Five years

Five years. Before I opened my eyes this morning this thought ran through my brain. Five years. Five years ago this morning I woke up and started my day with not a care in the world. I ate my breakfast while reading the paper, dressed and went to my moms. I worked around her house doing those things she wasn't able to do. Around noon I began trying to fix her cable. At 12:30 my phone ran and I almost didn't answer because of frustration with her remote. I wish I never had. That phone call changed our lives. Five years ago today I ran into the emergency room and saw the chaplain walking towards me and I knew. I knew my son was dead. Five years. I sit here this morning and think how can it have been that long since I felt your all embracing hugs and heard your laughter throughout the house? How can it have been five years. It still feels like yesterday. Yes, we have "moved" on. Yes, I continued breathing and living. Something five years ago today I saw as impossible. Yes, the world kept spinning even when I didn't understand how it could. Yes, we have felt joy and happiness when I thought I would never feel anything ever again. How? Through God's grace and mercy. I remember telling God while I waited for Bart and Kyler to arrive that my faith was not big enough to handle this. I told him I was going to fail. I told him I wanted to die right then. I begged Him to take me not Jacob. And while my faith was not big enough and still isn't, my God is. The only reason I am still sitting here this morning and able to take another breath is because of the prayers of others and God. People tell me how strong I am and I am not. I look strong on the outside. I talk about Jacob's death and how we celebrate where he is, not where he isn't. But know that myself and I think I speak for every other mother whose child has died that one never "moves on" or gets over it. I have done as my friend, Theo, told me back five years ago. I have taken that part of me that died that day and tucked it very carefully away in my heart. I closed the door on it and locked it tightly. It weighs my heart down heavily. I know it is always there but I keep it closed tightly. But on days like today when I am alone and no one is around to see me I go to that place and carefully unlock that door. Just the turning of the key brings me to my knees and I weep. I weep as if I was walking that hallway again. I weep as I remember having to face Bart and Kyler and tell them Jacob was dead. I weep as I walk into that ER room and see my child lying on the bed with life drained from him. I weep as I sit, once again, in the room with my family, not able to even hold my head up as we plan his funeral. I weep as I see his precious beautiful body lying in the casket. I weep as we lower his body into the cold dark ground. I weep for the hours of sitting in my living room, alone, waiting for him to come home. I weep for the loss. I miss him more today than I did that day five years ago. How is that possible? How is it possible to grieve even more today for the what will never be? I sit motionless while the tears flow then the racking sobs take over. But after my body is entirely spent, a peace comes over me. One I have felt so many times before. God's loving arms wrap around me and I am reminded of where Jacob is not where he isn't. Jacob's last entry in his prayer journal, "God I want to be focused on you 24/7 and rid of my demons." has been answered. And while my cry from that day five years ago is still true, my faith isn't big enough, my God is. So I wipe the tears, take the key and lock that room back up and tuck it quietly back into my heart. I know I will visit it again, sometimes when I least expect it. And while I know what the cost of visiting is, I will go back there. But I also know that when I am finished and all the tears have been shed and my body lies still, God will pick me up and carry me back to the peaceful moments when He assures me I don't have to be strong, He is. Jacob, I love and miss you. But I rest knowing that I will see you again my precious baby boy.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas my precious son. This is our 5th Christmas without you. Was it easier? No. Was it different? A new normal? Yes. But just because we do different doesn't mean you are forgotten. For I see you everywhere I go? Every Christmas light I see I see your face and hear your voice when you were a small child seeing them for the first time. The excitement and laughter as you oohed and ahhhed your way through. I see you in every ornament you made in school with your tiny hands. I see you in the little boy holding his daddy's hand at the tubing hill saying over and over "Daddy can we do it again? Daddy can we? Can we?" I see you in every package wrapped and stocking hung. You loved Christmas, you loved giving, you loved getting. I so vividly remember your last Christmas and the thrill as bed time approached and at 23 you made your brothers all sleep in one room so you would wake up together Christmas morn. Your favorite gift out of all we bought, the blinking Christmas cup. I still have that cup. I take it out each Christmas and hold it with my eyes closed remembering the way you drank out of it for weeks. You see you are with us every moment. We pretend we have moved on, we gather together and act like life is fine. But for me son I still miss you so very much. I still look around the room when the family is gathered and know that you are missing. I still start to buy 3 of everything. I still pull your stocking out and cling to it knowing that it will still be empty again this year. I will never be over it. I will never have my heart mended. I will always wake up Christmas morning and know that I still miss you as much as the day you left. But I know that while we suffer through our time on earth that you are celebrating with Christ himself. And while I would wish you back immediately if I could your view is so much better where you are. Rejoice with the King, and hold tight to Nana and Poppa. Someday, we will all be together again and celebrate Christmas as a family. But until that time I miss you. I miss you everyday but a little more tonight, our 5th Christmas without you. Merry Christmas I love you my precious baby boy.

