Christmas Season

We are now six Christmases in and I have yet to celebrate Christmas again.  I have managed a small tree for a few of those years and in 2014 I understood fully why I just couldn't do Christmas but even in the early stages of catastrophic grief I believed Christmas would come back for us in a year or two.  It is surprising even to me that six seasons later I am still not having Christmas.  

I have worried that it was a rebellion of sorts stemming from an unrecognized underlying anger with God but I really did not "feel" angry anymore and don't feel that I would ever do that so I really couldn't understand why I was actually, intentionally balking at having any kind of Christmas celebration.  Last year I actually felt like Christmas could possibly "come back".  I was a little enthusiastic about decorating and even purchased a new smaller tree but then December 3, my sister went to the hospital with pneumonia.  When she got to the ER by ambulance her fever was over 105 and she went into a coma and ended up in ICU on life support for 15 days.  Waking up by nothing less that a pure miracle on Christmas Eve --the entire month of December missing from her life.  It took six months of therapy to get her mobile and back to maybe 75%.  She will never really fully overcome that huge setback.  

So this year I was fully expecting to have Christmas on track full steam again.  Not.

I have less enthusiasm than I had last year.  It seems Christmas returning is farther away than it was four years ago.  And I have been totally baffled as to why.  This morning I read a devotional that I get by email daily.  It was about Christmas.  It really ended up being nothing about anything remotely familiar to my life and yet the beginning of it hit me like a brick -- an epiphany of sorts and suddenly I realized what my deal with Christmas is actually about.  It is not, as I had worried, a rebellion towards God or what Christmas stands for at all.  It is about what Christmas had become for me.

As a child I was such a dreamer.  I was beside myself over Christmas every year.  The promise that it held of the latest and greatest new toy being advertised on TV, a family outing to pick out a tree, everyone gathering to decorate it, the lights, the beautiful packages with ribbons and bows.  And of course every year I prayed for snow.  I live in Atlanta, Georgia - never in my life did I see a white Christmas but it didn't stop me from praying for it in rapt anticipation year after year.  I stared out the window into the darkness late into the night Christmas Eve looking for Santa's sleigh.  I imagined of my mother putting out cookies and milk for Santa and the family gathering around and singing Christmas Carols as we hung stocking on our fireplace.  I was a hopeless dreamer.

I was the oldest of four children born to two alcoholic parents Christmas for us was about as far from my Norman Rockwell dream as it could get.  

My mother always saw to it that we always had a tree and toys.  And I should have been more thankful for what we did have I guess.  But it wasn't toys I longed for.  It wasn't greed that fueled my disappointment.  I wanted "family".  I wanted normal.  I wanted the things money could not buy.  I wanted my mother home for Christmas.  I wanted us all gathered around the table for a festive Christmas dinner together.  I wanted us to spend time together baking cookies, wrapping gifts, singing carols.  But she never was.  She was gone.  Almost every Christmas eve as long as I could remember - sometimes she worked, sometimes she was just gone all Christmas Eve.  We never saw her till Christmas Day - grouchy, half asleep and hungover.  

We were left with Daddy and Daddy was crazy-mean when he was drunk.  Our Christmas Eve was spent wondering what lay in store for us before morning.  Were we going to be beaten or were one of our pets going to be abused or killed.  And Christmas for some reason brought out the absolute worst in him.  Ghosts from his raising I'm sure.  So we had memorable Christmases but not the kind Norman Rockwell would paint about.  

One memorable Christmas Eve, while Mama was working of course, he gathered all of four of us into the car (usually in pajamas, barefooted and without coats) and informed us we were going for a ride.  It was his thing to get drunk and want to drive around - a particularly terrifying event for all of us.  He drove around for about a half hour and then pulled down a dead end street and parked the car.  He turned off all the lights, opened the door and got out which was also very typical of these late night rides.  And he disappeared into the darkness leaving all four of us in the cold, dark car wondering what was coming next.  When he returned we heard him open the trunk of the car, fumble around, cuss and then he pulled open the drivers door and got in.  He was carrying the 38 caliber pearl-handled pistol that he had dubbed "Old Smoky" that always seemed to appear when he had a few drinks.  For a little added drama, he had a glove he also had taken from the trunk of the car and tossed it into the back seat to my sister closest to me in age and demanded she check it out and tell him what she found.  

