For those of you that read my blog regularly, you know what this month brings. For those of you whom do not…May 1st…today…is the day last year that I took a pregnancy test and it was positive for the second time in one year. In my journal entries that I am sharing from “Our Journey to Jackie” we have not yet made it to this point in time one year ago…keep your eyes out for that. Today is the beginning of our lives where Jackie was present one year ago…and now he is not. To be honest, I thought that today was going to be extremely hard and filled with hard memories to think about…instead today is full of distraction and deep thought about life battles.
This morning, I went down to the basement to check on my laundry that was hang drying. As I walked toward the steps to go upstairs I realized that there was a puddle of water a few feet away from the door. My first thought was that we forgot to close the gate to the basement that evening and one of the dogs…Obie…let himself downstairs in the middle of the night to relieve himself. However, I realized that a slow drip was hitting the top of the floor space heater. I immediately thought…our fridge is leaking! I went upstairs in a hast to share the news with my Husband so that he could fix the problem. He went downstairs to look things over, he said the drip was too far down to be the fridge, however once he completed his assessment of the situation…he began to pull the fridge away from the wall and behold the ice maker line was spraying water all over the place. Luckily from the amount of water that was behind the fridge and the size of the puddle in the basement it is safe to say that we caught the leak within hours of when it started…whew!
For some reason this event serves as a metaphor, much like the shipwreck article that I shared in my blog titled, “After the Storm.” Our house appeared to be operating properly even after the major changes we have made. Then out of nowhere a puddle appeared in the basement. There was something wrong. After assessments made by myself and my husband we came to the conclusion that the fridge was leaking. Once the fridge was pulled out away from the wall it was apparent that the ice maker line was in fact leaking…spraying large amounts of water all over the wall and floor behind the fridge. Alas, we knew what was causing the puddle.
Everyone is fighting a battle, much like our house was this morning…and after some time of fighting the battle evidence begins to present itself… signs start to appear…something is wrong. It is ironic to me that this took place and that this metaphor crossed my mind. We had just been walking around in Home Depot yesterday picking up items for a basement leak for a family members house. I recall walking around, following my husband from aisle to aisle as he looked for the things he needed…walking back and forth…back and forth. I tend to people watch and as we walked the aisles and passed everyone I thought to myself, “no one here knows that we lost our son.” I then wondered what battles others were facing…has someone lost their parents recently or had to put them into the nursing home, does anyone have someone fighting for their life because they are a cancer patient, and does anyone have a kiddo in the NICU or know of someone who walks a similar life path as we do. I was mostly amazed at how ordinary and normal everyone appeared to be as they lived another Sunday. There is always that one customer though…or that one worker who just looks miserable, is acting and speaking rudely, or just seems to be ignoring the world. I use to think that those individuals were just having a bad day, were fighting a bad case of allergies, or simply were just not happy people…but more than likely they are like our house. They are showing signs that something is wrong…something happened. They have a puddle that is significant of a larger problem.
I wonder what our puddles are? I wonder if outsiders can tell that something is wrong? And if we don’t have puddles apparent to outsiders yet…I am sure we will.
We love you!
#ourjackofhearts #angelmommy