Ivy my beloved

The ridges of the stone felt sharp and crisp against my fingers.  The tips of each one questing into each groove and notch.  Alternating from a rough ridge to a smooth straight side....The day was warm and a gentle breeze was whispering through the grass making a small rustling sound as my fingers gently caressed the word "beloved" on Ivy's headstone.  I knelt at her grave silently tears rolling unnoticed down my face.  My precious child wrapped tightly in her favorite blanket so close....so close....no earthly way was left for me to reach her though no matter the distance.

If I could only imagine one more day to be with you.  We would be completely alone.  Just your mom and sisters would be allowed in.  A jumping, rolling knot of playing sisters as Ivy tagged along after her older siblings....wanting so much to be like them and of course snuggling against her mother their long hair entwining as Ivy kisses her cheek.  No feelings of love would go unshared, no laughter withheld.  This long jagged cut in my soul erased as if it had never been....no more grief, sadness and anger only pure joy at the thought of our family being together again.

That is what I could imagine.

As I knelt in front of her gravestone, my fingers pressed so hard into the cold unyielding stone I saw another person.  At first I took them to be a visitor like myself but then realized that they were cutting through the cemetary to reach a destination.  All of my sadness left and changed to anger.  What gave this person the right to disturb me in this moment of peace with my child.  How can my tears and grief not stand out like a beacon among stones.  The emotions I was feeling were so intense they must be visible to others!  But the person noticed not.  Not that I was crying,  Not that I had such anger,  not that my beloved daughter lay beneath my feet.  How I thought.  How can they not see and know such a powerful thing.  Such a thing that has changed my life forever.  I thought these things as I glared at the person and then I noticed the person was actually a young man of around eight.  My anger extinguished as I grappled with my intense emotions and I felt a guilt rising in me.  What right did I have to feel angry at anothers child?  How could I have these angry emotions that overcame my sense of loss right here at my daughters grave?

I prayed again on her grave and asked for strength to make it just one more day.  Then for one more after that.  Most of all I prayed for her to know my love for her.

I love you Ivy and miss you
Love as always,  Daddy

Ivy's Promise

I know in my heart tonight a feeling of peace.  A light in the corner that glimmers slightly has suddenly burst into full flame and lit the dark corners of my soul.  A reason.  A promise.  A goal.  All these and more formed from evasive broken pieces of thought and grief into a strong resolve!  A powerful shout echoes through the clamoring of guilt and denial in my head.......What is this light?  What is this noise?  My daughters love.  Ivy would not want me to be saddened by her death.  She would not with me pain, suffering and grief.  No!  She would do what she did everytime she saw that I was sad.  She would lay her cheek against mine her soft hair curling around us and tell me she loved me.  Don't be sad Daddy.  So I look at my life.  How am I honoring her memory by burying it in sadness and grief?  Why shouldn't I laugh and feel love at the memory of her running into my arms to be held.  Why not feel the wind fresh on my face and think not of death but of the love she had for her family.  The love that I am resolved to provide in her stead.  How I will make my wifes tears into smiles, my childrens sadness into laughter.

Ivy.  I promise.

Love with happiness in my heart for all the wonder you continue to bring into our lives
Always a proud daddy of Three!
Daddy.

Ivy's Valentine

I knew this one was going to be a tough day.  Valentines, the day you share your heart with the ones you love.  When our twin 6 year old daughters came home today from first grade they each had smiles from ear to ear.  Bags and big candy hearts filled their hands, excitement glowing in each of their eyes.  I was so happy to see them like this, pure innocence and enjoyment from a wonderful day. 

I try not to dwell on my Ivy but it stirs my heart tonight.  Ivy would you be my valentine?  Could my gift be one more day to bask in your love.  One more day to share my heart.  

If I could give you my valentine my dear this is some of what it would contain....A droplet of water shed from my eyes because of pure joy.  A wisp of the warm south wind that has risen off a grove of trees smelling fresh and alive.  A burst of starlight to spread around your hair to catch and twinkle in each curly lock.  The sound of rustling leaves in a quite warm forest glen.  A soft touch of sunset to bathe your face and light your eyes.  And most of all you would feel.......my heart, and the infinite love it holds for you.

As always Ivy 

love Daddy

Ivy's meanderings

So that last one was kind of depressing wasn't it?  I know I went back through it later and just kind of cringed.  But let me tell you something...honest feelings expressed are never wrong.  Honest feelings kept locked inside are poison.  I know many of you that read that last one were very concerned for me and you will all never know how much I appreciate it and love you all for it.

But let me share something else about my writing....it is theraputic for me.  It allows thoughts, many of them crazy or wacky to be expressed.  To find a way to the surface and allow me to hold them up and look at them honestly, to sort them and address each one as needed.  As soon as I hit the final enter key on that post I felt physically and emotionally better.  In fact contrary to what alot of you probably got out of that most of my days are better.  Not great or even good but.....better.  I still have certain days where I just have to let it out or I swear it would just eat me alive inside if I tried to keep all that in.  It warms my heart and soul when people share links about my little blog and others that I don't even know comment on it and I know Ivy's memory is alive and well in many hearts.

I love my wife and twins more then they can ever know and as for my little Ivy I am pretty sure it's obvious that I will always consider my self a father of THREE.

A little different this time
Love from Ivy and her Daddy to all of those who support us.

