The Second Year

It is so hard for me to believe that in so many ways the second year really is more difficult than the first.  I know I've read that for some it could be.  I just could not see how that was possible.  And it isn't in all ways but in many ways, it definitely is and I'd like to talk about that.


While the crying and the melt downs in public places is better; the grim realization has set in that this is forever and in many ways this year is actually worse.  I am much more depressed.  The shock has worn off now completely and I now see that long after I'd thought it was gone, it had still been lingering, protecting, pushing me forward.  Long after I thought I was facing this full on and that I was at least in "mid-recovery", I was steeped in deep denial; glossing over it, covering it up with "busy" and pretending.  Busy has come to a screeching halt and now I can't muster enough strength or energy or wherewithal to be busy no matter how hard I try - which by the way is not very hard.  I just don't care anymore.  If I could just sit and eat dinner on a TV tray in front of the television, read an hour, sit in a tub of hot water and then lay in bed and play solitaire on my Kindle till I get sleepy - I'd be good.  That would be my perfect evening.  Oh wait, that is my every evening.  But sooooooo not like my evenings "before".  Never been a big TV fan.  Maybe an hour in the evening to wind down was about my max.  It just always seemed like a major time suck and I always had far too much to do to justify very much TV for all of the housework, cooking, laundry, family time, pets, church, writing and I could never find time to stay ahead of it all. And all of those still exist but suddenly they are all so terribly unimportant.  I can sit for hours and binge-watch ten year old episodes of Alias without feeling a twinge of guilt at the pile of laundry I tripped over to get to the television. Dishes in the sink - fine.  Bathrooms need cleaning - so what.  Floors looking like you need to run the mower and grass catcher - I'm good.  Nothing seems important me anymore.  Everything except family seems like petty annoyances.  I have zero desire to actually "do" anything.  I can barely find enough energy to function on a low level and get by from day to day. 


In the beginning I couldn't think about these things and I was in the middle of caretaking and doing what I could for the living - postponing grief as it turns out .  Just getting from one day to the next the best I could.  This year that is no longer the case but you still have to have a reason to get up and I have no reason.  No hope.  No purpose.  I don't want to "do" anything anymore.  I think I need that puppy now or a donkey or something.  (Latest book - Flash) Whatever - but I need a reason to go on.


The second year is harder too simply because it is the second year and I thought if I could make it through the horror of the first - I would have "made it."  I would be better.  I would want life again.  I would be able to see good in things again.  I would have energy and hope and faith again.  I would be out of the danger zone.

Not so much.

Last year when I first started this blog it had been "Four Weeks" - the blog was a life vest to a drowning man.  Now...well I am floating adrift.  I don't need a life vest but I'm still in the water.  I'm not drowning but this is not living either.

Last year I had "coping skills" - this year now I'm contemplating drugs in order to make it.  What a hypocrite.  I thought if you just kept pushing on and forcing yourself to function, ignored the pain, pretended the holidays were not holidays, kept the kids alive and with me through happy stories, funny memories, pictures and videos.  If I read all the books, attended the right meetings, listened to the preaching, listened to the right music, talked to a counselor, wrote out my feelings and managed to cling to life by tooth and toenail and just make it past that magic one year mark - I would be "out of the woods".  The reality has hit me like a brick that not only is it not true that I will be okay after the first year but in fact that I will never be okay again.

Losing them did not change the number of chairs at my Thanksgiving dinner table or how many gifts I would buy at Christmas or how I spent my Sunday afternoons.  Losing them --changed everything.  Absolutely everything.  Not everything for a year or two years or five years but forever.

I don't even recognize this life.  I had goals, hopes, dreams and a strong abiding faith.  My whole life, those were the things that kept me going.  I truly do not understand how this can make me no longer be me?  I am not me.  God is not God.  Everything is just wrong.  And these are the things that I did not know last year.  I guess I couldn't face it or didn't realize it or God knew I couldn't withstand the full impact of all of that yet.  I guess it was all I could do to put one foot in front of the other and remember to breath.  And yeah the first year was horrific and yet in many ways the second is still kind of worse as you come to the cold realization that the horror is never going to end.

