One Desk Short

It's coming. God, it's coming. The first day of school. I guess I was right about one thing...that first day is going to be hard. What I didn't know was why. The first day of every school year is hard. Now with social media, that day is full of pictures of kids dressed and ready for the day. ALL of their kids. That's the part that burns. It actually causes a physical reaction. My stomach will be in knots and it will feel as if someone is holding a lit match to my chest all day long.

I really wanted to feel the "burden" of buying school supplies for four children this year. I wanted so badly to complain about my empty nest and how time has flown and my baby has grown up. I realize now what a gift that complaint would have been. It used to anger me when people complained about things I no longer had the privilege of experiencing. Time has changed anger to encouragement. I say to those who get to experience the gift of this "last" to complain away! Do it. It's a gift you're being given. I'm not saying I'll receive it well, but that should never deter someone from having their own unique experience. I know the stab and twist of pain associated with the first day of school will come. But that's MY gift. It's my perspective and my experience.

Easton should be entering kindergarten this year. Most mothers who have lost children at a young age will tell you that this particular missed milestone is a big one. We notice the children of those mothers whose bellies were swollen right along with us. We see them with their new haircuts, their backpacks that look too big on their little bodies. We see their hesitancy at leaving mom's side. That burns. It causes such a fire inside that we will wonder if others can actually see the flames. We'll be simultaneously happy for them and crushed for our own missed opportunity.

So, dear teacher, this year you will be one student short. He would have had loose curls and brilliant blue eyes. He likely would have been ornery and I would have to apologize for his sheepish, guilty grin. He probably would have needed some extra help and I probably would have been a permanent fixture in your classroom. He would have been kind and loving. He would have been inclusive and brave. He would have held my hand to the door, but then let go willingly to try something new. He would have been amazing. And I'm sorry that you will not have the opportunity to teach him, because he would have had plenty to teach those around him. Teacher, I will watch your class this year from afar. I won't be signed up to bring in the snacks. I won't volunteer at class parties. And you won't see me at the parent/teacher conference. But I will still feel the ups and downs of your school year. I will watch silently as the five year old babies become 6 year old children. I thank you for your willingness to include me and my son in the ways that you already have. I know this year will get very busy. You'll have plenty to do, and time will fly. But, selfishly, I beg of you not to forget that you are one backpack, one set of gym shoes, one desk short. And that my broken heart will be with you and this very special class of 2028.

Happy first day of kindergarten, my precious boy.

I'm Sorry You're Here

It's dark down here in this hole I've grown accustomed to calling "home." Its cold and dark. Sometimes it's quiet and sometimes you can hear the screaming for miles. It's crowded too. But, in some sort of sick and twisted trick of the universe, there will always be room for one more. I wish no one else ever had to come down here, but they do. And we recognize them as they join us.

For the first few days they'll be in such a bizarre tunnel of disbelief that they almost seem energized at times. This couldnt be happening. It isnt real. You can see the utter denial in their faces and body language. That denial is periodically pierced with realization and the stabbing pain it causes them is so powerful that it resonates through all of us. Our wounds are reopened at the sight of fresh agony.

It's an awful club, with forced membership and a lifetime sentence. We are the mothers whose children have left this earth before us. We recognize one another by the vacancy of our eyes. We hurt for one another on a level understood only by us. And we wish with our whole being that our numbers would never grow. But inevitably, they do...one more thing for which we have no control. We are powerless to spare another mother of this horror. So, we learn to live with our pain and lean on one another as we try to remember reasons for breathing.

And so I say to the newest members, the ones stumbling around in the dark of this place, certain that they are alone...we're here. We're here and we're hurting too. We're broken and in pain and at some point during your flailing about, you'll reach out and bump into one of us. We'll offer love and support, but never a fix. We know this can't be undone. The pain can't be removed. In fact, your pain will reignite in us, that same horrifying agony that we see in your eyes. But despite the pitch black that you see before you now, I can offer this...there will eventually be the smallest glimmer of light down here. There is a ladder that will take you out when you need to see the sun for a moment. Don't worry, you won't get there too quickly and you'll even stumble back down a few times on your way up. But there are hands to hold as you climb both ways, because if you'll notice, during your flailing, you ran into us. It's because we still need to be here sometimes. We need the feeling of solitude and the odd comfort of our new friend, grief.

