Their Room

I have always been very candid here with how difficult these weeks leading up to November 3rd are for me. Sophie Kate will be 7 years old this year and as I look back over this time it is not just filled with sadness and tears and loss of dreams.  It is a big ole mix of things...happy and sad, tears and smiles, anger and forgiveness...it's life that we have been experiencing.  I grab onto these weeks because life was still "normal" then (if any of us are really "normal").  It was this time 7 years ago that Sophie Kate's brain was healthy and uninjured...my body had not failed her yet.  She had not been taken from me...yet.

Her nursery was not her's alone.  She was to share a room with her closest brother, who was only 17 months old when she was born.  Grey had moved to a "big boy" bed and the crib that had held three baby boys was exploding with pinks and yellows and greens.  The nursery was "their" room. Grey was already livin' and lovin' life in "their" room and after what was supposed to be a brief, home from the hospital stay in our room she was to join him in "their" room.  She never made it there.  

"Their" room became his room and our room became "her" room.  I don't even remember how long she stayed in our room.  It was a long time and eventually we turned our dining room into her room and it has remained her room to this day.  Y'all already know that their connection runs deep.  So it won't come as a surprise when I tell you that when we are on vacation, Grey and Sophie Kate share a bed...

We felt like Cooper was too big to sleep next to her.  He takes up a lot of space and truthfully no one wants to share a bed with a middle school boy.  Jacob has been known his whole life to sleep all over the bed.  That boy never wakes up in the same position in which he fell asleep.  During the night that boy flips and flops all over the place.  We felt like it wouldn't be safe for him to sleep next to Sophie Kate. 

But this one...this one was just right.

He sleeps perfectly next to her.

Our vacation rooms are "their" room.  I take a lot of pictures of them sleeping next to each other.  Their relationship would have been completely different had they actually been able to share that room.  They wouldn't be who they are now had they shared that room.  Grey might be a bit more selfish than he is now, he might tease her more than he would care for her, he might not be as compassionate as he is now...I think back on so many things that I can look at as a loss, but there is so much to treasure as well.

Please pray for us in the coming weeks as our hearts and minds feel so many different things.  That we will not be suffocated by our memories but instead overwhelmed at the goodness of God in our lives.  God is faithful in the hurt and in the happy. 

Philippians 4:5 "Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near."