I decided to come home for spring break that year.  As all of my friends and even my boyfriend at the time were heading to far off destinations of fun and sun, I wanted to take some time to just hang out with my little brother and my parents.  It was my first spring break since tranferring home the fall before and wanted to catch my breath before heading back to finish up the last 8 weeks of school. It was a normal Sunday. My parents headed to town and my brother and I stayed home to hang out.
To know my brother was to know a teddy bear. Generous, loving and affectionate. But to know my brother you also knew he had a side that was undesirable to be around. A side not ready to be revisited today. That day I squeezed him as hard as I could but also got so mad at him moments later. It was a typical day.
I sat on the couch in the living room dressed in my running shorts and sports bra getting ready to go for a mid-afternoon run. He was in the kitchen frying something but as the next few seconds unfolded the details of that day would all run together. Rick sat in the living room for no more then 10minutes before we heard a sudden and unfamiliar explosion. We raced to beat each other to the kitchen as deep down we both knew what was occurring just feet from us. As we stared at the grease fire and the smoke billowing up from the stove, we froze for what seemed like an eternity. Back up 15 years ago to when our first house burned away and now my worst fear was coming true all over again. The orange glow still shines vibrantly in my mind even today.
Without hesitation I yelled at Rick to get the fire extinguisher from downstairs as I cultivated a plan. I was 19. I had no idea how to put out a grease fire. By this time we were hardly visible to each other through the heaviness of black smoke. We managed to put out the flames. Seconds later it regained strength and blew again. I felt helpless and he fanned the flames with the extinguisher again. Before he could say no, I yelled at him to open the back deck door and without thinking I grabbed both handles of the pot and took 4 steps to throw what seemed our biggest problem away. It was the moment I remember thinking...something's not right.
Rick would explain to me later that he blew the fire extinguisher towards me because my left arm had actually caught fire. He didn't know what else to do. He didn't think and it was the first time I actually thought I was glad he didn't.

His guilt for those burns lasted until the day he died four years later. I was burned on March 3, 2000 and he passed March 20, 2004. If he only knew how much each event drastically changed my life I'd be burned all over again just to have him back. If that's all it would take. I had to grow up so fast in the months following the burn. Relationships changed as well as my outlook on life. I treasured the small things and began looking at life through the perspective of what if it had all been taken in those few seconds? How will I handle being judged, stared at, mocked and even scorned for uncontrollable events that would physically change me forever? Thank God for the most supportive friends and family or else I would have lost myself instead of staying the course. We all need that support as I would find out later in life it's all I would ever want. 

"For the Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away."

Today I'm fast forwarding time to a date closer to the present; a date in which I never saw coming.  The  reason for this fast forward moment instead of writing about my burn and the other growing up moments in my life is because at the time I started this blog it was May 15th, 2012 my oldest daughter's 7th birthday.  A day in which we celebrate a birth, not reminded about a death. 

On this day, I received the call I've been waiting on for over a year.  I was given confirmation that my third daughter's name was given permanent validity to a life in which none of us will ever get to know.  A life that lasted for a brief five months. 

I felt her kick and turn and give me an ever-expanding waistline.  She allowed me to eat a lot of cheeseburgers and chocolate since during those months that was all I could seem to keep down.  Courtney and Sydney would sit as I would read to her.  They'd help pick out music to put on my belly talking about who would change diapers or hold the bottle.  They fought over who would be the better big sister and when it was time to push her in a stroller who would do it first.  We were all ready to meet this baby girl, but as I have now come to realize, God had other plans. 


The small marker we put down the day we said our goodbyes


We'd found at 19 weeks that there were issues with the development of her kidneys and bilateral ureters.  Basically, when she needed to go to the bathroom, her kidneys were not flushing it out properly.  At this point in gestation there is little the doctors can do but wait.  Wait to see what time and growth will achieve.  But, she formed a distended belly from her kidneys not functioning and in turned it caused too much strain on her tiny heart.  Four weeks later at my next check up, she was gone.  

Her name was Caroline Grace McGuire and we lost her at 23 weeks gestation. 

The rest of the story goes something like this.  After I delivered her, I struggled with the decision of how I would handle the moment she was born.  Do I see her?  Hold her? Or, simply say my goodbye as they take her out of the room?  That is something that my soul has had to come to peace with in the year and a half that has followed.  It was a decision made in firm belief that God knew what He was doing when He took her and He knew what I was going to be able to handle.

