Month: February 2012

Hurting and Remembering

I remember the day we lost Nathaniel so vividly. I remember feeling so lost, so empty…….so removed and yet so shockingly forced into a reality that I never, ever, ever in a million years ever expected myself to be in.

It felt like the very life had been ripped out of me. I remember holding my sweet baby and feeling so conflicted and confused. How was I supposed to act? What was acceptable? What was inappropriate? And under it all…….does it even matter anymore? How am I supposed to carry on when a huge part of me has died.

My heart felt like it had stopped and yet it traitorously kept beating. Not that I wanted to die, but I was in so much pain that even breathing hurt. And I just wanted to not hurt for a moment.

I remember walking away from the hospital thinking, “This is not how this was supposed to go. I am not supposed to be walking away from here empty handed. I am leaving my heart behind, here in the hospital” and yet there I was. No bags full of presents and baby things, no heavy, awkward car seat, no baby….just the pain and the grief that overwhelmed me……threatening to crush me. I forced myself to move one foot in front of the other. I had kids, I had a husband. I had a life that I had to carry on with and yet……..my life had stopped. Very few that I knew, understood what I was going though and even though there were ones who did……I still felt so alone…..so lost.

This was my grief to bear. My baby I lost. My life to live……if you could call this living.

The emptiness, the loneliness, the hurt, the tears…….all came rushing back this morning. It’s been just over 7 years since we lost Nathaniel and while thoughts of him no longer consume my every day….there are moments when the loss hits me so hard that it takes my breath away and it feels like I’m back there in that moment.

This morning I’m hurting. I’m hurting for those who hurt. I’m hurting for myself. I’m hurting for my loss and your loss.

These little ones….they are our sons and daughters, but they are also our grandsons and daughters and our nieces and nephews, our cousins. The loss….it’s all our loss. Regardless of their time here on earth, these little ones leave a huge impact. There are holes that can never be filled and lessons learned in love, togetherness, understanding, gentleness, caring, kindness and compassion. In spite of their time here on earth being shorter than we had hoped or wanted….their legacy lives on in the everyday actions of those they leave behind.

But today….I hurt. I hurt for you and I hurt for me.

I will always remember!

What are you Thankful for?

It’s Monday morning….well, it’s almost noon and I’m sitting on my couch….in the sunshine….in the quiet……well, it would be quiet if Geli wasn’t hacking and couching and sneezing in the back ground. She’s stayed home another day from school. She woke up this morning with some “gastro-intestinal issues” and that’s all we’ll say about that. It’s all just a part of the stupid virus. I can’t wait for it to run it’s course and be gone from our house.

My mom came by this morning and has taken my boys for a walk. It’s nice cause they’ll get back, we’ll feed them lunch and then the baby will go for a nap. That’s some good timing, as far as I’m concerned.

Things are okay this morning. I’d be lying if I said that I bounded out of bed this morning, ready for the day. Certain that today was going to be a good day. It was more like I rolled out of bed ’cause the baby needed a diaper change. And then I folded 3 loads of laundry before even heading upstairs.

We managed to get breakfast made, school started and the house somewhat tidied and so right now things feel peaceful. I know what’s happening for dinner and I will put it in the oven in a few hours. There are no appointments, or places to be or things to pick up and so today is a quiet day.

I’m noticing that right now, my patience is not at the level it normally is. I snapped at Jeremy this morning instead of calmly explaining to him why it’s not a good idea to shout in the hallway when his brother is still sleeping. I don’t like being rude or disrespectful to my kids. I’m trying to teach them to talk respectfully even when they are frustrated or tired or upset and so to model the very behaviour that I’m trying to teach against……frustrating for me. It’s all a lesson, isn’t it? I get to apologize and explain what happened and how it’s not okay. We hug and move on….it’s just life lessons, but it speaks to me of how little I have to give.

I’m not hopeless. I’ve not given up. I’m just tired. Imagine if you had been walking in the desert for a month and you knew that just over that hill in front of you was a town and there was water, food, a bed….rest……and you just had to make it there. You’re exhausted. You don’t want to carry on, but there is no point in lying down and dying now. The end is close. Your dessert experience won’t last forever, but…..you are tired. You don’t feel like you can take another step. All you want to do is to lie down. But if you do….you will end up losing out on everything that you struggled for….that you fought for….all that pain and energy was, then, for nothing.

Sometimes, you just need to sit down and cry. Let all of the pressure off. And then you pick your tired self up and carry on……that’s where I’m at….I’m carrying on.

We all go through things. Have I ever wished that I was not going through this…..OF COURSE! Do I wish that I had a close friend, someone who really understood……honestly, as nice as that would be….NO! Because that would mean that you were going through this and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Sure, I’ve looked at you and wondered why “I” am going through this horrible time in my life. And then I remind myself that WE ARE ALL going through things….Life is a constant state of living and dying…of good and bad….of tough times and easy times.

I’m so aware of the tough times right now because there seems to be so many tough things going on in my life and yet, I try to keep aware of the good things in front of me….I have so many good things. I have an amazing husband….who I don’t get to see nearly enough. But isn’t that amazing that after 16+ years that I want to have more time with him and not less. I have 5 amazing kids. I am all so proud of each of them. They work through their own struggles and come out winning, and loving and embracing life. My family is amazing and well,…..I’m alive and breathing.