Denial? No way. Really?

As is my habit, I was listening to Charles Stanley at 5:30 this morning and he had some earth-shattering news for me.

The premise of his message was how you sometimes can’t know a real personal relationship with God because of baggage in your past that you have spent years denying.  He spoke of how children from abused or neglectful homes will build coping skills to survive hurtful things in their lives and those coping skills though useful to help them “survive” their immediate trauma do not always serve them well later in life.  He said that one of those coping mechanisms is denial; the ability to cover up, smooth over and stuff down the things that you feel so hurtful that you cannot face the pain.  So you just go about “pretending” it didn’t happen; thinking if you can just avoid it long enough that you will just eventually get over it.  “Pretending”?  Wait, did he just say pretending?

I thought I understood the word “denial” and it never would have occurred to me that my "pretending” was in any way related to “denial”.  I was not in denial.  After all how on earth could you deny this kind of loss?  You can’t.  It is in your face twenty-four/seven.  I face it.  I face it hundreds of times a week.  They are all gone.  There is no denying that even if I wanted to – I couldn’t.

Apparently though, I can sit in denial of certain aspects of this horror by avoiding all of the pain involved in participating in --let’s say, the Holidays...

Like sitting at the Thanksgiving table with three empty chairs – three!  And the traditional pumpkin pie that no one in my family ever really liked… but Brian, or the fact that our last family Thanksgiving Dinner was hosted by Kara at their house; the house that was sold on the courthouse steps; the house they completely remodeled themselves; the house they brought Paxton home from the hospital to; the house they lived in and loved and died in.  

And then there is Christmas.  My lame attempt to avoid dealing with what all of the pain of Christmas without all of my children will feel like, Christmas presents with no baby and all of the memories of all the Christmases past or having to make a decision about a Christmas stocking that has been hanging in our home at Christmas for the past forty years that will now either be orphaned standing alone untouched on Christmas morning or left abandoned in the attic from here on out.  And all of the Christmas ornaments that have graced our family tree for the past thirty years or so will now be like a dagger to my heart with every memory they provoke.  

And like my running away for Mother’s Day – the day set aside for mothers; a day when you always remember the birth of each and every one of the children that made you a mother.  Also the day that excavates memories of little hand-prints, homemade cards with stick pictures of me and lop-sided handmade ashtrays.  Mother’s Day a day to remind me how totally unnatural it is that I am living and my child and grandchild are not. 

And Birthdays – more days that I have avoided by pretending they were just another day.  Because of memories of favorite cartoon characters on a cake from birthdays past, of a favorite Teddy Bear named Fred that became a member of our family for several years or memories of milestone days; those that have been and those that will never be; reminders that they are all forever stuck in time in the “terrible two’s”; twenty-nine and holding and fabulous forty - plus one. 

And birthdays that are way overshadowed by another day now – a death day; the terrible anniversary of the worst day in my life. 

I have been using my avoidance as a coping skill never realizing it was anywhere akin to denial and I too, have been of the opinion that if I could do this long enough at some point I would be healed enough that I could live and have some semblance of normalcy – maybe- someday. 

His message to me this morning that came through loud and clear was that it does not work.  You only heal by acknowledging and working through – dealing with the hard and hurtful stuff.  Learning to live with it; learning how to live in spite of it. 

What he didn’t tell me was: How?

A Little Better Week

It has been a long time between posts I know.  I have been dealing with a lot of inner junk and truly did not feel that I could write anything edifying.  What is that old “Mama used to say” saying?  “If you can’t say anything good just don’t say anything at all”? Well, that’s where I’ve been – in kind of a dark place and unable to say anything at all.  It has been so bad until I have been considering taking the Blog down because I don’t feel that I can write anything that could be helpful and it is beginning to sound like I’m just “crying in my beer” all the time.  But with lots of prayer and lots of support from good friends both old and new – I’m a little better --today.

