Birthdays and life...

Happy 12 birthday sweet Joeli!!!! Hey everyone,  my name is Mandy, I am honored to be a guest blogger today. I don't really know where to start, so I'll start with her first birthday. I was working in Mobile for a few weeks at Toys R Us (I worked at TRU in Hattiesburg through college and the store in Mobile was changing locations so I volunteered to help) and it just happened to be around Joeli's birthday. I remember buying a giant Winnie the Pooh, well giant to a kid anyway ha and stopping by to see Britt, Joeli and Chad. She was beautiful and perfect, toddling around and jabbering like most one year olds would do...I don't remember exactly how she reacted to me showing up? However, I do remember wishing I lived closer and wishing I had been around more because this was the first time I met Joeli. I couldn't believe she was a year old and I was just meeting her. Britt and I had been best friends since her senior year in high school and my freshman year in college. We had a life BFF plan...were gonna be crazy neighbors and eventually crazy old ladies rocking on a porch together and breaking out of whatever nursing home our kids would put us in haha! Britt got married and I was still in college and our lives started to drift apart. We still talked and I remember many conversations with Joeli in the background talking, laughing, singing and most of the time she would just get the phone and talk to me or sing whatever was on the radio! She had the cutest country accent and was wise well beyond her years. At the end of our conversation she would usually tell me "peace out". It would always make me laugh and I knew she was going to grow up to be just like her momma. I didn't visit as often as I should have and I regret only making that one birthday .... The last time I saw Joeli was on August 5th 2006, she came to my wedding. Britt and her two girls and her aunt packed up and drove an hour and a half in a storm to come see me get married. I was in the bathroom when they all came in soaking wet... it was literally a monsoon on my wedding day, lightning, wind and buckets of rain (a bucket of rain means when you step outside in the rain it looks like someone poured a bucket of water on you) and I remember a quick hello and then we took a picture together at my reception - just me,britt and the girls. That was the last time I saw her.



I remember that heart wrenching phone call, I was at work and Britt called in tears and told me she was gone. My heart broke for her...I don't remember much of that conversation, I just remember crying and telling her I was sorry and then driving to Mobile.  It felt like it took forever for me to get there, I was going 80 or maybe even faster at times but it just seemed like the road was never ending. After that visit, that just seems like a blur, I vowed to do better... But I didn't, we made a few trips throughout the years and if I was passing through I would call and do lunch or swing by... But I wasn't a good friend. I didn't know how to be. Looking back I should have just hung around. Showed up. When someone loses a child their whole world is forever changed. Nothing will ever be the same. There is never a fix to the problem. It is just a forever hole that can't be filled. I never know the right things to say and for those that know me, I put my foot in my mouth often! But the older I get the more I realize that with anything in life we are just suppose to show up. You can't fix it, but you can be a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen and a place to go. 

On Aug 18 this year Joeli would be 12.  This past weekend I drove over to hang out with Britt and the family and to just be around to do whatever she needed me to do to prep for Joeli's bday. We drove out to her marker one day to change the flowers and clean it. I had never cleaned a marker before. It was amazing to watch this momma have the strength to do this. To pull up at a cemetery with towels and a special solution to keep her marker clean. To watch her go in a flower shop and pick out an arrangement to place in her vase for her birthday. She should be planning her 12th birthday party and having talks about boys and starting middle school. Instead here she is, on her hands and knees cleaning the marker of her baby, holding back tears and weeding around the edges, wiping off dirt that blew over from another site, getting bit by the ants that seem to be everywhere and prepping everything so they can come back and release balloons on her birthday. How anyone has the strength to do that blows my mind. I am in awe of her. We sat for a while on the ground in silence once we were done. A million things ran through my mind but there was nothing to say. She broke the silence with stories and memories of being at the cemetery. I ended up taking a few pictures of her while we there and then we just sat and talked for a while until she was ready to go. If time ever sat still, I would say it sat still here...

I don't know what it's like to lose a child but I do know that she must have a strength out of this world to even be able to wake up each morning. Not to mention live a daily life with neutropenia and raise two more girls (one with neutro) and to do so with such grace and a fierceness like I've never seen. To live life every day wondering what life would be like if she was still here? Wondering what she would look like? Who her friends would be? What her interests would be? What would she sound like? What kind of relationship the girls would have? What it would be like to be complete? I never know the right things to say but I will say that this life she lives shows me Jesus daily. There is no other explanation... Nothing else could sustain her but the grace and mercy of our God. He alone is all we need and He alone is the only explination I know of that can give her this strength.

I don't know how to end this so I'm gonna leave it in your hands... You out there... For Joeli's 12th bday tell me some stories... If you knew her or know her momma... Share some fun stories to fill her heart... I think this is one of the best things anyone can do for a friend who has lost someone... just talk about them... and even talk about who you think they'd be...Happy birthday Joeli! 

For me, I think she would be a spunky 12 year old, testing out her own style (kind of like Maya on girl meets world) and probably begging for some bright colors in her hair. She would have an infectious laugh and sense of humor that would make her the hit of every social gathering. She'd be a killer ball player, a phenomenal singer and an amazing big sister. Solid in her faith and love of Jesus and bold in anything she believed in.  Most of all I believe without a doubt she would be her mommas best friend. Sing loud sweet girl! Happy birthday :) Me and my boys are gonna go EAT CAKE in your honor!