Alive is pretty good, no?

Today I’m choosing to be thankful….. I’d love to hear what you are thankful for, if you wouldn’t mind sharing?

I’m thankful for Jon and my kids.
I’m thankful for my health.
I’m thankful for my home.
I’m thankful for sunshine.
I’m thankful for my momma.
I’m thankful for this quiet moment.

What are you thankful for?
 There are no wrong answers……

seasons change……….

It’s been a while since I last posted.

We’ve been trucking along and then……. I don’t know what happened. This last week was horrible and by Saturday I fell apart.

We slept in until 8:30am (That’s a sleep in ’round these parts) and then I got up and went to my exercise class where I managed to finished the first third of the class and then I started crying. And crying and crying and crying. So much so that the girl in front of me stopped her practice and gave me a box of Kleenex. I managed to sort of pull myself together (or not) and hung out through the rest of the class and then went home. And then spent the rest of the day crying and crying and crying and crying.

It’s all just too much.

I don’t know how else to put it. There is too much. Too much for one person to handle. Too Much Stress. Too much pressure. It’s just too much.

Xani got sick about 2 weeks ago with some killer nasty cold. She made it through the first week hacking and coughing and sneezing and then the two littlest boys picked it up. Saturday night Josiah woke up unable to breathe. That’s scarey, eh? His panicking didn’t help the situation, either. But, what would you expect if you woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t breathe? He had a fever from Saturday until Wednesday when it finally broke. I figured that we were just dealing with some nasty virus. The Baby started in on the coughing on Sunday and rocked out a fever then too. By Thursday night when his fever was still in the 39-40 degree range, I was starting to get worried. He was so cranky. So whiny. So tired. So upset. Not eating, not drinking and starting to not wet his diapers. I took him to the clinic where the dr diagnosed him with a lower left lung infection and put him on antibiotics.

There was a massive issue at the pharmacy because they didn’t have the antibiotics that the dr had ordered and there was a HUGE run around trying to get a new prescription. It was unreal. The pharmacist dude was unreal and we know them by name – We spend a lot of money at this pharmacy. I’m not sure what the problem was today…maybe he had a fight with his girlfriend before he came to work or something….it was awful……we finally got it sorted out and started Judah on the antibiotics late on Thursday night. He was still feverish on Friday morning, but by late afternoon the fever was starting to come down.

Friday morning I got a call from Geli’s nurse, saying that her counts were really low and that we had to stop chemo and that they’d like her to be taken into our Dr or a clinic or something just to get her chest listened to. She started feeling crappy on Monday and didn’t go to school the whole week either. She had a low grade fever for most of the week. Just before we were taking her to the clinic, we took her temp and she was at a 38.1 – when she is neutropenic (has really low infection fighting counts) we have to take her into the hospital anytime she scores a temperature of 38 degrees or higher. If she has normal counts then we have to take her in, if she has a fever over 38.5. We chocked it up to the smoking hot bath that I had just pulled her out of and carried on down to the clinic. Her lungs sounded clear, but the clinic dr clocked her temperature in at 38.7…….so Jon called the hospital to let them know they were coming in and they came home to pack up.

We were not sure what to expect. Worse case – she’d be admitted for 3 days. Best case, they’d come home that evening but needing to go back for a 24 dose of antibiotics.

They did get to come home. It was viral, but it rocked us. We have been been so battered and beaten over this past year and half that we have no reserves to stay strong about this. I felt like I was in shock that night. Jeremy was crying off and on because they had to go. The babies were sick. Jon and Geli were gone for who knows how long. I just emotionally and mentally shut down. My mom came over and she helped with the boys and took Xani to youth and picked her up while I tried to clean the house so that we could “carry on” on Saturday. But inside I just felt dead about it all. I have to do this. I can’t just not. I have no time to just be. I have no opportunity to get away from this all. For the past 19 months, we have fought and fought and fought and fought and I don’t know how much fight I have left in me.

A friend stopped by to drop off a few groceries that I needed and we were talking for a moment and I shared with her how I feel like I’m in a bad dream or a horror movie. There is just one bad thing after another after another and I can’t see the end to it all. I know this sounds bad. I know this sounds down. I know this doesn’t sound encouraging and that’s how I feel.

I’m so tired. I’m so worn out. I’m exhausted. I don’t know how I will be able to make it through the next 9 months.

I feel like I’m barely existing. It’s a horrible place to be. There are so many things that are hard right now. I am trying to hold onto faith and hope and yet……..honestly……it’s really tough.

And that’s how I came to yesterday…..I spent most of the day crying. I crawled into bed at 6pm finally fell asleep at 8pm. I woke up at 2am, at 3am, at 4am, at 5am, at 6am and then slept until 8:30am…..sleep evades me this past year and a half…..even if the baby sleeps, I wake. There is so much going on. So many things that have gone wrong. So many things that I’m trying to organize and manage and sty on top of……so many other things that I can’t do anything about……

This is a very tough season…..I can’t wait for this season to pass…….it must!