Wednesday, February 11, 2015

More life lessons


I have had a difficult time again lately and could not make myself sit down and write.  Really unusual since this has been all that has stood between me and insanity.

The good news is that my sister is doing very well and moved back to her house on the five month anniversary of the kid’s death.  The bad news is that I have come to realize that the "grief-work" I thought I was doing turned out to be "grief-postponed" instead ---it has gotten a toe-hold and has come back with a vengeance.

I am better to some extent and my bad meltdown days are getting farther apart but still some days the darkness completely engulfs me until I don’t feel like I can breathe.  Some days the panic attacks still hit as it still ambushes me as if it is brand new and I am hearing it for the first time. 

Especially this past week because we are finally going to make the move in the direction of selling Brian and Kara’s house.  It has been hanging in limbo for five months.  Every time I would start - I would break down and just could not move forward with it.  The thoughts of losing one more part of them was just too much.

But the bills on it are still continuing and we can’t keep supporting an empty house. The homeowners insurance will run out soon and they will not renew it as it is still vacant.  And the longer it sits vacant the better the chances of vandals coming in and tearing it up.  So as if I didn’t have enough on my heart I now have to dispose of the home they loved. 

The house was bought right after the baby was born.  They brought him home from the hospital there.  It was there he learned to crawl and push a diaper box as he taught himself how to walk.  I can still see him running wild down the hall with a bucket on his head - covering his eyes!  He has ridden his little tractor up and down through the house and pushed a hot wheels car a million miles.  It was there he had his first baby crush on the little girl Alisa next door.  And he had two birthday parties there.  It was the only home he ever knew. 

The thoughts of selling the home that Brian and Kara put their heart and soul and every spare dime into --literally makes me want to throw up. 

Keeping it on the other hand considering that is also where they all died one horrible night –also makes me want to throw up.  There is no good answer and no easy out but the lesser of the two evils seems to be to sell it and get it off of us.  I have never been able to go back in it.  I have never even driven down the street or ever seen it again.  I just can’t.  And in light of that fact, selling it seems like the only option.  But it is heart-breaking to me just the same. 

I’m a hang-on forever kind of person.  I never get rid of anything.  And anytime I do, it is an emotional struggle.  Literally “everything” has sentimental value to me and for two cents I fear I could be a hoarder.  So this is hard on so many levels. 

But I feel another change coming on as I realize I no longer care about anything like I used to.  “Things” are just that –things.  And for the first time in my entire life I feel like I could get rid of every single thing in my house and not care. 

People are all that is important.  The people in your life are really absolutely all that count.  I’ve always known it but not to the magnitude that I do now.  I have always loved and cherished the people in my life but like many others I am blatantly guilty of chronic consumerism - striving and getting, buying and wanting more.  I’ve worked my life away --to buy “stuff”.  Stuff I now wish I could get rid of because it feels like it is weighing me down.  I worked my children’s childhood away and traded my grandchildren’s sweet baby days for a paycheck and a new car.  I was just doing what we all do to "get by" or so I thought at the time and then I looked up one day and they were grown.  I had a house full of useless stuff and my children were grown and gone. 

Paxton was my second chance; my opportunity to get my priorities in order and realize how precious the time was and I tried not to miss a minute.  He was my chance to know and acknowledge and enjoy what was really important in life. 

The day he poured out a $10 Costco sized canister of cinnamon I laughed at the look of “uh oh I’m busted” on his little brown smudgy face.  I thought his little brown feet were hysterical as he stood both feet covered in cinnamon smelling like a homemade apple pie!

That would not have been my reaction 15 years ago.

I used to stop right in the middle of cooking Sunday dinner to crawl in the floor to play chase as he ran and hid behind the sofa or play our favorite game of hide and seek behind the sofa pillows.  He played in my kitchen cabinets with "clean" Tupperware and I turned the TV off at night and rocked him until he got too big and wouldn’t let me anymore.  I enjoyed every single moment of him but even so it made me sad to think about all the time and all the love and all the delight I had missed with all the others while I was working, tired and grumpy. 

There are no do-overs in life.  Make the time you have with those you love count.  Babies don't wait. 

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