We have passed Brian and Kara’s sixth anniversary (July 11) and my first birthday without them and last week was a year since the last time I kept Paxton and he was singing “Haddy Dirtday” to me.  I know the day and time because I videoed him singing to me.  And I am so thankful I did as I find comfort in watching it and being able to see him even if for just a little while. 

Since I am back to full blown pretending again I let those days slip right on by without incident. 

I was right in thinking that Paxton was going to be the first and the most intense grief in the beginning and then Brian would be the worst by far and the longest.  But it makes sense.   I’ve had him longer and he of course was my own child.  Kara is intermittent.  I think about her everyday too and some days are just “her” days.

I have still not touched any of their things.  Still not ready for that.  But I put away some of Paxton’s things from my house.  We have just a few to go and I am hoping that by the one year mark I can let go of them.  That is hard to even write.  I don’t want to let go of him.  They are all I have left and it feels like if I am willing to let go of them that in some way it is representative of letting go of him.  I think I am afraid that if I put them up and remove all evidence of him I will forget him or he will no longer seem real to me.  I didn’t have him that long and he might begin to seem like a dream.  Something far off that I imagined but that never really happened.  I don’t want that.  And, as bad as it hurts to think of him, I’d rather bear that pain than to forget or have him seem like a distant memory or a dream that wasn’t real.  I couldn’t stand for that to happen.  So I think I am hanging on until I am sure that his memory will not fade.  

Shortly after all of this happened and I was juggling devastating grief and caring for my sister, my friend Kathie sent me this saying that I really loved.  It has been on my wall at work ever since.

It said:

A woman's Strength isn't just about how much she can handle before she breaks.

It is also about how much she must handle after she's broken.

I don’t think many people could relate to this to the magnitude that I could at the time.  It is something that I look at every day. 

Where I am at this point - The short answer is –better - but the real answer is “better this week” but hey, I’ll take it.  Thursday of this week will be eleven months.  It, in no way, seems like it has been that long.  I still cry but thankfully, it is not every day and I also laugh. We are planning a trip to the beach at the one year anniversary and no, I did not intentionally plan it like that but it happened and I am actually looking forward to it – this week.  Last week I almost canceled it...again.  I do have a little fear that the timing is way wrong and that it will put a damper on the trip but it is not going to be an easy day no matter where I’m at.  I’m making myself get out and do some things and have found that they are not as hard as I had thought they would be.  It is still hard on the weekends when I am home and not working or around people or have responsibilities that I am obligated to.  I still think about them every single day.  The loss still pretty much dominates my thoughts almost all day - every day.   They are usually the first thought when I wake up and the last before I go to sleep.  And I have spent the previous six or eight weeks in deep sinking depression.  Over this past week, I realize it has lifted somewhat.  Lots of prayers I’m sure.  It was a really uplifting and positive week.  It was my birthday week and I had been dreading that but my friend at church brought me wonderful fresh vegetables from his garden and I enjoyed them all week long.  My new friend made me the most beautiful prayer blanket and gave to me with the message that all the ladies in her prayer shawl group had laid hands on it and prayed for me over it.  My sister came and took me to lunch and brought me a beautiful new blouse.  Another friend from work took me to lunch on my actual birthday and gave me a card.  My husband gave me a beautiful and sweet card and the new wind chime for the porch that I’d wanted.  I spent the night with my oldest and dearest friend and she took me to a great dinner and gave me a new pair of cute and comfy pajamas.  My daughter and son in law took us to lunch and she gave me a beautiful new blouse. 

I had dozens of calls, texts and emails and even though it hurt a little that I heard nothing from my youngest  sister, my brother, my other best friend or my oldest son – it did not ruin my day or my week.  I was thankful for those that I had that did care.  And even though I was sick the rest of the weekend – it was still a good week.