Although it seems impossible to you now, you will find the ladder someday. Reach for those who have gone before you. They know the way. But for right now, scream. Hit things. Hurt. Be angry. Be LIVID. I am so sorry for your pain, dear sister. It's one I wish I would never have to share. I will see you in the dark, even if you can't see me.

"Don't Lick The Light Socket"

I've been doing some "stuff" lately. Stuff that looks an awful lot like living. That can be all-at-once, thrilling and scary, gratifying and guilt-provoking. Regardless, it's been happening...more and more "stuff".

I recently decided that grieving is a lot like being reborn. I found that thought ironic because the beginning absolutely felt like an end, my own death in many ways. I was so confused by the fact that I took another breath after my son took his last. It was a new breath, a broken one, but a breath all the same.

So, in its infancy, grief looks strikingly similar to a newborn. You spend much of your time crying out and flailing about aimlessly. You see things around you but you don't comprehend them. You babble incoherently, and do vritually nothing to ensure your own survival. Essentially, as far as functoning human beings are concerned, you're useless. It's the people around you who contribute to your successes in the quest for survival, not you.

Well, currently I feel like a toddler. I'm figuring out that if I pull up on things and let go of ledges for just a moment, I can sometimes get places on my own. But, like most toddlers, I'm falling a lot during these first steps, and I anticipate many more bruises.

I talked to a friend today on the phone and told her as such and her responose was epic. She said, "well, welcome to toddlerhood. Don't lick the light socket." I laughed out loud, as I often do when talking to her and thanked her for the encouragement. She then added, "you know, it may only look like you're licking the light socket. Maybe you're actually plugging in the vacuum cleaner. But I guess, if you do that, you'll have to vacuum. I'll let you decide if that's a win." Yes, she's a genius, this friend of mine, and I love her for it.

So, as I stumble through my toddlerhood and likely fall more times than I walk, I am trying to remember that I have at least moved past infancy. And although I imagine there will be times that I revert back, I will have at least taken a few more steps along the way.

Maybe these next steps will be great ones. Maybe they'll be the ones that lead to running.

Then again, maybe I'm just licking a light socket.

Leave It To Pixar...

Leave it to Pixar to explain my feelings better than I'm able to do myself.  If you haven't seen the new movie "Inside Out", I encourage you to see it.  It applies to everyone with its excellent description of the emotions within all of us. For me, it helped to give a voice to my own roller coaster of crazy.

I experience so many feelings throughout the course of the day, and all of them stem from my grief in one way or another.  But, that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm "sad."  In fact, I'm never just "sad."  It's true that I have really awful moments in which the pain of my grief threatens to swallow me up and propel me into some kind of dark abyss. However, it's also true that I have incredibly joyous moments.  In fact, I don't believe I had experienced true happiness in a moment until I lost my child.  That sounds very strange, and writing it even feels wrong, but then...it's true.

The thing is, I'm everything all at once.  It's exhausting, but it's also just the way that it is now.  I have incredible moments with my family in which I'm so humbled and grateful for the experience, but simultaneously angry and hurt at the piece that is missing.  One emotion does not negate the other, and I believe they're both equally important to the process. In fact, I think you NEED one to accompany the other.

I think at the beginning of this journey, I too, believed that there was only room for one emotion. For instance, anger couldn't have a partner, and I was confused when it did. It felt "wrong" to be angry and happy at the same time, and not at the hands of anyone else. That feeling of shame came from my biggest critic...me.

I have never before appreciated the happy moments in life with such depth and gratitude, but I think it is BECAUSE of the pain that accompanies the joy. Each moment I experience with my other children feels like a stolen gift, and one that will always be tainted by the loss of my son. On the other hand, his absence makes me appreciate their presence that much more.  They're such incredible little people, and I feel as though I can see that much more clearly from my new "grieving mother" perspective.

My husband and I are still navigating each day as it comes. Some days are good, and some just aren't. Sometimes we take turns, and other times we've both got nothing left. We can now recognize the moments of pain in one another and are occasionally able to attend to the needs of the other person. And sometimes, we can't. What we have seems deeper, stronger, and ironically more broken than ever before. Broken, but not shattered. And maybe we each have enough broken pieces to put them together and create something new.

I know that our lives will always carry with them, the burden of pain and loss. But I also know that though some days that burden will be more than I can bear, sometimes it will be that thing for which I am most grateful.

