Minister

 I feel like journaling about this. I don't know why I'm not a more private person and why I feel like posting it here, but whatever. This last weekend we had a miscarriage. Well, we made my body miscarry because the baby no longer had a heartbeat. To arrange babysitting, I let a couple of my closest friends know that very first day--throughout which I mostly cried (and through some incredible miracle of the heavens, Sterling was there for). Thank goodness for the ease of texting.

My friend, who has a heart of gold and is everyone's best cheerleader, and the world's best ministering sister (and who is not of my LDS faith and has no idea what that means to me)---immediately left her kids with a friend and came over to my house. Came upstairs, knocked on my bedroom door (where I had to quickly throw clothes on, because apparently I like to mourn naked), and crushed me in a hug. We both sobbed and she said "I know you probably don't want me here, but I just had to come and hug you. And tell you that I love you." She sat down on the bed and we hugged and sobbed some more, and then she said "Excuse my language, but fuuuuuuuuuuck." and we both sobbed harder.

Since then we have received, from her and other great friends in our beautiful village here, meals and treats and flowers and babysitting and all of the wonderful things that have buoyed us up. Honestly, I have never been so well taken care of and felt such an outpouring of love. We have had other really hard times when I cried and prayed to God that someone would notice us and help...and even though we made it through, it has never been like this. And I just can't be grateful enough. 

But that one swear word? Man, talk about bearing another's burden and mourning with those who mourn. Nothing else felt so sincere and so right. It encompassed all of my feelings and made me feel seen. She immediately left me to myself so she wouldn't be a bother, and later gave her secret knock at my door (she has a secret knock with Ruthie, because she doesn't mind Ruthie coming over to help her with the kids whenever, but other neighbors are not so welcome HAHA), and handed me a bag of ice cream and chocolate bars. Still feeling pregnant, the dairy has not been good to me, so I didn't really want to eat any of it. But she knew me, she knew thats exactly what I would theoretically want, and she brought over a whole pile. Which is incredibly thoughtful because five years ago she brought me wine. In all honesty, she probably wanted to bring me wine-I can hear her saying that if there was ever a time for a Mormon to drink alcohol, it would be now (she didn't, but I can hear it). But she brought me ice cream and chocolate because she knew me. So I could cry it all out all over again.