Olive’s Blog

I recently made a connection with someone all the way in England who has found me through this blog, which is pretty cool since I considered this blog to have been just floating around in cyberspace, forgotten.  Sadly, our connection is because the baby she’s carrying has also been diagnosed with Potter’s Syndrome/Sequence.  She has older children and therefore has the difficult decision to make of how and when to tell them, which got me thinking about Reid.

She inspired a conversation I had with Reid, asking him if he remembered Olive. He said “yeah” but couldn’t give me specifics. So, I showed him her photo album and told him about how she was only here for a short time and then went to Heaven. I told him how much we missed her, but we knew we would see her in heaven. He humored me, but mostly just made it clear that he was disappointed I hadn’t gotten the Star Wars pop-up book off the shelf instead!

That had, however, initiated conversations between Reid and me about heaven over the following couple weeks.  I contemplated whether or not I wanted to hold off on the subject of death.  He is only three.  Would I be robbing him of his right to be carefree?  No, I decided.  I want my kids to grow up understanding that this life and the world around us is temporary.  There’s more.  So, when I was buckling him into his car seat the other day and he asked me if he could go to God’s house, I explained,  ”Yes, you could.  When you die, if you have given your life to Jesus, then you will get to go to God’s house.  

“When I die?”  he asked innocently.  

“Yes,” I answered.  ”We’re all going to die.  We’re only here for a little while and then we’ll get to be with God in heaven, His house.  Mom and Dad will be going there and Olive is already there.  She was only here for a little while and now she’s with God.”  

He seemed to be following me.  ”At God’s house?” he asked.  

“Yes!  Heaven!”   I responded.  

“Will He take me to the farm?” he asked sincerely.

“I’m pretty sure He would love to.” I answered.

Next month is Olive’s second birthday.  What am I still doing here??  The year following Olive’s big debut, I granted myself a spiritual leave of absence.  It was as if I had thought and prayed harder during that pregnancy than ever before in my life and when it was over I just turned my brain and heart off.  I drowned out any thoughts about God because they led to questions I couldn’t answer.  I felt as if I so hugely misinterpreted who He is when I sought him more than ever before, that I couldn’t help but wonder if I ever knew him at all.  Confronting those questions led to my wondering if I’ve created every encounter I’ve ever thought I’ve had with Him in my imagination.  

After about a year, I had a dream.  It was as if all that suppressed stuff was forcing its way to the surface through my subconscious.  In this dream I was in a dimly lit, black room with a stage, much like the iMusicast room that Regeneration met in when I first gave my life over to Jesus.  There was a red telephone on the stage.  I was pretty sure I was dead and was in some kind of limbo.  I was in one of the seats among others below waiting for my turn.  Then it came.  I somehow knew God was on the line.  With much hesitation I answered.  God had the voice of a large, older, southern black woman (and no, I hadn’t yet read “The Shack“).  God asked me if there was an olive in my martini.  And like we often do with surrealistic dreams, I knew what He was asking.  And yes, there was an olive in my martini, I confessed.  I had put Olive between us.  That’s all I remembered. 

I knew God was telling me it was time.  My L.O.A. had come to an end.  Trying to confront questions which I cannot answer led to my questioning of every God encounter I’d ever thought I had, major and minor.  After believing for about seven years that I was part of a grand plan of a great and loving god, I cannot articulate the pain in sincerely contemplating if it all really is random, death is death, and on top of that my Olive really is gone.  To say that it was an uncomfortable process would be an understatement.  At one point I cursed God for reminding me where my flash drive was.  I did.  See, we have this thing, God and I, where, when I lose something important, I ask Him where it is and He tells me.  So, after searching every possible place I could think of and still coming up dry, it occurred to me to ask the one true know-it-all.  I got on my knees, quieted my head, and said to him something along the lines of, “Hi.  I know we haven’t talked for a long time… But I lost my flash drive… And I know you know where it is, so if you’d like to let me know…”  And of course it came to me.  I should have been grateful.  I should have been ecstatic.  Instead, I was more like WTF??  (Sorry mother-in-law and everyone else who reads this whom I respect.  But really, WTF?????)  ”Ok, so you’re really there.  So, where WERE you?????”  I was devastated.

However, I came to the conclusion that I still believe.

So, then what?  I tried signing up for a few women’s bible studies because, well, that’s what you do, right?  I recall worship sessions being like a flood of arguments in my head about the truth in the lyrics projected on the screen in front of me.  I hated it.  It felt like my skin was being clawed off, not to be dramatic.  I remember, despite all the arguments proceeding in my head about the teachings in the studies, receiving nuggets of gold that would surely help me move on into a “normal” walk with God.  But then I’d forget what they were.  

I can’t say I didn’t think this would happen if Olive wasn’t healed.  I was well aware.  I guess I just didn’t expect it to take so long to overcome.  She’d have turned two this November.  And here I am.  I am happy and blessed.  I love my life.  I know I lack a certain joy, though.  I don’t pray.  I don’t know how anymore.  They hit the ceiling, if you know what I mean.  I keep looking for something… Something to jolt me out of this funk.  A key.  A breakthrough.  Nothing. 

Despite my frustration in my need for some tangible means to move forward, I’m beginning to understand that I’m right where I’m supposed to be and I need to just be.

Insight welcome.

Blogging via my phone from the parking lot of the Social Security office, so please excuse the broken sentences and any typos…

I’m sure anyone who reads this can share in my dislike of tax-filing, call trees, mail from the IRS that doesn’t include a check, filling out cryptic forms which require instructions for their instructions, repeated recordings about how important your call is while waiting on hold only to be put on hold longer, and wasting half a day at the social security office (or any government office for that matter), especially when it turns out you actually didn’t need to go there in the first place.   That’s right.   I’m ranting.

Long story, short:
1.  Claimed Olive on our 2007 taxes (tax lady said we get the exemption for the whole year, as she was a “live birth” and we think Olive would’ve wanted it that way). =)
2.  Ordered official birth certificate and sent with tax filing.
3.  Received tax return, less Olive’s exemption with a letter from IRS denying exemption w/out a social security number (SSN) for her.
4.  Tax lady said to order official death certificate and send with official birth certificate to IRS with 1040x Amend form, writing “deceased” in SSN field.
5.  IRS responds with letter insisting on an SSN, or tax ID number (ITIN) if not eligible for an SSN, in order to file our return and claim the exemption.
6.  Called Social Security office who told me to fill out an application for an SSN and bring to office with birth and death certificate.
7.  A year and a half later: Social Security office guy tells me, after long wait and Colby taking day off to watch the boys, that they can’t issue new SSN’s for “deceased.” All those things I ranted about above, I very much dislike, but talking to strangers over the phone and through windows with little holes to speak through about my “deceased” daughter… That, I hate… Almost as much as I hate seeing “Never Married” on my daughter’s death certificate.
8.  Anyway, SS guy gives me a W-7 form to fill out and mail to IRS to get Olive’s ITIN.
9.  Once I get her ITIN I can complete another 1040x Amend form and mail it to the IRS to claim the exemption.

Did I mention that this exemption is for $1,200??  I plan to put it towards converting one of our spare rooms into a homeschool classroom.  Hopefully this works and I can save someone else from having to navigate through all this red tape.   Now I’m off to another government office, the DMV, but with a much more exciting purpose: to trade in my motorcycle rider’s permit for my M1 license! First, a stop at In n Out.  I deserve it!