We are getting really good at pretending...

We pretended Thanksgiving was not on Thursday this year and held a “family get-together” on Saturday instead that was definitely not Thanksgiving.  

Then we pretended for some reason -- perhaps a new law went into effect - one that I don't remember ever voting for, like day-light savings time or mandatory insurance -- that required that Christmas be canceled this year.  Maybe it will be on schedule for next year who knows? Congress is still out on that right now.  But for 2014 Christmas was eliminated from the calendar.

I also pretended Paxton was just out of town for his third birthday.  Maybe off to Florida enjoying Disney or Legoland and that is why we did not buy the gifts we'd wanted to give him or have cake and watch him blow out candles or gather around him and sing “Haddy Dirtday” to him. 

Then I had the brilliant idea to actually let Brian’s birthday take place this year.  I decided we would remember him by baking his favorite cake then we would all get together and go out for pizza.  We'd reminisce about him tell funny "Brian stories" laugh and celebrate his life.

That did not work out quite like I’d planned.  

I cried for three solid weeks afterward.

Turns out pretending was working way better for me so I opted to go back to pretending.   And so Easter this year was just another Sunday.  For the first time in twenty years we did not attend Sunrise Service or the fellowship breakfast afterward.  I did not go and help out with the Easter-Egg hunt on Saturday (although I did stuff 180 plastic eggs so as not to be a complete slacker.)  I did not buy a new springy pastel Easter dress but instead rummaged through my closet and dragged out a regular black and tan dress. I raked a comb through my hair, dabbed on some mascara and managed to show up for Sunday-School.  I didn’t even hear the sermon preached during the regular service but chose to keep the nursery instead.  I saw none of my children or grandchildren nor did I, in fact, see any family at all other than my husband that lives there.  The two of us ate lunch out and came back to the rental house early and watched TV till time to go to bed.

I’m going to Memphis to Graceland for Mother’s Day.  I'm pretending to be on vacation...

Brian's 42nd birthday

Well, I expected it to be hard and it certainly did not disappoint.  I decided I might not have enough time to get it all in --so I started crying yesterday.  And kept it up periodically all day today as well.  It was harder than Christmas, Thanksgiving and even Paxton's birthday although that was really tough too. 


I baked his favorite German Chocolate cake because the lady leading the meetings at GriefShare suggested we actually acknowledge or even celebrate his birthday.  It would make us feel closer and like he had not been forgotten.  So I had planned to have lunch with my daughter and son in law, talk about Brian and tell some funny stories about him or share our favorite memories, have his favorite cake and feel like we had honored his memory and acknowledged that he was still a part of our family and always would be.  I baked the cake...


I cried all through the cake baking wishing I had baked it last year but knowing I did not.  We went to lunch - I cried all the way there and all the way back and couldn't talk about him at all because I knew I would make a scene in the restaurant.  Then they showed me his daughter's post on Facebook and that made me cry. 


She posted a sweet note to him that sadly I knew was something that he had waited his entire life to hear. She told him how she wished he could see that baby and that she now finally realized how much he had loved the three of them.  She said she finally understood how deep a parent's love really was.  She said she loved him and she wished that she had told him.  He, like most parents, would have given all he had to hear her acknowledge that.


I had wanted to write something special for him today much like she did but for some reason - I can't.  All I can do is cry. 


Here we are almost seven months later.  We still have no idea what actually happened.  And though I have honestly "tried" to buy the story we have --I still can't.  You just had to know him like we all knew him.  He had a quick temper that is true but he has never been able to hurt anything in his entire life.  He had a temper but he could never hold a grudge.  He blew it off and was completely over it and remorseful in 10 minutes.  He was just loud.  But truly good-hearted.  He loved deeply and was loyal to a fault. 


It was his birthday six years ago and he had run back into Kara that week after six years had passed since they had first met - "Mom, I know you are going to think I am crazy but I let her get away one time, and I do not intend to do that again."