In Jeremiah 1:5 the Lord says, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.  And before you were born, I concecrated you; I appointed you a prophet in the nations."   As tough as it may be for everyone to believe, this little girl was never meant to be with us and the Lord knew that long before he took her home.  It was not something I came to terms with easily as my faith was certainly not as strong then as it is now.  Caroline was destined for greater things that reached far beyond this earthly life. 

Her time here with us was so brief, yet those fleeting moments taught me valuable lessons about love, grace, humility and understanding.  Her journey during that time taught me about taking time out of my own life to slow down, take in the seconds, minutes, hours you have before they are gone.  She made me a better person without me even realizing it until now and I was given a lifetime of memories while I carried her. 

We had her cremated and buried in the same plot where my brother was laid to rest eight years ago.  It was there, and only there that I was comfortable knowing the love and protection they would give to one another would bring me peace.  They already knew how important the bond I had with each of them was to now be shared between the two of them.

For a few brief moments after the phone call from the company who did the inscription I cried.  Struck by the realization that I can now, without regret, move on.  As my wise old mother always says, Caroline was a chapter in my life, all of our lives and now it's time to close that chapter and start a new one.  She will always be there to go back to.  As now I know when I read her name, she is HOME. 

March 3, 2000

 There are moments in everyone's lives that they remember exactly where they were the moment "it" happened. Every generation is different but we all have them.

 I was sitting in my 1st grade class right before lunch and everyone was anxiously awaiting the Challenger and the first teacher in space, Christa McAuliffe, to take flight.  I could see how excited my teacher was as she proudly waited and watched as one of her "own" headed into space.  As the moment approached, I remember that was all anyone could talk about and some of the teachers had even decorated their classrooms with planets and astronauts in preparation for the big event!
 But then "it" happened.  Without any understanding of what just took place we witnessed the way her face looked, the tears that filled her eyes and the gasp that escaped her mouth just eight short seconds after it took off.  That moment is forever etched in my mind.  It was live and none of us were prepared, especially her, to watch it explode with all the world watching.  I was 6, I was involved, I was scared.
In college, I had just finished my Media Ethics class when I learned about the attack on New York City. Otherwise know as 9/11.  I was a senior and it was about 9:30am in the morning.  Standing in the cafeteria with my friends, we watched it all unfold and just when it couldn't get any worse, we witnessed both towers collapse into a heap of rubble.  Lives were lost, families were destroyed and we began to question our very mortality and safety.  We never prepare for moments like these, at least I never thought I had to.

 We ask questions like, "How could this happen and WHY?"  There always has to be someone to blame and always a feeling of where do we go from here?  And for many years those very same questions haunted me when I'd think back to the day "it" happened to me.

Redefining beauty: Loving my scars after the game was over.: So needless to say...I took some time off from thi...

Redefining beauty: Loving my scars after the game was over.: So needless to say...I took some time off from thi...: So needless to say...I took some time off from this writing thing and I am ready to jump back in with both feet.  Not making any promises...

So needless to say...I took some time off from this writing thing and I am ready to jump back in with both feet.  Not making any promises to myself or to anyone else that I will be keeping up with it everyday but my goal is to do my very best. 

Since my last post, my entire world shifted in ways I was not prepared for, some bad but mostly good.  We made a HUGE move for my husband's job, the girls had to start all over in a new school, and I had to quit the job I loved so much(for a second time).  Not to mention, my best friend of 6 years would be left behind as well.  Thank God for Internet, FaceTime, Skype and phones to help up through the transition.

The girls took the move very hard which made it even more difficult for me.  I would wake up every day hoping they would refrain from asking about their old friends, school, places they loved so much and with Mike working 10-15 hour days we were left to find ourselves in a "foreign" world. 

There were pretty awesome things, too.  I was able to spend more time with the girls on a daily basis and help Mike out from time-to-time with his new job at Louisburg College.  We got to know each other differently, the girls and I, because there were no sitters involved anymore.  I was there every night to make them dinner, read them stories, help with homework, play games and then tuck them into bed. 

I've made some pretty incredible friends in the short time we've lived here and gotten the chance to know Alyson Brown and Amanda Stanek, the two assistant's wives so well.  We've come to lean on eachother since our husband's spent a lot of time away from home with their jobs.     

But somewhere in that move to Louisburg, I lost myself and it took some time and some serious soul-searching to realize that I wasn't the same person anymore.  It was a terrifying realization at the time, yet it led me on a journey of self-discovery that has changed my life forever.