She answered, "bullets Daddy."  

"How many?" he demanded.  

"Five" she said.  

"Yes, he agreed.  Five; one for each of you and one for your mother."  

We all started to cry and ask why?  What had we done?  

No answer.  He got out of the car again and disappeared into the dark as all of us sat there frozen waiting for the shooting to begin.

Then he later comes back to the car and without another word cranks the car and heads for home.

Another Christmas Eve while yet again Mama was "gone".  He put us to bed early and then around 1:00 am came and woke us all up and had us open all of our dresser drawers and empty the contents onto the floor.  Where then he instructed us to take them to the kitchen and place them into the washer to wash the clean clothes.  When they were washed, dried and folded he dumped them into the floor and said, "Now do it again till you get it right."  So we washed clothes, clean clothes, all night until daybreak Christmas morning.

There were Christmases where we had to leave home and interrupt some relatives Christmas begging them to let us stay with them because he was in a drunken rage and we had no where to go.  There were Christmases where the police came and hauled him away in handcuffs with all of the neighborhood kids watching.  

Yes, our Christmases were always memorable albeit in a "Stephen King" sort of way.  

And yet, every single year like an idiot, without fail I had hope anew that "this year" we'd suddenly wake up in a normal home and Christmas would be wonderful.  

When I left home at 14 we had still not turned into the Cleavers.  

But I determined that when I had a family of my own and it was entirely up to me - my kids would have the perfect Christmas of my dreams. Perfect of course does not exist but I tried.  God knows, I tried.

We had no money so I started Christmas shopping in July buying one or two things at a time.  I hid gifts, I wrapped gifts.  I made handmade bows.  I planned family outings to a tree farm where we went up and down rows and rows of ridiculously priced trees to find the perfect one.  I slowly over the years collected little old fashioned wooden ornaments and carefully wrapped and packed them every year like they were fine crystal and when I pulled the out the next year it was almost a "holy event" as we carefully lifted the little wooden toy ornaments along with whatever hand made ornaments my children had made that year in school.  I'd fix snacks and we'd have a little mini-party as we put on Christmas music and all decorated the tree as a family.  It was several years before we had a house with a real fireplace but once we did, I'd string live pine garland with mini-lights the length of the mantle with big red bows and all of the kids stockings.  We'd pile packages under the tree and make games out of trying to keep my middle child from peeping into his gifts before Christmas.  In later years I baked Christmas cookies and made homemade fruitcakes and divinity, the menu and the guest list grew as our little Christmas Eve party gained momentum.  

My children got married and grand kids came along and we added stockings to the mantle and our Christmases got large and loud and messy and wonderful.  We began inviting anyone that had no place to go on Christmas.  We bought extra gifts and always had tons of food.  Soon my children numbered 17 and Christmas had grown to about 30 to 40.  Then life and divorces happened. Schedules became complicated when my boys both had to fight for a few hours with their children on Christmas Eve.  Geography and time constraints and the whims of ex-wives made our Christmases begin to be stressful and difficult and everyone began to seem on edge.  The last Christmas we all had as a family 2013 working a full time job and driving 3 and a half hours a day in Atlanta traffic meant I had to work on getting Christmas together for weeks a little at a time.  I planned.  I decorated.  I cooked.  I wrapped.  And Christmas came and everyone seemed to just be in a hurry to leave.  They ate.  Unwrapped gifts and all began to get up and get ready to leave.  My son came from four hundred miles away to stay one hour and the two local children and all of their children said they had to go because they were all getting together and going to see a movie.  It was their "Christmas Tradition" now to all go see a movie on Christmas Day.  So they all left and I sat alone in the middle of all of my weeks of Christmas Crap and cried the rest of the afternoon and vowed I would never do "all this" again. 

And I never have.  That was the last Christmas I was to ever have my entire family and it was also the Christmas that I realized that Christmas as we had always known it --was over.  Truly over.  

It was not something any of them wanted --a big traditional family Christmas  --was my dream because it was something I had never had as a child.  It was never theirs.  They had always had it so to them it was no more than an aggravating annual obligation that they could not wait to get away from.  

Kids grow up.  Grand kids grow up.  Life changes.  Traditions change.  It was heartbreaking and on top of everything else I had to grieve, I also grieved the loss of our family Christmas.  And so I haven't had Christmas since 2013.  