One Whole Hand

I remember when your brother turned five. He was so excited to be "one whole hand." Five. It seems so much older than four. I wonder what you'd look like? Would you be excited about starting school in the fall? What bookbag would you choose? Would I fall in line with all the other mothers who are "mourning" the last days of their youngest baby being at home with them? I'm certainly mourning, but I wish with my whole heart that it were for that reason.

Sometimes it's hard not to be angry with you, to feel cheated. I know that isn't rational, but grief doesn't really care about that. I'm hurt that you left. I know you had no control over that, but I guess the pain has to go somewhere. I'm angry that instead of feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of returning to work now that my last baby is in school, I'm trying to figure out whether I'll ever be stable enough to do so again. Lately, I've been thinking that answer is probably yes. That doesn't necessarily feel good though. But then I remember that very few things feel wholly "good" or "right". Everything brings this underlying layer of pain or in some ways even worse, ambivalence. It's difficult to be passionate about anything these days. The attempt to do so seems futile.

However, I will say to you, as your fifth birthday approaches, that although we may have no idea what to get you for your birthday, the gifts you've given us have been immeasurable. As we were all crammed in the car the other night, coming home from various activities, I was struck once again by our good fortune. We had been running around all night, chasing your brother and sisters. And why? Because we can. They're healthy. They have friends.

Without you, I would still be trying to "control" nearly every aspect of my life. I would still be obsessed with making life as easy as possible for your siblings. I would still think it was my job to protect them from everything. You changed that for me. That's a gift one can't fully accept on their own. That came from you. Because of your life, your existence, your illness, your death, I KNOW that it isn't my job to "control" anything. Instead, I just get to live. I get to watch your siblings grow and learn, and I do so without fear. I do so without the idea that I need to protect them. All I do is love them as they go along. I watch them as they learn some of the things I already have, as well as teach me the things I could have never learned without them. I thank you for that.

I realize more and more with each passing day how very lucky I am to be your mother. You've taught me strength, generosity, humility, pain, and absolute, unconditional love. I would give it all up to smell your soft curls as I wrap my arms around you one more time, but knowing that this can't be, I'm simply grateful.

Your birthday always brings with it, a new type of pain. It burns and stings and I barely make it through the day. The support of friends and family, and their understanding that this day simply has to be set aside for that pain, is what gets me through it. So tomorrow, as we try to navigate the day, as we send up your 5 lanterns, as we hug and hold one another, send us a sign that you see us and feel our pain. Let us know that you're celebrating too. Know that we miss you with every breath, that we love you with each heartbeat, and that we celebrate your gifts to us on this day that you turn, "one whole hand."

Broken Mother's Memory

As per my usual, I've been awake for hours and it's only 5 am. My mind has my body trapped in that place where the past meets a future that will never exist. It's  a funny thing, the grieving mother's "memory". At first, all I could think about were those last hours. The sights, the smells, the sounds...post traumatic stress at its finest. Eventually, mixed with those gut gripping moments, came memories of happier times. But all of that somehow gets jumbled now with thoughts of a future that my forever baby can never have. It's as if time doesn't exist in the broken mother's memory, at least not time as we know it.

He's going to be 5 soon. Five sounds so much older than 4. That probably has something to do with the fact that a 5 year old is now a school-aged child. I've  never seen my son at 5 years old. And I never will. I won't see him try to carry a backpack that's bigger than he is. I won't see him learn to tie his shoes or read his first sentence from a book. That doesn't make any sense, so I think my mind creates those moments for me. It's like a "memory" from a future that will never exist. Just as I get flashes of the past, I see moments that have never happened as if I'm remembering them in some bizarre, reverse order.

Today is Mother's Day. I'm not a fan of this particular day, but add it to the list of days I wish I could sleep through. I need one more macaroni and fingerprint portrait to make it complete, but it won't come. I need a dandelion bouquet full of ants thrust in my face from the pudgy hand of a preschooler. Maybe today, my broken mother's memory will flash to a time when that happens. Maybe for a split second, that curse/gift of life without time, will take me to a place where I don't have to question my status as a mother of four.

My stomach turns in knots as I write. My brain races forward and backward and forward again. It's a broken mother's memory. It bends the rules of time. In an odd way, I'm grateful for this broken memory of mine. It goes well with my broken heart, and my lungs that don't quite take in enough air. It reminds me of the journey I'm taking. It reminds me that I am a mother in two worlds.

If only macaroni art and fingerpaint handprints could be delivered to both...

