I have a hundred wishes

Our Keepsake Journal is Here! 🎉

I have a hundred wishes.
They fly in and out of my mind every day.
Especially when I see someone suffering a loss of a loved one. It brings back memories.
I wish their pain away.
I wish that I didn’t know how hard their path will be.
I wish they didn’t have to suffer.
I wish there was a cure.

And then…

I wish you could see Marin’s smile. It’s completely disarming in the most wonderful way. It makes a hard day easier; it turns a bad mood around in a heartbeat. Her big eyes melt you. They make you want to make this world right.
She is amazing that way – sweet and creative – intuitive – sassy – fiery, even a bit scary.

Oh how you would love the scary part of her.

I wish you could hear Connor’s laugh. It’s contagious, and his deepest laughs are usually because of Marin, who he is so amused by (we all are…) but it’s so uncommon for a big brother to openly appreciate his kid sister this way – it only makes you love him more.

I wish you could see your little man. You would be so impressed.
He is wicked smart, so kind hearted – one of those humans who do not have a bad bone in their body and he’s hilarious.
In a way that most kids his age don’t quite get, yet.
And boy would you get him – you’d be his biggest fan and co-conspirator.
You and him, you would be thick as thieves. Partners-in-crime.
He has your legs, and mannerisms. The way he walks, the way he sits…
It strikes me sometimes – how much of you, is in him.
How he bucks the system. How the rules don’t seem to apply to him.
How he makes me crazy. How he doesn’t smile, he grins.
His heart of gold.

Then I think of you. I think of us – of our talks about life and love and parenting. How our fears were the same.
I think of how much I finally understood you, once Connor came along.

And I’m back to wishing – wishing you were here.
Wishing you knew how much you helped me.
How I trusted you like no other…
Knowing how you’d get it.
Knowing how you got me. Knowing how’d you love how these kids drive me crazy, with their strong will and independence. The irony is not lost on me.

I wish you could see it – your always self-assured and confident middle child, questioning herself trying to raise these kids.
Having kids changes you, it changes everything.
In the most spectacular way.
You knew that, and you were eager to see me in that role.
You wanted me to soften-up, to let my guard down.
You knew I had walls…

I hope you know, that well before you got sick, well before I knew I was losing you, I forgave you.
Truly, from deep in my heart.
For making me crazy.
For being imperfect.
For hurting me, when you didn’t know better – because once I became a parent, all of those spectacular changes led me to know.

I would do the same.

I would screw up. That I would hurt them, unknowingly.
That they will be marked by my failing good intentions.
That my love will leave scars on them.
Becoming a mom helped me understand you. Understand us. The way we battled. What you were fighting for.

I told you that day…”if you could undo every time you hurt me, you would.”
You were overcome, and said, so quietly, “Darlin’, in a New York minute.”
I knew you meant it.

I told you “I forgive you, Dad…” and we talked about how hopefully, someday, my kids would forgive me, for being so imperfect.
I didn’t know then what a gift that moment would be, until you were gone.

I wish you knew how deeply you are missed.
How we are not the same without you.
How much our world has changed, without you in it.
It’s just slightly, off.

I wish you could know…
That we are OK. Its taken time to get there, but you would have us no other way.
Your girls will forever love you, will forever miss you, and forever carry you with us.

I wish you could know…
How far we’ve all come, at all we’ve done, that we are doing exactly as you would want us to do and are as close as we could be, supporting each other, encouraging each other.

The Edkin girls have each other’s back in a big way, and we are still making each other laugh…
Still making each other crazy…
Still quietly wishing you were here.
I wish, I wish, I wish…
I wish you could see us now…

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Order Now

So God Made a Mother's Story Keepsake Journal

Her View Shop

Family

Lori E. Angiel

Lori resides in the suburbia of Western New York with her husband, their 2 children and sweet rescue pup, George Bailey (because, it’s a wonderful life, after all). When not working, she is doing the soccer mom thing on the sidelines of a soccer field, running the local trails and streets (year round in the most obnoxious reflective gear available) with her running (a/k/a support) group while they train for what is always known as the "last race we are ever doing", or shopping at TJ Maxx or Target. Her favorite things include her training runs, skiing with her family and yoga. She is also very devoted to drinking wine and spending as much time as possible with her friends and family. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, you will find her sitting on a beach (applying copious amounts of sunscreen on her kiddos)....all the while writing about the little things in life that occur to her along the way.

I Obsessed over Her Heartbeat Because She’s My Rainbow Baby

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood

Mother and teen daughter with ice cream cones, color photo

I delivered a stillborn sleeping baby boy five years before my rainbow baby. I carried this sweet baby boy for seven whole months with no indication that he wouldn’t live. Listening to his heartbeat at each prenatal visit until one day there was no heartbeat to hear. It crushed me. ”I’m sorry but your baby is dead,” are words I’ll never be able to unhear. And because of these words, I had no words. For what felt like weeks, I spoke only in tears as they streamed down my cheeks. But I know it couldn’t have been that long. Because...