They had met when he was thirty years old and she was just 18 and right out of school.  He went out with her a few times and even brought her to church once then he abruptly broke it off.  He said she was just too young.  Even though he did not look but about nineteen himself - he had lived a lot more of life than she had and he was afraid.  He was afraid she would regret not living some of her life before she settled down.  He was afraid she would do like his first wife and wait until she was 25 and then decide she wanted to live all the life she had missed.  He had reservations about what his kids would think; what other people would think; what her parents would think; how she would relate to his kids considering her age. He could not handle it and so he broke it off and apparently always regretted it. 


He said he had looked for her everywhere he went.  He only dated two girls in between and he could never commit.  He said he had not been consciously waiting on her but he did admit he could never completely get her out of his mind.  When they ran into each other after six years he asked her to marry him two weeks later!  She was grown now and he no longer had the same worries and reservations about her and he was determined never to lose her again. That was the week of his 36th birthday.  They married the following July.  He felt like all that had been taken from him when his first wife left was being restored to him.  And he was happier than I had ever seen him.  He had never thought he could ever trust again and used to always say he would never marry again.  But not only did he know immediately that he wanted to marry Kara - trust was never an issue. 


She loved him and she made sure he knew it.  He never doubted her love for him even after all he'd been through. She admired him for his talents.  She trusted his judgment in everything and she always liked the fact that he was the head of the family and took care of the finances.  Unlike most girls her age - independence was something she cared very little about.  His taking care of those things was actually a measure of security to her and I believe with all my heart that she loved her life with him.  He also admired her.  He admired who she was as a person - her honesty and dedication to their marriage and their home.  He trusted her completely and always knew she was a good-hearted person.  He admired her as a mother and in five years of marriage he never once complained about anything to do with her.  He never to my knowledge ever said an unkind word about her to anyone.  He always bragged on her cooking and what a good housekeeper she was and thought she was absolutely the best mom ever to their son.  He would have given her anything she wanted that was in his power to provide.


There is just still no way that I can know who he was in his heart and believe he was in any way capable of this.  I know I'm his mother but it isn't just me - no one that ever knew him can believe it.  There was nothing he would not do for anyone. 


He was my heart and I don't know how I will ever live without him but still to me the hardest part of this is the legacy this leaves for him that I will never believe he deserves.


Brian, I love you with all my heart and I miss you more than I even thought possible and no matter what - I knew who you were and nothing will ever make me believe this. 


Forty -two years ago I became Brian's mom - and nothing will ever change that.

Words I could never have imagined saying…

Four months out, and there are some out of state friends and extended family members that still do not know about the loss of my children.  I thought I was finally going to be able to make those calls but when I try – I find that there are no words… no way to relay this news.  What do I say?  How do I tell this?  How do I explain that what the police say happened – could in no way have happened and yet still I do not know what, in fact, did happen?  How do you tell this to anyone?  The few people that I have told were so freaked out by it until they were speechless, they either bolted or hurried off the phone and I have never heard from them again. 

Talk about a truly humbling experience.

I recall meeting a pitiful couple the first night we attended the 13-week grief seminar.  Their young adult son had been murdered by a man in his apartment complex.  They were having a very difficult time with the grief, anger, confusion and disbelief that someone could just walk up for no apparent reason and kill their son.  They wanted answers.  They were angry at the system and the way things had been handled although apparently, thank God, they had caught the killer.  They were baffled at how someone could be so callous and cruel as to kill another human being that was just doing what young people do and "having a good time". 


They still yet had to go through the rigors of a long, drawn out, emotional trial as they hoped at least for some sort of justice for their son.  They were of course, in deep grief over the loss of their son as well.  The sadness and empathy in the room was palpable.  Everyone could relate to that terrible feeling of loss but while everyone else in the group was reeling in shock; appalled at the thought of him being a victim of “murder” – I sat there and realized what I was feeling was more like sadness mixed with --envy?