And I realized this morning that opting out of Christmas was never a rebellion.  It was just the end of an era.  One that's time had passed.  Family get-togethers, I had assumed, much like fruitcake and homemade bread, are a thing of the past.  They still have family traditions like going to a movie on Christmas Day and even family get-togethers at Christmas.  I'm just no longer a part of their family now...

God's Strength in Your Weakness

As difficult as it has been to sit with my friend as she cares for her son in his last days I have been a first hand witness to God's gracious provision.  Her strength, stamina, resolve, faith and peace have been nothing short of a miracle.

She is caring for his needs almost around the clock getting up every two hours to administer medication so that his pain does not get ahead of them.  She is helping him to the bathroom and helping him shower and feeding him as if he were her small child again.  She talks to him like it was any other day, laughs with him, jokes with him and puts his heart at ease by keeping conversation light and breezy.

She has spent night after night in his hospital room before he came home; sleeping whatever way they could; in chairs or crammed together with her 76 year old sister on a small, vinyl, half moon shaped uncomfortable sofa - in a freezing cold room eating cold food out of bags.

I have yet to hear her complain and I have yet to see her break down.

God has blessed her with His strength in her weakest moments.  Some may assume that her strength and stamina stems from adrenaline and I'm sure that plays a part but nothing but God could account for the peace and resolve bestowed on her in the wake of the worst situation any mother can imagine.

He has provided, like He did for me --family, friends, neighbors, professionals to love her, provide food and supplies, to sit with her for moral support, to help with her son's care,or to minister to his spiritual needs.  God's people being the hands and feet of Jesus to help however she needs.

Speaking of which, I have never seen a family come together like her family has done during the last few weeks.  Never.  It is amazing to see the love and dedication that they have shown.

Her sister had just driven 8 hours to Jacksonville, FL when she got the news.  She turned the car around without a minute of rest and drove 8 hours right back to be with her.  She stayed at the hospital with Kathie every night she did.  Her sister's friend offered to stay at the hospital one night and let them go home get a shower, a hot meal and sleep in a bed.  He did not even know Kathie or her son. Her oldest son has been with them nonstop helping his brother with bathroom duties, clothes changing and just attending to his needs any way he could and sitting there as support for his mother.  Her sister's children have every one been there.  Her nieces staying the night over the weekend so she could sleep and not worry about his needs or medicine for one night.  Her nephew coming every day and helping with his needs.  And they do not live next door or even close.  They live 50 or 60 miles away through Atlanta traffic.  They all have families.  They all have jobs.  What an absolutely unheard of blessing.  To me, that is what family should be.  But so few are.  It is refreshing and amazing to see.

We spent the day with them again today and it does not look like he will make it through the week. And while I am so sad for her still - I feel blessed to be able to be a part of ministering to her and having the unique opportunity to see God's strength in action and be a witness to the way her family has pulled together to be there for her like they have.  Everyone should be so blessed.

I am humbled and awed. What a gift.

I Need...

Desperately to talk to someone.

And yet again I find myself with no one to talk to about all these emotions that keep pounding at me.  So again, I turn here.

My friend's son's situation has brought so many of the emotions that I've thought were long past - front and center.  I cannot be with him more than a few minutes before I start to fall apart.  I cry at the drop of a hat and feel so very unstable again.

Cancer has been the one thing that I have told myself could have been worse than what we had.  And now faced with watching cancer slowly, horrifically take a life I'm seeing firsthand the horrific side of watching your child suffer, be in pain, face the fear of dying and having that horror drag out - facing the loss over and over as you have the emotional highs and lows of terminal illness.  Grieving that loss many times over and still I know that that does not make the final grieving after death one ounce easier.  I'm not crazy enough to believe that for one minute.

But being the hopeless analytical that I am I've turned every side of this scenario over and over comparing it to what we had to deal with and I now also see that she may look at what she has and be glad she did not face what we did...

She has something we did not have.  She has time.  Precious, valuable, priceless time.