Keep Reading

We’re Walking the Road of Twin Loss Together

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood

Mother and son walk along beach holding hands

He climbed into our bed last week, holding the teddy bear that came home in his twin brother’s hospital grief box almost 10 years earlier. “Mom, I really miss my brother. And do you see that picture of me over there with you, me and his picture in your belly? It makes me really, really sad when I look at it.” A week later, he was having a bad day and said, “I wish I could trade places with my brother.” No, he’s not disturbed or mentally ill. He’s a happy-go-lucky little boy who is grieving the brother who grew...

Keep Reading

Until I See You in Heaven, I’ll Cherish Precious Memories of You

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood

Toddler girl with bald head, color photo

Your memory floats through my mind so often that I’m often seeing two moments at once. I see the one that happened in the past, and I see the one I now live each day. These two often compete in my mind for importance. I can see you in the play of all young children. Listening to their fun, I hear your laughter clearly though others around me do not. A smile might cross my face at the funny thing you said once upon a time that is just a memory now prompted by someone else’s young child. The world...

Keep Reading

The Day My Mother Died I Thought My Faith Did Too

In: Faith, Grief, Loss

She left this world with an endless faith while mine became broken and shattered. She taught me to believe in God’s love and his faithfulness. But in losing her, I couldn’t feel it so I believed it to be nonexistent. I felt alone in ways like I’d never known before. I felt helpless and hopeless. I felt like He had abandoned my mother and betrayed me by taking her too soon. He didn’t feel near the brokenhearted. He felt invisible and unreal. The day my mother died I felt alone and faithless while still clinging to her belief of heaven....

Keep Reading

Can I Still Trust Jesus after Losing My Child?

In: Faith, Grief, Loss

Everyone knows there is a time to be born and a time to die. We expect both of those unavoidable events in our lives, but we don’t expect them to come just 1342 days apart. For my baby daughter, cancer decided that the number of her days would be so many fewer than the hopeful expectation my heart held as her mama. I had dreams that began the moment the two pink lines faintly appeared on the early morning pregnancy test. I had hopes that grew with every sneak peek provided during my many routine ultrasounds. I had formed a...

Keep Reading

To the Healthcare Workers Who Held My Broken Heart

In: Grief, Loss

Baby hat with hospital certificate announcing stillbirth, color photo

We all have hard days at work. Those days that push our physical, mental, and emotional limits out of bounds and don’t play fair. 18 years ago, I walked into an OB/GYN emergency room feeling like something was off, just weeks away from greeting our first child. As I reflect on that day, which seems like a lifetime ago and also just yesterday, I find myself holding space for the way my journey catalyzed a series of impossibly hard days at work for some of the people who have some of the most important jobs in the world. RELATED: To...

Keep Reading

I Loved You to the End

In: Grief, Living

As your time on this earth came close to the end, I pondered if I had given you the best life. I pondered if more treatment would be beneficial or harmful. I pondered if you knew how much you were loved and cherished As the day to say goodbye grew closer, I thought about all the good times we had. I remembered how much you loved to travel. I remembered how many times you were there for me in my times of darkness. You would just lay right next to me on the days I could not get out of...

Keep Reading

I Hate What the Drugs Have Done but I Love You

In: Grief, Living

Black and white image of woman sitting on floor looking away with arms covering her face

Sister, we haven’t talked in a while. We both know the reason why. Yet again, you had a choice between your family and drugs, and you chose the latter. I want you to know I still don’t hate you. What I do hate is the drugs you always seem to go back to once things get too hard for you. RELATED: Love the Addict So Hard it Hurts Speaking of hard, I won’t sugarcoat the fact that being around you when you’re actively using is so hard. Your anger, your manipulation, and your deceit are too much for me (or anyone around you) to...

Keep Reading

Giving Voice to the Babies We Bury

In: Grief, Loss

Woman looking up to the sky, silhouette at sunset

In the 1940s, between my grandmother’s fourth child and my father, she experienced the premature birth of a baby. Family history doesn’t say how far along she was, just that my grandfather buried the baby in the basement of the house I would later grow up in. This was never something I heard my grandmother talk about, and it was a shock to most of us when we read her history. However, I think it’s indicative of what women for generations have done. We have buried our grief and not talked about the losses we have experienced in losing children through...

Keep Reading

I Asked the Questions and Mother Had the Answers. Now What?

In: Grief, Living, Loss

Older woman smiling at wedding table, black-and-white photo

No one is really ever prepared for loss. Moreover, there is no tutorial on all that comes with it. Whether you’ve lost an earring, a job, a relationship, your mind, or a relative, there is one common truth to loss. Whatever you may have lost . . . is gone. While I was pregnant with my oldest son, my mother would rub my belly with her trembling hands and answer all my questions. She had all the answers, and I listened to every single one of them. This deviated from the norm in our relationship. My mother was a stern...

Keep Reading