Happy Birthday Traditions

Today before I even open my eyes I know what day it is. My first born's birthday. What a day of celebration. One that use to, even when he became an adult, started with a birthday scavenger hunt. We would wake him up and with long bedhead hair, video as he stumbled half asleep through the clues and hints until he finally found his birthday present. When I even suggested, at his 21st birthday, that we might not have this scavenger hunt he balked with all his might. Traditions. That is what knits a family tightly together. Traditions. Songs that stick in our head from days when we rocked our children to sleep, You Are My Sunshine, to nightly rituals of texting, Night, love you. These traditions bring comfort that life is right and no matter what else happens in the world our family is united and tied to each other. Comfort. Knowing that no matter how the world treats you and turns upside down you can always come home to family and life will be the same. My kids thrive on tradition. But when a child, your child, their brother, dies traditions change. The world is no longer spinning like it once did. For people trenched in tradition, uncertainty abounds around every corner. How does life go on? How do you have holidays? Birthdays? Family dinners? Even something as simple as going to a restaurant and saying "seating for 4 not 5." I balked at changing tradition so I ran. First Christmas, I made the entire family, not just the four of us but all of Bart's family go on a cruise. Why? I could not fathom the idea of waking up Christmas morning and their only being 2 Santa Claus piles. So I ran and took others with me. I never fixed certain meals because they were too painful to make. I changed the seating, the numbers, added more, the pictures. But finally you have to stop. The third Christmas my middle child said, no more. I want to have Christmas at home. I want to create new traditions. So we did. And somehow this tradition true family let go. We have Christmas and the other holidays at home. Home, where once again we are steeped in new traditions. The bedrooms are changed, new pictures are made. New memories are formed and the old start to fade away. But on this morning, my son's 27th birthday, some traditions are just too hard to forget. I lay in bed and dream of happier days when I would wake that tousled head young man who was taller than me and play out the tradition of birthday scavenger hunt. As the tears trickle down, I pray that somehow God let him have his tradition. That he hugged him tight and told him his momma loves and misses him so much and that no matter how much life changes I will cling to my memories of traditions.

There must be a compromise

As I encounter more and more parents whose children have died and watch the harsh painful reality of anguish set in I hear myself telling them to have hope. That right now the pain is so unbearable, unfathomable but it will get better with time. I share with them my pain and how today I stand in front of them to show how they will survive, not without horrible scars, but they will survive. I listen to myself and totally believe what I am saying. It is the what I am not saying that is too scarring to share. Yes, to the public eye I look as if I have moved on. I look as if I am coping. And I am. But what I don't share is it looks that way because I have a guarded heart. As long as I keep a very tight guard on my heart and don't "go there" then I live my quiet little life and seem to be healing. I have to keep that guard on or I won't survive. The intense pain of losing a child would completely stop my heart from beating. The truth is even with the joy and hope I have that I will one day see my son again if I let that guard completely down the pain is still as fresh and blood raw as the day I heard those words, your son is dead. So I keep a constant vigil on my heart. Occasionally, a day like today out of nowhere the guard slips a little and I find myself at his grave silently sobbing as I hear those words resounding in my head. I allow myself time to grieve. I allow myself to visit this point of hell. The reality that my son is truly dead and his body is lying in that cold dark earth comes completely over me and I grieve as only a parent can. At that moment nothing else exist. Slowly I pull myself together, wipe the tears from my eyes and stand up. I know I have to put the guard back in place. Even tighter this time so I can survive. I must survive. I must keeping on living. The hitch is the tighter the guard the less happiness can seep in. Yes, I have joy and hope but where is the true happiness of living life in the innocence that I had before my child died? The worst experience possible has happened so every moment in life is tempered with knowing that happiness is so fleeting. Every moment is dated before or after. Every happy moment is compared to what true happiness was before. Yes, survival means keeping that place closed off but surely there has to be a compromise.