The Manual

Sometimes I wonder what it might have been like to have had a manual for this grief thing I'm doing, what it would be like to have one going forward. Of course, one couldn't have existed until now because no one is doing my journey but me. However, if one had existed, I wonder what that would have looked like? I assume that it would contain bullet points, simply because even short clips of information would have been too much for my brain. Maybe it would have looked something like this:

Well, you're here. I won't say "welcome" because that doesn't really suit your current situation. So, I'll just say that you're here.

-First of all, you're going to feel guilty about that. Just being here. You assume you shouldn't be. And that's ok. You'll feel that way for a long time.

-People will tell you that you aren't to blame and that you don't need to feel guilty. These are the people who love you. They're right of course, but it won't matter. You'll still feel it.

-That fire burning in your chest is all you can think about at the moment. It surprises you that it's actual, physical pain that you feel. You can point to the very spot beneath your breast where the heat is so intense that you're surprised that the skin and surrounding structures can endure it. Over time, little by little, as you scream and release pieces of the pain into the atmosphere, that burn lessens. It's never completely gone though, and down the road, there will be moments where it comes back with as much fury as the first day the fire was lit.

-It will be difficult to live in the world. People will not understand you and you will no longer understand them.

-Family will be the hardest. They are the symbol of what is missing. Of all of the people you interact with, these will be the ones whose entire families are laid before you. You will never question "why me?" with more gusto than when family is present. They will or won't understand. It means little to you now because your focus is on breathing and that fire that engulfs your lungs. You will continue the family struggle later, perhaps forever, because it's as if the earth has split and although the roads you travel may run parallel, they will never connect again. You will watch them from afar, and they you. They cannot understand you...you cannot understand them. This will have to be ok.

-Your marriage will hurt you. The person closest to you, the one who walked each awful step with you, will be the one you turn away. The sight of him will make your blood boil, and for reasons you can't even fathom. You'll discover later that this is normal. It will hurt like hell while it's happening. You won't understand it. He won't understand it.  And you'll be powerless to change it.  Somewhere along the way, something will shift and you'll realize that although you thought you'd been traveling alone for some time, it was just that you couldn't see the person walking beside you. The tears had made that impossible. He'll be there. You'll be there. Different versions of both of you, but you nevertheless. And despite the changes, when you reach for his hand, yours will still fit.

-You'll be hurt by things you don't want to affect you. You'll want to be strong enough not to turn away from the woman in the grocery store who is pushing her cart full of diapers and baby food, while trying to distract the child in front of her in the seat. But there will be times when you simply cannot smile at her. The intensity of the flame will surely outlast your desire to be social, as the old you would have been. It's ok to turn away. It won't feel ok, but it will be ok.

-You'll be asked to attend things that grief doesn't allow for. Weddings, birthday parties, showers, family dinners, and gatherings in general will simply be something you can't do. That will feel foreign to you, and may evoke anger in others, but it won't change the truth. Try to give yourself some compassion when those things come along and you can't "make" yourself go.

-You'll be asked why you can't attend. That will be difficult, simply because even having to explain why will hurt. They won't understand. You won't understand how they couldn't, and it will hurt. That will have to be ok too.

-Your kids. Right now they're breathing reminders of what was lost. Your heart breaks for them, but is too focused on its own pain to do much about that. Little by little, you'll get back to them. Friends will help. They'll step in and be the mom you can't for awhile. It's ok that you don't have the words to thank them. They already know.

-Sometimes when you think you're "done" for the day, one of your children will come back in from their beds to cry and ask tough questions. "Why didn't you fight harder?! Why did you give up?! We should have done more! Why wasn't it me instead?!" You'll answer the questions you can, and love through the ones you can't. It will break you all over again. But, when you check on her later in her bed, and the tears on her face have almost dried as she sleeps, you'll softly whisper a thank you. You'll thank her for saying the thing that screams through your mind every day. You'll thank her for causing you to say out loud, the reasons that your decisions were the most loving.

-Your children. They'll be such a source of pain, but that pain is mixed with a beauty that you honestly would have missed before. They're stronger than you could have guided them to be on your own. They're more compassionate than you could have modeled for them. They're more loving than you could have hoped. Yes, they are broken, but beautifully so. Try not to miss out on that beauty. Watch for it through the flames if you have to, but don't miss it.

-There could be a hundred bullet points here. It could go on forever. Your grief will, in one way or another. Honor the process, no matter where it takes you, and realize that there IS a manual. Its pages are out of order, its contents messy, but it does exist. You are writing it as you go...