Be My Guest Monday! Living, Laughing, Loving

Hello! Thanks for stopping by today. Today is Be My Guest Monday! I'm looking for people to do some extraordinary summer posts for me... how about YOU??

Today's guest is Angela from Living, Laughing, Loving. You've got to check out her blog when you're done reading this post... if you can't smile after seeing the picture... well then you may just need some help. :) But today you are so lucky to read this beautiful Mother's Day tribute. And so...

A Blink After Birth
by Angelia Sims

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When I was a little girl from age four to ten, one of my favorite stories my mom would tell me was about the day I was born. As often as I could, I would beg her to tell it to me again. Maybe it was for the closeness we shared on that day. Maybe it was because my mom told it with such heart and soul. Maybe it was because I got to snuggle with her under the covers in her big brass bed. She would wrap me up and stroke my hair as she began to quietly speak. Transfixed, I would listen as she recounted the day with perfect clarity.

My mom, your Grandma Dorothy, died while I was pregnant with you. I was only 29 years old. We were so close and I loved her so much. It was devastating to me. But I had your two brothers, and sister to take care of. I could not grieve forever. As much as I would miss her, I had to do the best I could for my family. You were five months in my tummy when I said good-bye to her for the last time.

The months went by as slow and hard as I thought they would be. The emptiness and loss were a hole I could not fill. The boys were a handful, but thankfully your sister, who was eight, was a BIG help. She wished and wished for a baby sister and not a brother. I told her how sorry I was but I didn't think I could have any more girls. I wanted a girl more than anything but just couldn't get my hopes up. It seemed the last possible thing in the world. But in my dreams, I couldn't help but picture a big brown-eyed baby girl.


Two weeks from your due date the doctor informed me that he would go ahead and induce labor. He felt it was time. I had not gained much weight. I was too thin and too unhealthy. In my harrowing days, I had not taken very good care of myself. It was losing my mom. It was raising three children. It was so many things.


I couldn't believe after laboring all day when the moment of your arrival came and the doctor announced, "It's a girl!" I told him, "It couldn't be! I couldn't have any more girls." The doctor just laughed at me. "Of course you can have more girls and you did. She is beautiful. Just look at her."


And you were....you were so, so beautiful. You had BIG brown eyes that peered up at me like an Owl. And you were so tiny too, only 5lbs 12oz, the smallest baby I ever had. Your thin blond downy fuzz on your head was so soft, and how I loved to count your precious little fingers and toes. Oh, I was amazed and in love. I only wished my mom could be there to meet you.


Back in those days, the babies would lay in the nursery while the mom recovered in her room from the medicines and birth. I was laying there in my hospital bed thinking of you and smiling, when suddenly, at the foot of my bed stood my mom. She was standing there looking at me with such love and adoration on her face. She looked right in my eyes and said, "Oh Sharon, you did it again. She is beautiful, just like you dreamed she would be with those big brown eyes. I'm so happy you got another girl."


I was so amazed and startled. I did what any normal person would do, I closed my eyes. I shook my head. When I opened them, she was gone.


Oh how I wished I had not closed my eyes. I wish I would have talked to her. I wish...I wish...I wish....but I didn't and just like that, she was gone. But she WAS there. Really there. It wasn't a dream. I will never forget that moment for the rest of my life.

Her story is both heart-wrenching and joyful. I am usually crying with her at the end. In my heart of hearts, I know my Grandma met me. She gazed at me through the glass. She lovingly reached for my downy head and stared into my big eyes. Oh Grandma, I heard so much about you. What you must have done to visit your daughter in a gesture of comfort, a gesture of reassurance, and a gesture of compassion that you were still there in her deepest period of loss. How much you loved us all. I know one day we will meet again, all of us, and no blink will ever miss that moment.

In loving memory of my mom's mom, Dorotha Marie.