Can you imagine?

I felt awful!  I realize that was not a natural response to the situation and yet I promise you at that moment I wish I could have stood up and said that someone had murdered my children.  What a comfort it would have been to say,  ”This terrible person did this awful thing and I am angry, hurt and confused at the cruelty of this situation.  I want justice!”  At that moment I thought how much I would love to have been able to say those words??? How awful! But how true.

I could openly grieve my son.  I could have poured my heart out over the loss of my child to any extended family and all of my old friends and co-workers and everyone would have understood the great loss.  I could have talked about how much I loved and missed my child to anyone in any circles without the devastation of having them turn away in what appeared to be --disgust. I could have had my loss validated instead of feeling like I had no right to love and miss my son.  I could have taken comfort from friends and family instead of feeling like I needed to instead launch into defense mode as I tried in vain to explain who he really was in his heart and how much he loved his wife and child.  “But, you don’t know him. There is no way.  He adored them.  But you don't understand, he was absolutely not capable of...  He couldn’t have...  He would never…” and I see "the look" and I choke and turn away leaving my words dangling in mid-air. 

This is why this blog has been so vital to my survival because here I can pour out my heart.  I can openly acknowledge my devastating loss.  My grief can spill all over these pages mingled with my tears.  I can talk freely about whom I knew he was in his heart; how he was such a funny, goofy child, a fun-loving young adult, a loyal and responsible husband, how much he loved his children and what a good dad he was.  I can talk about him like he was my son - a victim and not my son, the cause of another family's loss.  I can rightfully grieve this horrific loss.  I can love him in spite of what the Sheriff’s office said because I am, after all --Still Brian's Mom.

Chchchchanges....

Everyone knows that your life can change in an instant with one phone call --two phone calls can leave your life unrecognizable. 

This past year has been a solid year of change and then I got the phone call that changed my life and then sixty days later what was left of my life was reduced to ashes.

I feel like I woke up one morning plopped square in the middle of someone else’s life. 

Almost every aspect of my life is so dramatically different I do not recognize any part of it.

December 2013 - I used to get up every morning at 5:30, get dressed and drive in yucky traffic to my job.  Monday thru Friday I put in eight hours and went home.  I lived for the weekend because on Saturday and Sunday I had Paxton.

We were looking forward to our big loud traditional family Christmas with a small grandchild again.  My floor was once again, after many years, littered with toys.  Diapers, booster seats and rocking chairs were scattered about and pacifiers and tiny little cartoon forks and spoons were in my silverware drawer.

Our biggest issue was that we did not know where we wanted to live in retirement and finding a suitable downsized retirement house consumed my every free moment.

I had three “best” friends – my first was my sister Joan; my best friend all of my life.  We talked on the phone almost every single day and made it a point to make time about every other month to see each other even though there was a 75 mile span of bad traffic between us. Then there was Kathie -- she’s always been like a sister to me.  And like with my sister, I’d had her almost all my life.  We are over 60 years old and have been best friends since we were five.  We started school, started dating, got married and raised children --together.  And then Sara, my newest best friend, “new” as in 37 years ago.  We met when my husband and I moved to his home town in South Georgia for a year and a half and she and I have been long-distance best friends ever since.  We talked on the phone weekly and sometimes depending on what was going on in our life - daily.  We visited several times a year.  And no decision was ever made in either of our lives that we did not run past the other.

I had two pets – (amazing that we were down to only two.)  I had inherited Brian’s 7-year old "pound puppy" when he and Kara married and I had a five year old rescue Siamese cat that I cuddled with every evening.  I went to bed around 9:00 after the cat and I read, prayed and had written in my prayer journal where I asked God repeatedly to watch over my children.

I took my breakfast on the go and packed a lunch to take to work.  When I got home I cooked dinner for two. 

The only thing I like brand new is a car so most of our furniture is antique or "antiques to be".  I lived with my husband of 38 years in an average ranch style house in a small farming town and worked in the city. 

