I know and what I feel. I know many women also have miscarried and some never even speak of it. I know five weeks is really not that long and other women have had it worse. I know God still has a plan for me and that I’m blessed to have two children. I know. I know. 

But I still feel like crap. I’m still depressed. I cry at stupid times over seemly nothing and didn’t write for four weeks. I binge watched Korean romances and my house fell apart. I felt angry, sad, hopeless, and frustrated, in alternating rotations, sometimes within one hour.

I’ve been thinking about myself, the me underneath everything that happens to me and around me and through me. I’ve also been thinking about depression, hormones, and emotions. It’s struck me more than once that my emotions aren’t me. My depression isn’t me. My anxiety, fear, and my imperfect body are not me. They are what’s happening to me.

I have to tell myself it's okay to grieve. Sorrow and sadness are the mirrors of hope and love. That is how it’s supposed to be. Maybe we can only feel as much love as we are willing to feel sorrow.

Little by little, I’m getting myself back. I write a bit here and there, read, and clean my house. I go on a trip to visit my sister. I stand in a parking lot and my dad and mom wrap their arms around me and tell me things that I need to hear. Even though I’m thirty and supposed to be all grown-up, I cry on them and feel better. I go to a ward barbecue and though I can't find it in me to really talk to anyone beyond the usual hellos, I feel a spark of the old me reemerging as I look for the missing shoes of my neighbor's children.

Tiny things. Tiny moments. I fight to let myself grieve, to stop judging myself, and let what I feel be honest and true.

I start to wake up.

I see blessings; gratitude breaking through the hurt and leaving my heart softened for the re-planting of faith. It becomes my stepping off point for all the good that can be found, somewhere. In a future still opening to me, still unfolding into a distance marked with hope. Because none of this is me. It’s my test. It’s my journey. It’s supposed to hurt. It’s supposed to be hard. It’s a million things tailored perfectly for me. The real me. The me I sort of know, but can’t quite remember, who understands that this life is a blip in my eternity. 

The real me continues, before this and after this, always and ever a daughter of God. And that's non-fiction, in the realist of ways.

Enough

Sitting in an empty car, outside the dorms where my oldest child will be living, I remember.

I remember going to bed every single night when the kids were little, filled with regret for the things that happened during the day, filled with longing to be with my children, enjoy them, hug them, now that they were sleeping in bed and it was too late. Sometimes I went to their rooms, watching them sleep, and I mourned missed opportunities. Their upturned faces would flash through my mind as sleep stayed far away, and I would rethink all of my, “just a minutes.” In the dark hours of the night, my earlier impatience seemed ridiculously based. My anger, inconceivable. How could I raise my voice at such innocence? Returning to bed, watching my husband’s sleeping form, I considered his regrets. Surely he had none. He played, he laughed, he guided with love and kindness.

Looking back, I still feel that pain, those missed opportunities, especially now, knowing they are irretrievable. But I also see more than I could during those days. I see tired. I see pregnant. I see many hours on my own during my husband’s law school and employment. I see desperation to prove myself, to become, to serve, to please. Six children in eleven years. I see club feet and eye patches and infant kidney trouble, infections. I see the last one to eat cold dinner, grocery trips with crying children, prying eyes, headaches; I see late nights and early mornings. I see lots of 3:00 AM. I see effort, such great striving, work and intent. I see desire. I see the trenches. I see a pure heart.

And joy. I see lots of fun. I relive memories of parks, and friends, and trips downtown to visit a monument or the statue of Einstein. I see the inside of our car, driving somewhere, everyone singing. I see laughing faces. I see Candyland, UNO, GoFish. I see books, so many books. I hear the words in my mind, “You fed your fish too much? Too bad.” Or “Goodnight cow jumping over the moon.”

Just the other day, we were quoting, “Big brown bear, blue bull…” while we laughed about some of the fun books we used to read together. Just the other day, no one needed me to buckle them in their car seat. We were laughing about a hidden Pokemon. We were watching a movie together. We were swimming in the pool, and I didn’t worry anyone would drown. We were driving down the East coast from New York to Florida. We were hiking the Narrows. We were gathered in prayer.

Just the other day, my daughter and I packed up her room, getting ready for her first semester of college and we came across a box of her baby clothes. Her eyes opened wide, almost in amusement as tears coursed down my face immediately, without warning, and I quickly closed that box. Bad timing. She’s expecting me to cry a little. I’m expecting to cry a lot. 

But I wasn’t expecting this flash of life before my eyes. I wasn’t expecting to question all those days and nights when she was little. I am hit, completely unprepared by a wall of insecurity. Does she know how to iron a shirt? Is that a silly worry? What about all those sleepless nights of regret? Is she forever less than she could be because of some mistake of her mother, my mistake? 

And the biggest question of all, does she have enough? Was I enough? All of these principles, these patterns and teachings I have instilled in her since she was in my belly, is it enough? As her mother, am I enough?

And the answer is no.

And yes.

I am not enough. And even though I most certainly could have been better, even my very best self is not enough. I was not meant to be enough by myself.

But she knows in whom to place her faith. And that is enough. I pray it is enough. Because I have trusted that it will be enough when the time comes for my children to fly. I have spent my life preparing and teaching and becoming, with the assurance that it will be enough. And even now, as I turn the ignition key and pull out of the parking lot, a quiet assurance comforts, and I sense, with a kind of hopeful exhilaration that it will be.

Look for Kindness

I perch on a bar stool at our counter-height table, Facebook scrolling over the screen of my iPhone. I’m breaking an unspoken rule I gave myself to avoid Facebook on the Sabbath. Not because the Spirit hasn’t prompted me to post things on Sunday, He has, but because most of the time Facebook isn’t so much about sharing something spiritual, as mindlessly occupying my otherwise anxious mind.

