Miracle! (not the whip kind)

I've been thinking a lot about miracles lately. And blessings. I can't decide if they're the same thing. They're probably not, but also they kind of are. For example, is it a miracle that I'm writing again after a year and a half, or is it a blessing for all of you? Why not both?

My exhausted declaration that "it's just been one of those days" has been going on for a couple of weeks now, and I can't seem to shake it. All the while, I seem to be finding a multitude of opportunities to preach joy. "We can be happy in all our circumstances! The turmoil of the world shouldn't affect the peace we feel inside" I say before I go home and cry myself to sleep. Please just read that sentence and then keep going without thinking about it because I promise I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad for me. Let's move on!

So miracles. I've been pondering them lately, and I have been trying to remember the events surrounding Josh's death almost three years ago. It's actually a real scientific thingy that trauma can cause memory loss (yes, "thingy" is the technical term obviously). A month after he died, I went with my mom to a devotional where Elder Holland was the speaker, and I remember NONE OF IT. Elder Holland, you guys! Whilst in the middle of my grief and shock and having-a-newborn phase, I definitely didn't take much time to think about the miracles/blessings that occurred. I didn't even want to. Because I was mad and sad and also sort of a zombie who forgot how to think or smile. But now I feel like it. So here's a list! (I think making lists is genetic, and my mother has a serious case of it, so it's only natural I would too.

• That we went to the hospital when we did (and that I have parents who told me we needed to). There are many things that I had to work through and go to therapy for to deal with the fact that Josh's death wasn't my fault. I still sometimes feel like it was, but those feelings happen way less often now. Progress! We went to the doctor more than once when he was sick, and of course it was just this crazy fluke disease that got very aggressive very quickly so it didn't get caught the first time around. Things still did not go in our favor, but I am still haunted by the thought that maybe we would have never gone and I would have just come home one day and would have found him and I can't think about this anymore.
• My stupid cholestasis that I stupid wrote about before any of this stupid happened that got stupid quoted back to me all the time. I hope you all got that because I'm not rewriting it to make it clearer. Basically, having a liver disease that could potentially affect my baby scared the crap out of me, but in the end I had to deliver three weeks early, and Josh got to meet Logan. Miracle!
• I happened to meet with the right doctor before going in to deliver. I went to a practice where you could see any of the doctors there depending on your visit. There was one who didn't think we needed to deliver as early as we did. Thank goodness for Dr. Broberg being all, "no we're definitely going three weeks early." You the man.
• Bonus to that one. When I went in two days before I had Logan, I explained the whole situation and I was very much under the impression that he was adamant about delivering while Josh was still in the hospital. Later I discovered that he thought it was me who was really adamant about it. I feel like that is one of those tiny miracles that you don't really notice but ends up being huge.
• Our nurses. These beautiful and hardworking saints got me through the hardest time of my life. They all deserve raises,
• My parents living in Utah (and taking me in). I can't even imagine what I would have done if my parents had decided to retire to Hawaii. They of course didn't even hesitate to let me live with them and they have done more for me than I can even begin to articulate. Just know that I'm shedding tears as I write this. 
• Logan. When he was born he was the greatest baby on the block. He was a seriously good baby who came to the world easy and was pretty much just super chill for a good few months there. And even now he is just my very favorite person. He is full of light and hope and I look at him and it makes me whole.
• I'm not putting this last one in bold because it seems to harsh right up front. Also it's a blessing not a miracle. I just need you to bear with me on this. Don't make harsh judgments right away, and just listen for a second. Josh's death was a blessing in my life. DON'T QUIT ON ME JUST YET. First of all, it is a blessing that I would return in a fraction of a heartbeat. I would take my sweet husband back over any of the things I just listed here. I would trade him for any of the growth I have had over the last three years. But I can't. And so I find the good. At the widows conference I attended a while back, we had a speaker who said his wife dying was the best thing that ever happened to him. And maybe that's not the best way of putting it. And maybe calling it a blessing isn't the best way to putting it. But I understood him. I wouldn't say that Josh's death was the best thing that ever happened to me, but I would say that I have been blessed more because of it than any other event in my life.

There are obviously many other blessings and miracles in the tiniest moments of those days that I may never realize or remember. Or others that I do remember, but I'm just not going into it all right now. Every time I write I am afraid of upsetting someone with my words, or saying something the wrong way. But today I needed you all to know how I feel. In this time of trial I am experiencing, I truly want anyone who reads this to know that good can come from anywhere. That joy can be felt always. That "happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light." The light is a metaphor, you see? And yes, that quote is from Dumbledore.