She can make up for all of the little things that she feels she did wrong by caring for his every need now.  She has time --to adjust to the possibility of the loss and make sure to say all of the things that keep me up nights.  She has time --to hug him and kiss him and cherish every nuance of his face. She has time --to listen to him, memorize his voice and hang on every word because she has the luxury of "knowing" everyday could be her last time.  She has time to watch while he sleeps and study his face so that she never forgets.  She has time --to bond with him like she hasn't had the chance to do in years while he was grown and living in another state.  She has time --to mother him once again and love him and make sure he knows how much.

Her family also has this time.  Her oldest son can be there for his brother; talk to him, physically do things for him to make him comfortable.  He can read to him, feed him, listen to him.  And in doing so he can salve any guilt feelings that he may have had from years of being estranged and later instead of drowning in guilt and shame like my oldest son, going over and over every harsh word that passed between them and turning bitter and biting at everyone he comes in contact with, her son will rest in knowing that he was there for him when he needed him.  And I pray that that keeps her son from running off the rails in his grief later.

His "people" have come out of the woodwork to be there for him and for her.  People that his chosen lifestyle has kept at bay for years.  He has that comfort.  They have that time.  He can die knowing everyone he ever cared about has been there for him.  If he ever questioned their love - he doesn't have to question it now.  He can rest knowing "He was loved."  He will not die alone.

And her friends and family, all the way to her husband's ex-wife have rallied to her side to help her deal with this sorrow and bear this sad horrific responsibility. I am so glad that she has this.  This is going to be the hardest thing she has ever had to face and I love her and I am so thankful she will have the comfort and support that she needs and is not having to bear it alone.

I know how much it hurts when you do not.

My conclusion?  There is no good way to do this.  There is no one way better than another to lose a child.  There are only bad ways.

I pray for her --peace that passes all understanding and for God's strength when hers in depleted.  I pray for everyone that can to come along side her for comfort and support.  I pray that our friendship survives this.  It was a miracle we survived one loss but it's a double hit so I have cause for concern.  I pray that I can be there for him without falling apart and I pray I can be there for her from here on out.

Here Comes Another Wave...

Just like Brian said in the email I kept getting over and over five years after it was sent...five years after he died...

My best friend forever since we were five years old got a call from her youngest son last Thursday.  He was in the E.R. with severe back pain.  He thought he'd slipped a disk.  After his blood work an MRI and CT Scan his slipped disk turned out to be stage 4 metastatic cancer.  Lungs, pancreas and liver involved. I have known him all of his life --I have known of him before he had life. I was there when he was born.  He's 49 years old.  The same age my oldest son turned today.  They played together as children.

The doctors have said it is likely he will never leave the hospital.

Needless to say they are all in shock.  He is in denial and shock.  I am devastated for them.  All of them.  I have cried until I was sick.  Terribly sad for him and the life that he had planned that will now be left unfinished.  Devastated for my friend because I know what she does not know.  I know what is coming for her for many, many months and even years to come.

I know the sadness, the regrets, the guilt, the sleepless, endless nights; I know how this will change every part of her life and even her personality.  How it will change and even possibly destroy what's left of her small and dwindling family. I know the many facets of hurt that will hit her one right after the other.  How strangers and even people she loves will say the wrong things and hurt her and how friends that she thought would be there for her --will turn away and even family that can't handle the "grief-sodden" person that she will become and will grow weary of the sadness and try to hurry her past it and if she doesn't comply --eventually drop off the radar.

I know how she will call into question every belief she ever had about goodness and fairness in the world and even at times, doubt God's goodness and possibly grow weak in her faith.

I dread to the point of panic her having to face the decisions that she will eventually be faced with.  Decisions I was not faced with like making the choice for life support or not, hospice or home care, continued feeding or withholding nourishment and God-forbid, removal of life support.  Then there are the decisions I did have to make: Burial or cremation; scattering ashes or keeping them in an urn, vaults, caskets, memorial stones, memorial service or funeral, what to say, who to call on, music, preacher, graveside service.  These are all horrible, horrible decisions that a parent should NEVER have to make for their child.

I want to protect her from having to watch her child suffer to the point that "death", the most feared word a mother can imagine --will be the lesser of the two evils.  And cringe because I know I cannot.

I fear myself - saying the wrong thing and causing the pain so many have unknowingly caused me.  I pray I never do that.

I fear losing her after 61 years as friends as close as sisters.  Sounds ridiculous --but I know it can happen because I lost the closest friend I'd ever had after a 38-year friendship. I've lost my other two children because of it so yes, it can happen, and I know that.

