Heaven Sent, Heaven Bound!

Please Note: I will continue (where applicable) typing a small paragraph at the top about our recent, day-to-day interactions or stories reguarding Isaac. The "real" posts will begin immediately after, starting with the title of the blog post. 

(From my journal)

Monday, August 12, 2013

Today is the first real day back to “normal life” since we buried our baby Isaac’s body last Thursday morning. Family is all gone, and Scott is back to school. I was nervous for today knowing Scott was going back. Sydney had a dentist appointment this morning and right afterward we went to the library to return and check out some new books for Syd.

I thought going out and doing our normal errands would help make me feel better but in reality it made things so much more difficult, quite unexpectedly. Everywhere we went reminded me of Isaac. He’s been with us basically the entire year that we’ve lived here in Galveston, and he's done everything with us....

....We made one last stop and before heading home, I went to the back door to buckle Syd in her carseat. The tears overcame me. Sydney just said: “Mommy, why are you sad? Do you want Heavenly Father and baby Isaac?” I just shook my head up and down, comforted that she knew exactly what I wanted. Then she added, as she proceeded to rub my arm: “Don’t be sad mom. Heavenly Father and baby Isaac will save you. Father and Isaac save me! Father and Isaac will save you and keep you- they save and keep me. Don’t be sad. I’m here!” We drove home and she kept saying this until she made sure I was happy again. She made me show her my smile to prove it. The last thing she said to me was “You have to pray to Father and ask him to save you and to sleep with you and He and baby Isaac will save you and sleep with you.” I asked her if that’s what she does and she said “I do! and they save me!”  

Isaac's story: Post 6

Click here for Post 5

HEAVEN SENT, HEAVEN BOUND!

Written Aug. 29th, 3 1/2 weeks after delivery

The morning after I delivered Isaac, Scott and I left the hospital with empty arms and an empty place in our hearts and headed home. 

It was the first time in 9 months that I went anywhere without our Isaac. In the next two days we faced our son's memorial service and burial, in addition to facing the rest of our lives without the tangible presence of our beautiful angel, our first-born son, Isaac.

Two weeks prior, I had a sense of extreme urgency, to the point that I was becoming stressed and overwhelmed. I was full of all sorts of emotions about his inevitable birth and what could take place after. I was excited, nervous, anxious, scared, comforted, at peace, not ready and ready all at the same time. Facing birth and possible death in the same climactic experience filled my heart and soul with many different contradicting emotions, which seemed to intensify as the time drew nearer. We didn't know how the events would play out, but I did know Isaac was coming sooner than expected. I could feel it.

This feeling of urgency increased with each passing day until the middle of that one restless night around 4am when we believe Isaac's physical life turned over to a Heavenly one. In the moment, I wasn't fully aware. I thought I had food poisoning from the restaurant we'd gone to late that Friday night before bed. But there were other unusual things happening to my body and in my body. I felt so unwell, and what worried me the most was my racing heart. I knew it was abnormal to be fast asleep, and then be woken up by a heart rate so fast I might as well have just finished a race. I was worried because what can you do to calm a racing heart when you are just out of the most restful state of being- sleep? My heart was nowhere near at rest and with the addition of the other symptoms, Scott and I nearly headed to the hospital. After a blessing Scott gave me, my heart rate calmed and I was soon again fast asleep.

Somehow, I was blessed to make it through the main events of the following day with not much other than a loss of appetite. I was helping host a baby shower for one of our good friends, due one month after Isaac's due date. When I came home, I crashed. A few hours later I awoke feeling unwell again, though my heart rate never again accelerated like it had so early that morning.

Saturday evening, we decided to check on Isaac using the ultrasound machine we'd had in our home the last 6 months. It was not unusual that I hadn't felt him kicking. His kicks and punches had really diminished over the last month. I'd recently only felt him bulge out once or twice a day. But what was unusual, was the difficulty we had in finding his heart on the unclear, small-screened, ancient ultrasound machine that we'd used the last several months "Skyping" him with. Usually, his heart was the first thing we'd recognize as it silently moved in rhythm on the screen.

I was surprised in that moment how ok I was when we couldn't find his heart. I didn't cry, though the possibility that he could be gone was real. I absolutely knew that God was still in complete controll and that no matter what were to happen, "it will all work out for the best." On top of that, I still believed with all my heart that there was a 50/50 chance in either outcome. Miracles are real, and they do still happen today.  I held onto this truth even after the doctor confirmed it the next day at the hospital; She too, could find no heartbeat. 

It wasn't until Isaac's body landed in my arms, for the first and last time in this mortal existence, that that hope and faith that has escaladed within all my heart, might and mind, expanding in strength and power greater and greater for months and months up until that point, that what I've felt ever since has became physically and completely incommunicable of  accurate description. It is beautiful. It is incredible. It is inexplainable. 

It's been nearly a month since Isaac changed states of existence through physical death, and it is no easier today to describe the sacred truths manifest to me while experiencing those moments of truth, spent holding his body in that hospital room at the end of the hall. It was a feeling almost tangible, a familiar remembrance and closeness to a place I once knew before my time. And death, when you'd think it would seem as final as ever with the loss of so close a loved one, actually seems much less permanent than ever before. 

For the last 9 months, Isaac was our administering angel from the other side of the whom, and today he continues as such, only from the other side of the veil.

And so it was, when Scott coined the phrase "Heaven sent, heaven bound!" to put on the inside of Isaac's birth announcements the day we came home from the hospital without him, I couldn't contain the tears as I knew the truth of those inspired words. They hold true not just for Isaac, but for each one of us. We all came from the presence of our literal Father in Heaven, and to Him we are bound to return. That is where our real home is. 

The day of the delivery, the memorial and the burial are each their own sacred experience, and they are captured with beautiful photos and video, some shown in Isaac's slideshow (entitled "Isaac Asher Walton - Heaven sent, heaven bound!"CLICK HERE to watch) as well as in our memories and hearts forever. I don't intend to share each and every detail about those sacred events and experiences, but hope to capture the beauty and truth of it all, including God's greater plan, in my letter to Isaac, which has been a work in progress, beginning in my heart, since the day he was no longer bound for heaven, but was already there. 

We love you Isaac :)

*My Letter to Isaac -- which will be my very best attempt to describe the beautiful and sacred experience we had with Isaac and know we will continue to have -- will follow this post when the letter is complete.