A dark frozen day.

I went to a child's funeral today. A twenty five year old child but a child nonetheless. I walk in, see the casket and sit down. I sit down and I feel nothing. Five days ago I walked into the parents' house. I entered their home and quickly saw the father's look. The look in his eyes that showed the hurt that comes from the unthinkable happening. A child dying way too early in life. I quickly adverted my eyes and began unloading the food I brought. I did not want to see those eyes, relive the thoughts, feel the pain that accompanies those eyes. I advert my eyes and say the nice things, I am so sorry, my heart breaks, time heals, God will see you through. But I feel nothing. I steel myself to keep my eyes adverted. If I don't and I look deep enough and begin to feel the pain I know I will begin to shout out the truth to these innocent people who right now are so numb. I will shout out the truth that time does not heal and the pain will never get easier because when I see their eyes I remember what is behind my frozen soul. What I steel myself against every day every moment so as not to lose control. I don't want to empathize because that would be to share that pain. I have been to that dark dark place. I don't want to go there again. So I shield myself from those eyes and when I lie in bed in the middle of the nights and I see the haunting image before me I turn the volume up on the tv and play a few more games on my phone. I drown the thoughts and images out by mindless noise and sights. Anything to not go to the place that my friends are now visiting. The reality of a child dying. A child being no more. The fear of how to go on. So instead some day I will share the hope to all this is to freeze the feelings. Do not visit there, do not allow anything to splinter the tiniest hole in your heart so that all the feelings come pouring out once again. Shield that heart from feeling and the pain stays at bay. No feeling no pain but also no love. The fear of the pain wins out. And I sit myself down in the pew with my muscles as tight bands so as to cut off the blood pumping from my heart to keep it all inside. And when the time comes to walk down that aisle and see the child inside the box where she lies the lack of blood keeps me frozen solid so I can walk and breathe and never feel a thing. The cold from the outdoors hitting my face like a slap to the chest is the only thing that brings me back to realize I am alive and once again the blood starts to flow. A child died and lives will never be the same. Yes, so very dark but some days are darker than others.

A silent tear

Today was a beautiful day and all seemed right with the world. I sat outside in the sunshine which feels so foreign after days of winds so cold they chill the very bones. While warming with the rays penetrating my skin deep below the surface and the wind lightly blowing my hair I studied the Word of God. Reading and rereading searching and learning old stories but new truths. Then out of nowhere a tear slipped down my face. I quietly brushed it away and wondered from where it came. The birds were singing, the dog nipping at my polished toes while communing with God on a very personal level another tear slipped silently down my face. Soon another followed and another. What seemed like a perfect Sunday afternoon soon let loose to tears streaming down my face. I felt the fear and anxiety reaching up my throat to remind me just how lonely I was. As I sat and silently cried I grieved for my momma and my son. The rest of the world continued on but for me the day grew grayer, the cold returned and the sun quit shining. And then they stopped. I picked my Bible back up and continued studying. The moment gone, the pain lingering but the recognition that always right below the surface that sadness lives. I reign it in but when I least expect it a silent tear slips down my face.