I was a very active member of a small country Baptist church for the past 20 years.  Where I served on the building and grounds committee, the Lord’s Supper committee, the church bulletin committee.  I did all of the church invitations, newsletters and flyers.  I mailed out visitor cards and cards of encouragement, sympathy cards, get well cards and I worked in Bible School for many years. I cooked for every occasion; illness, surgery, death in the family.  I oversaw the complete renovation of the 100 year old sanctuary in 2008.

That was life last December…

December 2014 - I woke up at 3:00AM. Daylight savings time is over but my body, mind and spirit still know that it is 4:00 AM - the same time that I woke up and burst into tears on August 23.

My brother in law got up at 4:15 and left for work by 5:15AM.  My husband went downstairs to the kitchen to get coffee when he woke up as my brother in law left.  I got up at 6:30 and went down to get Joan’s medicine out and get her breakfast prepared and pack a lunch for both of us to take to the clinic.  We had an 8:45 appointment; not a time that anyone in their right mind would volunteer for in Atlanta traffic.  But we do not have the luxury of choosing.  Our days – week in and week out are dominated by the Bone Marrow Transplant Clinic.  We got to the clinic exactly on time 1 hour and 10 minutes to make the 12 mile trip. 

I dragged my computer, her notebook, her medicines and our lunch and two purses in and set up my computer on a TV tray and sat hunched over for four hours to work as she got three bags of I.V. meds, a skin biopsy, a pump refilled for another I.V. medicine, saw a nurse, P.A. and the doctor.  And that was our fifth appointment, third doctor in four days.

I come home to a four-bedroom two-story rental house in the city with all new leather furniture - so that unlike upholstered furniture, it can be wiped free of all germs and bacteria - and set my computer up and work in an upstairs bedroom set up as an office for the remainder of my eight hour workday.  Then I go down and cook dinner for four.  Clean up the kitchen, put on a load of laundry and feed the dog and the gray stray cat that lives outside.  At 7:00 my husband and I will go to the huge Church of God church down the street and attend a Grief-Share meeting with people that are becoming my friends through the common bond of loss.  We will come home about 8:30 or 9:00; take a quick shower and then go to bed as I will be up again at 3:00.

After 37 years one of my closest relationships did not survive this tragedy and the fallout from it.

Next Wednesday will be Paxtons third birthday. This year, no party is planned.  All that I have left of him are a few static photographs and the necklace given to me that holds a sprinkling of his ashes. The joy and laughter now gone from my home... and my life.

Our usual big loud Christmas will be missing my sister and her husband (she cannot be around crowds since her transplant), my youngest son, previously the life of the party, his young fun-loving wife and the baby that came running to me arms outstretched squealing "I missed you!" last Christmas.

I am not only uncharacteristically, unprepared for Christmas - but do not in fact, even want to celebrate Christmas at all. 

Saturday I will go to my real home in the country.  I will cry periodically from the minute I get there until I leave on Sunday to come back here.  I will have dinner with my daughter as I have become very clingy to the children I have left.  Unfortunately for her, she is the only one local. 

I will go to church on Sunday morning but have given up all of the duties that I had and I will sit there like a zombie unable to even pray.  I will listen until visions of Paxton running hot wheels cars up and down the pew come to mind and then I'll cry.  I’m not mad at God I’m justs not quite sure where we stand anymore.  I won’t go out to lunch with friends after church as we are seldom invited anymore and I don't really want to be in a social environment just yet.  And I won’t play hide and seek when I get back. 

And as for where will buy our retirement home…nobody cares.

Three months...

Today marks three months since the tragic death of my son, my daughter in law and my 2.5 year old grandson.

I recall after losing my mother it had been a while and I thought I was over the worst of the grieving then I hit the three month mark – and I had a complete emotional breakdown and thought I was losing my mind.  I could not stop crying and I realize looking back on it that I had been so busy with the “business” of her death; planning the funeral, picking out a headstone, getting the will probated, paying the bills, clearing out her apartment, going through her things with my siblings and the multitude of other duties, that it kept me in a semi-state of shock.  What I thought was “dealing with the grief” prior to that was just scratching the surface.