I wish I could shield her from all that is ahead, but I cannot; no more than anyone could shield me from it.  I hope, I PRAY that I can be there for her.  Be there as someone that truly understands what she is going through.  I pray that I have learned something from all of this in order to be there for my friend like so many were for me when I went through it.  I pray that after the dozens of books I've read on the subject that I can say the right things and that I can minister to her in the way she needs.

We both see now why I was strategically placed "here" 17 miles from her instead of the 80 we had been.  We were never looking here.  We had no intentions of moving here.  We only looked at this one house and it was certainly not the house of our dreams and yet, here we are.

It was not for the reasons that I assumed - so that my son would come.  He doesn't.  It was not because it was an ideal location.  It certainly wasn't to help my daughter and I bond.  And we could never figure out - Why God would have chosen to put us here of all places.

I guess now I know.  God help me to carry forward the comfort that I have been given.

Empathy

Things have been very tense between my daughter and myself for over a year.  For the first time in over 50 years, I have not laid eyes on her in fourteen months.  I have had little choice but to just leave her alone and let her deal with whatever issues that she has on her own.  I apparently was only making things worse.

Today in confiding to a friend my deep pain over the deterioration of my family and the losses that continue to pile higher I sat trying to explain to her how this could even happen between two people that used to be so close and instead of whining and relating my hurt over all of it I found myself explaining it "from my daughter's point of view".  A view I had been too hurt and too devastated to see.  What I realized was that while I was drowning in the overwhelming sorrow of losing my child, grandchild and daughter in law she too had a huge parade of losses.

My friend asked about her friends and her support system outside of her immediately family.

"She pretty much has none." I answered.  "She doesn't make friends easily and her one and only real friend since she married let her down over and over, used her and then totally abandoned her after the loss of Brian."

Then she asked if she and my other son were close.

"No." I answered.  "They never have been.  She was always very close to Brian --but of course she lost him."

"So she has had no friends?" my friend asked.

"Well, yes, she and Kara were very close --but she lost Kara too."

"But you guys were close at one time?"

"Yes, until I moved."

And that's when it hit me.  She had lost almost everyone outside her immediate family that she cared about and then I left her too.

I felt awful.

I have prayed to be able to see her side of this, for me to have God's heart for understanding her and to be able to put myself and my hurt aside and walk in her shoes and feel what she feels.  Today I did just that.  And my heart broke for her.

It's not like I intended to be selfish and just abandon her or my son and not acknowledge their pain I have just been so all consumed with just trying to survive this until I couldn't see past my own pain I guess.  I of course knew we all had loss.  My son has had much the same.  He lost his half-brother because he abandoned him much like my daughter's friend did - after Brian died.  He has also lost a good friend to death that he has known for many years.  He too was close only to Brian and he lost him.  They were both always close to my brother and they now have no relationship with him either.  All of our lives have been impacted in ways we never could have imagined.  All of us lost our entire support systems outside of our spouses.  On top of the catastrophic loss we suffered on August 23rd 2014 we have all also lost friends, co-workers, relatives --and sadly, each other.

I know nothing can bring back Brian and his family but I do pray that God will see fit to restore the relationship I once had with my other two children.  It is heartbreak on top of devastating heartbreak and I just don't know how much more loss I can survive and stay sane.

The Fifth Anniversary...

Has come and gone and I'm glad August is in the rear view mirror.  I spent a solid month dreading it because milestones are always hard.  Problem is it isn't just the "day" of the anniversary it is more like the entire month.  I start getting weepy and depressed as July marches toward the end of summer.  And I stay that way until after Labor Day.  But as I've  mentioned August is a month full of significant days so I guess that's reasonable.

This was a milestone I was dreading mostly because it "has" been five years and I am still where I am at FIVE DANG YEARS later!  That alone is depressing.  And in some ways --not all ways but some, I'm worse than I was say three years out.  That I don't understand.  But I'm going to use this five year mark as a goal. The end of this "continuing to get worse" phase.  I am going to get better.  I am.

Still waiting for that "Beauty From Ashes" to show up.  I do get a little discouraged when I read about all that others have gleaned from the journey through loss and grief --even catastrophic loss.  And when I see the beauty from ashes in other people's stories or when I see that God has restored things to others in the wake of their loss because I know that is not possible in my case.  I am not, at 66 years old going to get another son.  I will never have another opportunity to be that close to another baby in my life. My daughter in law is not miraculously going to be replaced by a better, newer model.  So what exactly could "restoration" even look like for me?