Her name is Linda

I completely forgot my hair appointment. That was not a happy day. I book 6 weeks out just to get a coveted spot with my friend, Tracy. After the month I have had the gray was even worse than normal. So when Tracy called to see if something was wrong I fell apart. How could I get the wrong day? How could I forgot something so important that had been scheduled for 6 weeks. Today I walk in to get my nails done. I go at the wrong time. Not a problem it is later in the day at least. But I fall apart. This is my first free Saturday baring few exceptions in 4 years I have not gone to my mother's to run her errands, eat lunch or shop. Saturdays have always been my day to spend with my mom but after my father died it became essential. Today, I woke up and realized I had nothing to do. Yes, I had plenty to do but no one to take care of, to eat lunch with, to spend my time caring for and being cared by. I pulled the covers up. Being a former grief counselor I know this is all normal, the sensitivity to sound, last night I couldn't stay in the room while the tv blared out the Thunder game and had to go sit in a dark room with the tv down low. I work with little people who are loud sometimes and at times this week it has been like fingers shrieking across a black board slowly. I know that is normal. I know it is normal to forget things and be confused like when you automatically drive to your mom's on a Wednesday after teaching at UCO because that is what you have done every Wednesday for 4 years, like forgetting to pay the AT&T bill, or going back to check did I really put the garage door down? I know it is normal to lack motivation, the pile of to do papers for my mom's trust continues to grow, I would rather sit and stare off in space while Bart thinks I am watching Duck Dynasty with him. I know the exhaustion of falling asleep last night at 8pm and not waking up til 8am but still feeling completely worn out is normal. I know the nights when I can't fall asleep at all because the last moments of my mom's life keep flashing through my weary brain and keeps me from the bliss of oblivion which comes with rest. I know all this but when I went into the Avon store today and saw my mom's powder and reached for the phone to call to see if she needed any I fell apart. I miss my momma. I drove home in silence with huge crocodile tears streaming down my face over powder. When I reached Bart's side my silent cries turned to heaves. I have held the emotions, the feelings at bay while I returned to work and what appeared to be normalcy. But today the reality comes storming towards me, I have no sweet momma to care for, to love, to hold and have her hold me gently on those days when life is just too hard. And so I cried. I cried for myself. My son calls and I change my voice so he can't hear the hurt and sorrow in my hollow voice. But when the call ends it comes tumbling back. Wallowing in my self pity and grief I try to find solace in helping others. I ask Bart to take me to Wal Greens to buy cereal for Jacob's Cupboard which is on sale. I saw an ad for Captain Crunch and knew the small children would like that much better than plain Cheerios. So I dried the tears and wiped off the mascara which smeared my face and didn't even care if I had lipstick on because the pain was too much. I stood with Bart looking at candy bars to buy for our fund raiser at school when I heard a man scream, "Some one help." I raced out of the aisle and saw a man holding the cashier up by her arm screaming and no one moving. I ran behind the counter and eased her gently down while another kind soul jumped over the counter to help. She recognized the woman and began calling her daughter, another woman called 911 as I grabbed for the woman's wrist using her other limp arm with a watch to count the beats. Her skin was so clammy and so cold. Her pulse was erratic and her body lay still. People were shouting and trying to get help but all I could see was somebody's mother laying there lifeless, not moving and cold. I began patting her cheeks and screaming for her to stay with me. To breathe and hang on. She came around and mumbled, "What happened?" but just as quickly her eyes rolling back and struggling to breathe I felt like I was losing her. The one lady to my side screamed into the phone reaching her daughter and telling her to come quick, the other lady on the other side of the counter telling 911 to hurry she was bad. She began to make choking sounds so I pushed her head back and her mouth open trying desperately to remember my CPR training, frantically trying to find a pulse and a breath. I began to see a faint movement in her neck and a slight rising in her chest. I again began shouting at her to hang on her daughter was on the way. At last the medics arrived, as I began to rattle off statistics, heart rate 80 erratic, skin clammy and cold, slightly responsive at first, not diabetic, no pain, lost consciousness 1 1/2 minutes ago they brushed us aside and began their battle to save this woman's life. Her daughter rushed in we updated her and then stood back to pray. I walked over to my husband and said, "God sure has a way of putting things in perspective." Here I was crying over a mother who had lived a full life and so ready to be with Jesus and here lay a woman fighting for her life and a daughter shaking and questioning why? We all have our battles, our fears and our losses. We never know what lies ahead one moment before us. We never know when we are going to walk in a store looking for cereal on sale that doesn't start until tomorrow and be faced with life changing moments. My prayer today is not for myself but for this daughter and this woman. Linda. Her name is Linda. Pray.