I can hardly express my thank to everyone who helped us honor Miranda over the past week.

Here are some numbers for you…

• The Remembering Miranda post was published on February 21st.
• There were 1,019 views to her page.
• 28 generous people donated in her name.
• The link to her page was shared over 40 times (I was unable to track any postings that weren’t among my immediate friends but I know there were some)!!
• At least $700 was raisied (I was only able to track numbers from the PayPal donate button, I do not have amounts for donations that went directly to NORD).

I am incredibly grateful and humbled by the love we’ve received from you all.

I am excited to announce that the Diantha shawl will be heading to Tennessee! ((Emy)) I plugged the numbers into random.org and

#5 was selected. Emy was #5 on my spreadsheet of donators and I was blessed to know that this special shawl was going to another momma that has lost a precious blessing. I pray that this shawl is like a hug from me, Miranda and your Joy! <3

Again my heartfelt thank you to everyone that helped spread the word about Alveolar Capillary Dysplasia and other rare diseases. Thank you for showing love for our Miranda.

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But we live in a generation when a great deal of our interaction is with a computer screen, or a text message, or an email.

Sometimes I get a little miffed about that. Why can’t we have real-life interaction, or even a phone conversation?

And then a child screams in the background and I remember…

• I can never speak uninterrupted for more than a few minutes seconds.
• My quiet times are usually when it would be considered rude to ring someone’s phone.
• Getting out the door (and remaining in a good mood) with five children just doesn’t always keep its original appeal.

My first real introduction to “virtual” society was after I had Evan. He often woke through the night and once I was up, well, it was hard to shut off my brain and get back to sleep. I had recently started scrapbooking and found my way to the message boards on Creating Keepsakes magazine’s website (it’s changed quite a bit since I first participated) and later the 2Peas board. I could chat with other scrapping moms while I tried to rock him back to sleep and slow myself down to get back to bed. I even got a chance to meet some of these women at scrapbooking conventions I attended.

When I started cloth diapering I found the Diaper Pin and later Hyena Cart. The community at HC was great, I even met up with local women from there and made friends I might not have met otherwise. I also opened my shop at HC. The support and encouragement I received from early on was awesome.

Then of course there is Ravelry… where life and technology seemingly combine. I joined Ravelry while it was still in beta testing. I could keep track of all my knitting projects, search through a database of patterns and match up the yarn I had with projects I wanted to make, and I could also take peeks at what my friends were making. There are forums on there too by interest groups. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a bunch of the ladies from there at Stitches, MD Sheep and Wool Festival, and the Homespun Yarn Party. So much fun!!

After Nate was born my sisters introduced me to Facebook. Still not sure whether that was a good thing.

But honestly, I never really appreciated my virtual life until Miranda was born.

Prayer requests went out instantly. We could keep everyone updated at the push of a button. I was able to find and ECMO parent group to send messages to for information and support from people who had walked the path and made it to the other side.

… and when she died.

Instead of silence I had support. I could blog about what was going on and people responded. They reached out to me. I was pointed towards infant loss groups, blogs from other moms who were missing their lost little ones, resources for grief support. I got so many messages from family and friends, near and far, close relationships and mere acquaintances, and messages from people I’d never met but had heard about our Miranda from someone else. I could send messages to other moms from the communities I’d been a parts of for so many years that sadly have also suffered the loss of a child, women whom I’ve never met face-to-face but have one of the most intimate connections. They’re willing to listen to whatever I may need to rant about without judging because they’ve felt many of the same disappointments, frustrations, milestones, etc.

I’ve found that there are other Christian women who’ve experienced the loss of their precious child or husband and not turned their back towards God. These are my sisters in Christ with a bond that is unimaginable to someone on the outside of it.

I’m so incredibly thankful for the amazing support, friendships, and relationships I have in “real” life. I can’t express that enough to them.

But I also cannot imagine how this journey would be if my “virtual” life wasn’t what it is.

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We were ready…

or so we thought.

When the train derailed in three hospital transfers all my expectations deflated. During our month with Miranda in the PICU my children saw my husband and I every day, but schooling was probably the lowest item on our priority list. We were unintended unschoolers for the time. Francesca loves school and she kept on reading with the skills I had already worked with her. She SOARED through books, using what she already knew and taking those tools to figure out what she didn’t. Evan and Andrew worked on science projects. A little more than I was ready for, but they were experimenting and it was good. Evan worked diligently at the keyboard. He started using the lessons that are programmed in and all I can say is WOW! He has been gifted with an incredible ear and formal lessons are certainly in his future.