I want to be positive.  I really do.  I want to believe things will get better but I can't see beauty from ashes and I can't see anything being "restored" in my life.  Five solid years out I watch and wait expectantly and still the losses continue to pile up.

I'm trying to stay busy.  I am trying to make new friends and create a solid social life albeit the landscape has changed drastically. Seems now I gravitate to those that have had and therefore understand --catastrophic loss. I am still reading non-stop; still searching for that one story that has the positive, happy ending that can give me the secret formula to overcoming this pain and heartache and the magic potion that will help me learn to not just live through this but enjoy living again in spite of this and tell me what steps to take in order to mitigate the steady stream of collateral losses.

I'm trying to do things - things I used to enjoy - looking for a spark that might ignite even a small flame of interest in something again.  I'm making the effort - which is a step forward I know since it was a long time before I cared to even try.

It was a huge step for me to attempt yet again to see a counselor.  Since that first year when I called about twenty with not so much as a single response and the one I did manage to wrangle up could not handle this and decided to just help me deal with the scheduling issues surrounding my sister's care and how to work in "grieving from the tragic loss of three members of my family" between a three hour commute in heavy Atlanta traffic daily to go for 6 to 12 hours a day 5 -days a week in the bone marrow clinic, juggling visits to an endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist in between along with regular trips to the hospital radiology department, dermatologist and respiratory therapist offices for testing or treatments, keeping up with a conglomeration of 28 medications, making sure the house was as germ-free and bacteria-free as possible, planning and preparing meals according to specific guidelines and doing laundry for four people on top of a full time job that I was then having to do at night after everything else was taken care of.  Granted I needed help for that.  But sadly got no help for the elephant or rather Mastadon in the room.

I think I've had maybe as much as five sessions with her and I got a letter about two weeks ago saying she was resigning.  Resigning.

Was it something that I said?

Small Snippets

I dreamed about the baby last night--something I always wish I could do.  Then when I do I'm sad and weepy for days afterwards. But I also remember how sweet and precious it was to get to be with him for even that little while.  And still it's worth it to me. 

It wasn't much of a dream really only spanned probably less than two minutes time but enough to bring to life those overwhelming feelings of deep, deep love like I felt in the dream I had before he was even conceived.  He was younger in the dream maybe 18 months old and was standing in a baby bed.  Music was playing and he was "singing" along loudly.  No words.  But like he really used to do - just baby jibber-jabber but in perfect tune and with the correct inflections.  He was amazing in that.  He loved sounds, voice pitches, conversation inflections and music of all types and though he didn't hardly even talk at almost three he was never shy and always very vocal. 

In the dream he was singing along with the music and then he quit and I was trying to encourage him to keep singing because it was so sweet and I was pantomiming the words to to him to try and get him to start singing again and he watched me a minute and instead of singing with the music like he had been doing he laughed and started pantomiming back at me.  It was so funny and so just exactly like something he would do.  And that was all that I remember of the dream.  I've been so afraid of forgetting --not him, but the little details of who he was.  It felt good to know that I had not forgotten his essence, his quirky little personality traits that were so uniquely him.  And good to realize that my heart remembered that deep, deep love I felt for him.  It was so good to see him and be with him even for that little while and feel that love even if I will pay for it for days with the overwhelming sadness that will provoke. 

It has made today very hard but still it was such a gift.  I don't dream of any of them often - not often enough but even less of him and I hate that but I guess in God's infinite wisdom, He knows it would keep me deep in the darkness, living in the past with less motivation to move forward. 

 I only had him for two years and eight months.  It is so hard to believe that a child could carve such a deep rut in my heart after such a short time so that even after five years I look at his pictures and still cry.  I find it hard to believe that after only Two and a half years with him that the thoughts of him still dominate so much of my every day or that the pain of losing him could still be this raw.

Fifty eight years I had lived without ever knowing him and I've now been without him five more; twice as long as I had him.  Two and a half years short years is such a small percentage of 66 years and logically I don't even see how 2 and 1/2 years could impact my life in such a way.

I love and miss you my little man.  Always. Always.