First Things First

  First things first...On this day 12 years ago at 12:03pm I became a mama. I became forever changed. Joeli Lynn Mothershead came into my life and made me who I am. She'd be 12 today. I will never forget the first time I laid eyes on her and she looked up at me and I sang to her. I was her hero. Period. Today her Daddy and sisters and I will release balloons, visit her resting place, and of course in typical Joeli fashion...EAT CAKE! She was definately the life of any and every party and I truly miss that about her. Who am I kidding...I miss every single thing about that beautiful soul.

  I titled this post "first things first" because it's been quite the summer with the NNN conference in Seattle, meeting with a "new to me" expert, follow up hemoc appointments for Mileigh and myself, and of course back to school. However, this is bigger. This is her day and I promise to get to that other stuff soon. Be sure to visit in the next few weeks for more info on all of that other "important" stuff. Today is Joeli's birthday!

  One of my best friends came this weekend. She came to help celebrate Joeli with me in whatever way she could. Recently I had a death in my family and that family member's resting place is very near to Joeli's. Due to the logistics of that, her marker has been very hard to keep clean. We went to a local flower shop and had arrangements custom made. We quietly made that drive...the one I remember so clearly. The one where all I could see was her pink casket in the car in front of me. That changes the way you view EVERYTHING. We went equipped with towels, water, cleaning solution, and of course flowers. I figured this way would be easier than having the excessive mess when we went as a family today. We spent quite a bit of time cleaning and arranging and then just sitting with her. I don't do that much anymore. I keep her marker clean and her flowers pretty but it's never been a place of peace for me. I say that because I know, as a believer, that she isn't there. Mandy didn't mind and encouraged taking my time. I laid with my little girl. Mandy also took photographs and I thought I'd feel weird about it but I didn't. I didn't speak...there's nothing to say. I gazed at the etched portrait of her on the hot black granite in the Alabama sun. Tears began to fall and as hard as I tried and prayed that they'd stay, they didn't. They stung my cheeks as I laid as close to her as I could. They fell and stained the clean granite beneath. I never imagined some of these photos and honestly they might be disturbing to some but I don't really care. That's my little girl and this is the life we've been given and I love that I have something to prove that she was here and she was mine and I can be close to her there.

  However, today, we EAT CAKE! Today, we send balloons to Heaven with little sisters who know no different. As their mama, I wonder how life would be different. I wonder who she'd be, what she'd like to do, what she'd sound like, if she'd have good grades or like softball...I wonder what kind of party she'd want and what gift she'd ask for. I'd like to know the struggle of school supply shopping with a preteen and then planning a party all in the same month. I wish I could take a "first day of school" picture with all three of my girls. Can you see the difficulty here? One of the happiest days of my life and I'm sending balloons into the clear blue sky. She deserved to live this life and be at her 12th birthday party and give this mama preteen attitude and go to middle school and all of that normal 12 year old stuff that, to be honest, I know absolutely NOTHING about...and I should!

  Now, the tears are steady and I can't help but change perspective here and see her in the lap of Jesus on her birthday. What a celebration! To say I'm jealous of Jesus is an understatement! She's perfect there. I don't know what she sounds like or what she would have wanted for her birthday but I know that she is perfect and she is nothing but happy. I don't know when I will see her again but I know that I WILL! I know that one day I'll walk through those pearly gates and I'll scoop my little girl up again and I'll spend eternity making up for lost time and hearing about her life there. Maybe I sound a little scattered...oh well. I likely won't walk through those gates either, I'll run. For those who know me personally, you know that's borderline humorous because I'm not running anywhere!

  I am trying hard to find the good things here. This is her birthday. This is the day that I was handed an angel that called me "Mama". I find myself with an internal struggle on these "celebration" days. I love that I know that my Jesus has my little girl and that she is healed and whole and happy but I desperately wanted to do life with her. I just wanted to be her mama for a real long time...right here in this place where I could put my arms around her. How do you walk into a flower shop and purchase an arrangement for you child's grave? How is that right? How do I take Brelan and Mileigh to their big sister's GRAVE for her BIRTHDAY?! I just do, because that's all I have and because this is the world we live in and it wasn't made to be fair. So, I teach them that we celebrate even when it's hard and we smile even when it hurts because she WAS here and she DID live and she IS their big sister! She is fighting and singing for every neutropenic baby out there. I have no doubt that she is with them when they are sick and that her song is being sung loud and clear and I AM SO SO PROUD of her! Happy Birthday, Joeli Lynn! Mama loves you ALL HEART!

 We love you, we miss you more than words, we can't wait to see and hug you, and untill then we will SING LOUD! Happy Birthday my beautiful girl! Thank you for making me who I am and loving me in every way that you can. Thank you for the relationships you have with Brelan and Mileigh even from His feet. I love that about you! I miss you more than words. See ya on the flip side!

  To those of you who've stuck this post out this far...thank you! For those who couldn't, I understand. I value your encouragement and comments. I love how yall love her. I love how yall support this broken hearted mama. I promise to update on the rest of our summer soon...but today...EAT CAKE! (and if you want to EAT CAKE in Joeli fashion...make it chocolate!) **SMILE** and PEACE OUT!