When Miranda died I just wasn’t able to focus on school.

I wanted too.

I craved routine during a time when nothing was routine.

I didn’t have the heart to fight with my pencil-phobic boys.

I needed easy.

I’ve had enough challenge.

The children continued to attend their weekly homeschool gym class and I was encouraged by my oversight group to take my time settling back in.

As the calendar year wound down I prayed and contemplated what “school” should look like moving forward. Do we pick back up where we left off? Do we scrap it and start again since they may have forgotten everything we had done? Do we move forward in “survival mode” just covering the basics until this school year ends?

The answers weren’t coming easily.

Do we put them back into public school?

So I had to re-evaluate why we were homeschooling in the first place.

Putting them back in public school was not the answer. How could I usher my children onto a bus to be away from us for the majority of their wake hours while they were in the midst of grief. I couldn’t place them in an environment where they couldn’t freely share that their sister had died, that they believed God has her in Heaven, that Jesus had died so that they could one day be in Heaven too. I couldn’t expect them to productively function in the world that never knew their sister or the huge impact her too few days would forever have on us all.

One question answered.

Moving forward in survival mode wasn’t an option either. Sure we could trudge through math and reading and the very basics of education, but to what purpose? The decision to homeschool was not only about academics, it was about building into our children to prepare them for life. Pressing forward with the minimum requirements would not achieve our family goals.

Another question answered.

Our collective self-esteem would not handle scrapping what we’d done to start again. We needed to not look back.

One more question gone.

Pick up where we left off? After almost THREE months off? It seemed crazy.

But it worked.

Once again God showed His hand in how He orchestrates all things for good. Last year I reported to the county, this year we are under an oversight group. Last year I pieced together a very eclectic set of curricula and I often felt overwhelmed at the thought of covering every subject the state requires, this year I am using an organized complete curriculum from Heart of Dakota(HoD).

I still sometimes feel overwhelmed, but not about making sure my children are covering what needs to be done. HoD has done the foot work for me and I just get to teach and train.

We haven’t had a week go by without any hitches yet, but we are moving forward. They are learning, through books and more importantly through the life that God has given us and the season He is currently carrying us through.

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For as long as I can remember I’ve always loved journaling. I may not have ever filled a journal completely but there are probably dozens of books with my scribbling in existence. I was even the editor of my high school yearbook so that I could have an opportunity to make my yearbook the record that I really wanted it to be. Once I had children I jumped into scrapbooking. Then I had more children and there was just no time to scrapbook. I still had so many things I wanted to remember though, so I dove into the world of blogging. My first posts were back in 2006! Living in different states than all of our extended family members made blogging an opportunity to share our daily lives with those we love that we’re far away from. I’m pretty sure only family members read my posts for the longest time. My blog is linked to most of the places I participate in online so I’ve gotten a few reads here and there throughout the years, from crafting sites, homeschooling sites, Hyena Cart, online mom communities and so on.

When Miranda was born my blog was silent, I didn’t know how to share about her just yet, wasn’t sure I wanted to go “public” with her so I went back to a paper journal and started recording her life story.

When she died I knew I wanted to blog. I had so much to write and my pen just wasn’t moving fast enough.

All of a sudden people were reading and responding to what I was saying in numbers I never expected.

So here I am navigating this blogging thing with a mind for what lies ahead. Do I really have something to add to the world of blogging? Is my story different enough to receive interest but also just as much relatable? Can I be consistent in posting? Do I have to be focused on one thing? Will I have to chose to be a craft blog? A homeschooling blog? A baby-loss blog? Can I be a little of all of that? Or, should I continue on just journaling our life?

Why am I even asking these questions?

When I started blogging Miranda’s story I had an audience and people started subscribing. I read a (few) post(s) by Amy at Raising Arrows about the 2:1 Conference for blogging homeschool moms, she challenged her readers to consider whether God was calling them to take their blogs further and to consider if attending the convention was in His plans. I’ve been thinking about it often and am praying for Him to open the door if that is what He wills. Amy offered an opportunity to win a ticket to the conference by blogging about why you wanted to go. I missed the deadline. Today I saw that Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers was also opening up that opportunity! I couldn’t miss a deadline again.

I’m continuing to pray that I use this blog for purposes that bring glory to my Savior. I may not speak His name in every post, but I hope my life proves that Jesus is the center without me needing to use words.

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