Justin Hayes
PS "love daddy"

Ivy's Night

Night falls fast across the landscape of my soul today.  I strive to find the faintest glimmer of light across the desolate flats.  I know that I have fallen into a deep depression today brought on by many factors but mostly lack of sleep and the most important...the absence of my daughter.  I reach desperately for meaning but I just can't make my self care about anything today.  On phone calls and conversations I could not even make decisions because I felt so emotionally and physically drained.  I told myself "I don't care."  I told myself "it does not matter what happens next because it can't get any worse than this".  Then my wife came and laid next to me in tears because she was so worried about me.  And my selfish walls that I had built around me today started to crumble.  The don't care attitude was beaten and stomped down by the power of her pain.  Pain because of me.  Pain because I was not strong enough to be the man that she needed me to be.  I feel like I have failed my family I am suppose to be the strong one!  Not the one weeping in the burnt out coals of a cold hearth.  Where have my feelings gone? To completely desert me and leave me cold and numb.  Physically and emotionally unable to even carry on a normal conversation other then yes, no or don't care.  The only emotion I can still feel keenly is the sharp blade of grief that buries it self in my heart every time I think of Ivy.  My chest heaves and tears stream down my face but I don't even care enough to notice who is watching me.  The part of me that I need desperately need o find, the part that never gives up, the part who would be the man that Ivy would want me to be is lost in this wilderness.  I pray to god that I can find that person again.  I pray that someone, somewhere will be able to tell me how to get back to that secret hidden path. 

I admit it.  I am afraid and I need help.  I need people to leave a comment to pull my head out.  I need people to leave a note that says everything will be better.  I need her memory to be shared with as many people as possible and never forgotten.  I feel that the love off my family and friends is the only way back to the sunlight and happiness of life.  A life where the cool breeze of a brisk day evokes thoughts of walks among autumn trees.  A stream chuckles over rocks and down a gully making it's noisy way through the hills and leaving a tang of freshness you can taste from the spray.  And most important the touch of 's hand on mine.  To know that I am not alone,  that touch upon my soul from a divine source to grant comfort.

Please......

Ivy as always
Love, Daddy.  And forgive me for not being strong enough...

Ivy's Memory

This blog has been one or the most difficult things of my life.  When Ivy died I thought it could not get any worse than this.  Nothing in life will be this bad,  this terrible....this unthinkable.  But as I found the funeral past and the days changing I found something else to match it.  Memories.
I truly believe that memory's are a way to connect with our past and bring it back into our present.  Sometimes this can be a blessing while other times a painful hardship.  Our family went to visit Ivy today and it was just to difficult to pull up to the cemetery with the expectation of painful memory's and today was no exception.

One of the memory's that bring me to tears most often is the last time we talked.  I had taken her to the emergency room to be checked because we were worried about her,  afterward we were leaving the hospital with her prescription and I had her all wrapped up in her little blankie that she loved so much.  She had her long curly hair pressed against my cheek as she leaned in against me and told me she loved me.  Then she said the oddest thing, she asked if I would always protect her.  I promised her I would.  This memory and this promise come to mind everyday.  The pure love she had for me as she snuggled close.  A childs innocence still with her and the promise of a long and happy future was assured.  We had just left the hospital and gotten that reassurance that a worried parent needs.

Now away from the memory's and into the morrow we must move.  Thoughts of her will fill my mind at all times and places,  in school, driving, and at home.  During sacrement meeting I can no longer stay for all the meetings.  I sit close to the back with my family and bow my head to hide the tears that pour forth.  Not a single Sunday meeting has gone by without my tears running the entire time.  We had her funeral in that very chapel and the memory glimmers at me just out of the corner of my vision a constant reminder, something that I must look at like a flashing light.  This and other places have become a memory that I cannot escape.

Others say things to friends and family and you eventually hear some of them.  Things like "they are not the same person" or "They are taking it very hard".  True statements both of them along with others.  Not meant in an unkind way but a statement from a caring individual.

Do I go out and see movies with friends?  Or take the family out to do something fun?  Sometimes....not nearly as often as before.  It is hard to find joy in anything.  Books become a hardship rather than a relaxation.  A movie becomes a reminder rather then a distraction.  Lunch with a friend becomes a chore as you "try and be normal".

Can the beauty of life be found again?  I remember days before her death with clarity and vividness while the days following drag on with tedium and grayness.

The things I need most the support of my family and friends is wonderful.  The outpouring of love and especially the comments about my blog and followers of it help me feel that there are some people out there that might understand.  So please if you are my brother, my friend, my cousin, an aquaintance or even someone who I have not had the chance to be friends with yet or a complete stranger, leave your comments. Share your thoughts.  Help me make some new memory's that might be as bright and as strong as those that I have for my little one.

As always Ivy....
Love Daddy

Ivy's Faith

I miss her.  I miss her so much.  My heart feels like it is being ripped out.  And in it's place nothing remains.  No more joy.  No more happiness.  Nothing to strive or reach for.  Just the grief.  Just the pain.  Just remembering her soft hair pressed against my cheek the last time I talked to her and she asked me to protect her always.  And I did.  I did promise.  She told me she loved me and called me daddya.  Her special name for me.  And I just took her home.  Not knowing...not thinking that 24 hours later I would be holding her at a different hospital as her last breath escaped her tiny body.  My cheek snuggled against her hair this time telling her how much I loved and needed her.  I tried to make a deal with god.  I promised I would take her place.  I promised my eternal happiness for her just to open her eyes...to not die.  To not leave.  I begged.  I begged like I had never before.  Anything from me to save her.  Anything....to protect her...   But my words were as leaves in the Autumn...clinging as long as they can before falling to earth to be blown away.

God I am begging again.  Please...please listen to my prayers and give me some measure of comfort.  Let me know she is there waiting for me.  Please help me hold to my faith because it is all I have left...all that I have left of her and I can't lose it.  I just can"t.

Ivy if you can hear or see or understand any of this please help me hold my faith.

Love Daddy.