My anxiety needs outlets, something other than my life to worry over. Before Facebook I made up stories. Since I’ve called myself an author that’s changed. I reach for escape and instead of my place of refuge—my story world—I find a wall of worry. Is this the right plot choice here? Is that really what that character would do?

So I’m latching onto Facebook.

But what I want to be an escape from worry this morning is the opposite. The screen plays stories I’d never thought to write. Horrible things. Angry things. Selfish, frivolous things.

Until what I really want is reassurance.

I want to know that love is still real. That the world isn’t falling apart around me. That my babies will grow up safe and hopeful. I want to know that I’m worth something, even here, in my grubby t-shirt and yoga shorts, doing the very thing I told myself I wouldn’t do today.

I’ve gotten off to a real bad start this morning.

It’s the tiny posts: a quote from a prophet, a scripture, an honest, heartfelt status update. Blips. My mind shifts and God reenters.

I open up my scriptures in another app and try to focus. I pray silently, right there, my head hunched over the table while my daughter pecks at breakfast and my husband strides through with his suit-coat and shoes in one hand.

Words come. My own, maybe. A thought drifting through my head.

Look for kindness. Look for joy.

Is that what I’m supposed to do?

I don’t know where to look. Not on Facebook. In that sea, there is kindness, I know it. But today is worse than usual. Something happened. Something big and evil. And it’s all over Facebook. Plastered.

Tell me where to look for good.

A prompting? Most likely. I open up my photos.

Look for kindness. Look for joy.

Yesterday, we went to the river with extended family we hadn’t seen in a long time. The kids wanted to get in and one cousin, a twelve-year-old girl, took my two-year-old daughter’s hand and waded with her into the water. I caught the moment on screen, but profoundly enough, the gesture is hidden by the foliage of the trees.

You have to look to see it.

My daughter climbs on my lap to see the photos. I flick through them, but soon go back to that one. It's like I've emerged from deep water and taken my first full breath of the day.

I cannot change the world. I cannot fix the things that are falling apart, or unfair, or bad. I cannot take the hurt away.

But here in my own little world, God is still at work. He’s in my niece's hands. He’s in my toddler’s insatiable chatter. He’s in my husband, off to church before the rest of us, calling goodbye from the doorway.

He is at this table, in this room.

A perfectly ripe nectarine for breakfast. A smile from my son. A tiny post of something good. A scripture. A prayer.

An answer. 

Look for kindness. Look for joy. 

A Discovery of Imperfection

My life is messy.

I avoid cleaning even though I know shouldn’t. I want clear counters, clean floors, and neatly folded laundry, but when I do engage in chores, I turn perfectionist. I line up everything in organized stacks, following a never ending cycle of tangents and distractions that bring cleanliness to unseen cracks but leave the spaghetti-stained pans in the sink.

It’s exhausting, and it never stays.

It spills over, tips over, runs over until I’m standing on a black-marked floor staring at another pile of dishes, and wishing I could get in my bed without throwing the unfolded clothes on the floor.

I’m left in this maddening place of imperfection. Even the characters I pull and prod through the ups and downs of a story can’t make of themselves anymore perfection than I can give them. They’re hopelessly, terribly flawed—ink stains on my thoughts and fingertips.

I crave continuity and cohesiveness—the right words coming together in the perfect form to create something so beautiful there’s nothing left to say. I want it in my stories. I want it in my life. The inner parts of my heart are craving a home I once knew that was perfect and a life I once walked where my skills and abilities flourished under the tutelage of a Father who is God.

I don’t think I’m the only one.

Maybe the absolutes I face in the cries of politics, fads, and opinions are actually all of us clinging to things we hope are permanent, unchanging truths. We want rightness. We want the answers. We used to have them. Our little embryo-like spirits were once nourished in a place of light, truth and love. The reflection of that is still inside us, hungry for a confidence we once had.

So we rail and shout, dismiss and hurt each other in a search for perfection. We wrangle all the parts of us and others into categories and try to fill ourselves with self-righteousness to counteract the panic we feel when we step back and see how unfair and crazy this place we are in really is. We want to make it right. We know in our hearts that it can be.

Why did our Perfect Father send us here? How can He continue to send more children to us: imperfect parents with our hands already too full of heath food pamphlets and warning labels? What was the reason for all this?

The line is always drawn straight between fear and love. We can’t have them both at once.

And if God didn’t send us here to bathe in our fears, to wallow in the avalanche of insecurities, then the other side has to be He sent us here to find love.

Nothing stays, my children grow. The people I love die. The friends I make move. I move. I leave behind bits of my heart, scattered among faces and people and days I cannot count as anything but glimpses of heaven, even when the loosing, and growing, and moving hurts so badly I think it will swallow me.

I see then God has not sent me here to live in perfection. I had that once. I know it already. He has not sent me here to sink into despair and lose myself either. Feeling sorrow, pain, loneliness, and anger in all their hideous, soul-wrenching beauty is how I come to understand love.

It’s how I find an inexhaustible spring of love inside myself—an endless capacity for compassion, empathy, and understanding. It’s how I am weaved into your story and you into mine.

My hope falls into place around that single thought. Peace returns to the things I care most about. I find courage in reloading a dishwasher and sweeping a floor one more time. Courage in the idea that I can put something back again, and again, and again if I need too. It can always be cleaned, repaired or replaced.

I can always repent.

The parts of my heart I leave behind are never wasted.

And if I create an imperfect book, I can find the courage to keep writing despite that. It’s okay to give what I have in the hope that it helps one person find a bit more love.

Leave it all in God’s hands, where broken things are made perfect again.