At the three month mark – most of the “business” is done and as you begin to return to what is left of your life – the shock or should we call it the “aftershocks” begin to subside. 

You have cried, screamed, lashed out in anger and confusion and experienced all of the emotions that you could imagine and just when you think you have gone through the worst of it and are on your way out of the darkness; you look up and suddenly realize that the light at the end of the long dark tunnel is, in fact, --a train.

Our three month mark just happens to also coincide with the first holiday that we are “celebrating” together as a now-broken family --with three empty chairs. 

Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday as it comes at my favorite season of the year.  It is also the holiday that we typically celebrate with only the two children that are closest geographically and their families; unlike Christmas where we typically have 30 or more.  It is a smaller and more intimate gathering.  For many years it has only been my husband and me, my daughter, her family and Brian.  He seldom ever had his children on Thanksgiving and for twelve years it was just us.  Then when he married Kara she joined us and we had just the two families.  So this year the gaping holes in our life will not escape us as we go from Donald and I and two families to Donald and I and one family. 

It is not the best situation that it falls in the same week as the three month anniversary; which will multiply the sadness and renew the grief.   But if there is a common theme through all of this it is that everything about it has been “multiplied”.  And it seems to me like the “train” analogy is a very appropriate one.

I have said this has been like being hit by a 100-car freight train.  The first single car fully capable of killing you on its own and there are yet 99 more to completely crush what is left. 

The multiple losses, and all that came with them:  the loss of my youngest son; the loss of my daughter in law; the loss of my 2 1/2 year old grandson; the horror of how it happened; the burning questions of what happened; the fact that we could not see them and have any closure (not that I think I could have stood that and stayed sane); the anger at the lack of investigative police work and the fact that they jumped to this conclusion within minutes; the frustration over the lies we have been told and the missing information that could have given us at least a small measure of relief; the multitude of unanswered questions and the mystery surrounding all of it; the guilt we have all felt that was logically unjustified but ever-present just the same; the way that my child has been portrayed to the entire free world; the horrifying and undeserved legacy that was left for him;  the legacy it has left to his surviving children; the way that we as his family have been treated because of a judgment call that was five whole minutes in the making; the way that “friends” have turned their backs on us during the worst most devastating time a person can live through; the complicated mess that this has left us to deal with; the loss of faith in the God that I have always had to lean on and much, much more.  As the cars to the freight train just seem to go on and on.

So I supposed it should not surprise me that the three month mark would fall on our first holiday without them and that our first holiday without them would be typically my favorite – marred forever now because I will always connect it with this first holiday.  Or that, that holiday would be the holiday for being Thankful.  I pray for the strength and ability to be thankful for all that I still have.

And I do still have a lot to be thankful for… I have finally found my way through the darkness and the devastation --back to some measure of faith.   I have a God that loves me and I know that I can trust Him and know that He has my children with Him.  I am thankful for the time that I had Brian and the joy that he gave all of us.  I am thankful for having Kara for the time that I had her as she was a delightful breath of fresh air and brought the gift of her love to Brian and I am thankful that we had Paxton and thankful for what he taught me about God's unconditional love in the short time that we had him. 

I know that they were never really mine – they were always His and He cares for them now and forever. 

I am thankful for a new more vivid appreciation for those that I have left in my life.  I have my other children and grandchildren that are also a great joy to my life and I have my husband that has comforted and stood by me through this worst of times.  I have my siblings that have been there with me through so many things in my life.  I have my home, my neighbors and my church family.  And most important of all, I have the knowledge that God sent His son to pay the penalty for my sin. And it has never been driven home to me quite so succinctly - the depth of the sacrifice that God gave for me - until I lost my own son.  

I have a lot to be thankful for.