Dear Brian,

I am thinking of you and Paxton a lot today for some reason.  It has been a sad day today.  I saw a movie that had a baby that looked so much like Paxton.  Even had on a shirt identical to one that he wore a lot and he was the same age.  I still see you both everywhere.  I  catch myself looking for both of you in crowds and sometimes when I see babies that remind me of Paxton I want to just stay close to them and soak in their sweetness.  Sometimes in stores I follow their moms down a few aisles just so I can see him a little longer and feel him close to me again.  

I've set Sunday afternoons aside as the time I give myself  to cry.  Dad watches the race downstairs and I have some private time to myself.  So that I don't "break" in front of people or in public anymore I designated a day when I know I can be alone and I come in the office and I can miss you both all I want and out loud if I need to.  I allow myself time to just sit with my grief, cry and be sad. And sometimes I just sit here and think of things I remember because I want to keep you both fresh in my mind.  I had you a long time but Paxton has been gone way longer than the two years and eight month that I had him so I am so afraid that I will forget.  Not him, of course but the essence of him.  His silent sweetness, his funny little ways, our little games and how much they amused him, his first words, the sound of his voice and the "baby" way he pronounced words. That sweet baby smell, his giggle, what he felt like snuggled up to me asleep.  Little sweet or funny things he did like pretending to sneeze when he was so little and laughing when I said "Bless You!" because he knew it was a joke.  And how we used to play hide and seek and he'd lead me to the linen closet and shut me in and then pretend to look for me until he would open the door and "find" me right where he'd left me.  

These are the precious things that I never want to lose but I am so afraid that I will.  

I know there were a million little things that you all did or said that I was sure I'd never forget - but I did.  So I know its possible and so I try to remember all the little details that I can so that they will stay fresh in my memory and he will stay alive in my heart.  

So today is Saturday --not my day and yet I'm sad and grieving fiercely today. Not sure what's up with that unless it is the baby in the movie. 

Sometimes those little coincidences, like dreams, seem like little gifts from God.  Little snippets of you or Paxton that I find in crowds or in movies that give me a little private visit from you. I will take them.  And I am thankful to God for them even if they do make me sad afterwards.

I think lately about how everyday I'm a little closer to being with you all again.  Until then I will see you in my dreams or at the mall or in the babies I see on movies and I will think of you all and miss you still everyday.

 

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.
  

August

August 1.  The fifth August.

The month I dread all year long.  Other months bother me as well - March and December are always hard.

But August is the month that life as we knew it completely fell apart.  And every August still brings some of those exact same feelings  as from "that August" flooding back to cripple me.

August was the last time I ever saw them --my very last visit two weeks prior.  The last time I would ever hug and kiss Kara and Paxton and the last lost opportunity to hug Brian.  He was never comfortable with open shows of affection and that one day, I opted to give him a break and let him off without a hug.  Of course having no idea it would have been my last opportunity ever.

August was when I gave Kara her last birthday present - early something I never, ever do.  But that day I did.  I didn't know why I did but I did.  It would have been her 30th, she never lived to see it.

August is the month of her mother's birthday.  The day before they all died.  The last time she ever got to hear her daughter's beautiful voice.  She would never have another good birthday because every birthday from then on would bring back horrific memories.

August is the month of Brian's oldest son's birthday.  The next day after they were found.  He will never forget that birthday. And he will never have another birthday with his dad which was always a big day around their house his entire life.  He will never have another birthday that isn't tainted remembering his birthday 2014.

August - the month that marked the worst days of my life.  The 23rd, the day I was awakened at 4:00 am and burst into tears for no known reason.  The 23rd the day they actually died.  The 24th the day that is on their death certificates incorrectly marking the days of their lives.  Also the day I tried all morning with a pit of dread and fear in my stomach to reach them to no avail.  The 24th the day they were all found shot to death in the home I helped them purchase and forever I will wonder if I hadn't done that - could the outcome have been different?  The house that once was a great source of pride for both of them - a testament to his unbelievable talents as well as her love, hard work and determination --now a horrific murder scene, a memorial to wasted lives and devastating loss, sold to the highest bidder on the courthouse steps.

The rest of August after that a blur of questions, anger, grief, devastation, learning new words as they applied to my child and grandchild like cremation, autopsy, memorial service, urns, toxicology report, death certificate and then calls to people and places that have never touched my life before that day like the County Sheriff Department's Homicide Investigator,  the County Coroner's office, The GBI, The State Crime Lab.

The last day of August - Kara's birthday.

August - three birthdays and one horrific death day

No, August is not my favorite month.  It is a month I tiptoe through just trying to survive it without further collateral damage and hoping and praying that I will get to the other side of it as quickly as possible.

This is my 100th post on a blog I started four weeks after that first August five years ago that changed every part of my life forever.

Five years has given me a perspective that I had not had before and has brought things to mind that time and distance have caused me to connect like the dream I had about the train trestle when I was maybe 9 or 10 years old.  And there are other things like that.

One day I thought about a word I used to describe accurately the person I am today --"Broken". Broken in every sense of the word.  My spirit is broken.  My family is broken.  My life as it relates to hopes, dreams, aspirations --broken.  My relationships --all --broken.  And one day I walked into a restaurant and a country music song was playing.  A song by Larry Gatlin and The Gatlin Brothers.  I laughed out loud and thought of Brian as a three year old.  It was his very favorite song.  Anytime we were in the car and it came on the radio he would get wide-eyed and squeal with delight and scream out:

"Mama!, Broken Lady song -- Broken Lady song!"

I used to laugh knowing how literal small children think and I could see that from his three year old perspective he was picturing an actual lady broken into a million pieces like a glass figurine.

That day as I thought of that it stopped me dead in my tracks as I remembered the many, many times I had made reference to myself as being a broken person and suddenly it seemed like an accurate prophetic depiction from a three-year old and realized that what he pictured wasn't really that far off.

Some days...

Today is one of those days when just walking by my computer sets the tone for my day.  The screensaver picture is one I took of Paxton up at our barn sitting on a log.  They are all precious.

I would sometimes just follow him around with the camera and let him be "him"; running, playing, climbing, throwing leaves up in the air --whatever he found to do while I snapped away.  The hundreds and hundreds of pictures of him that I took in the few short years that we had him can attest to that.  I've never done that.  I realize now what a gift that was that I did as they now are all I have.

Some days it is still so hard; so painful and so raw.  Other days - I'm visibly better.   Some days these memories are treasures that make me smile and I could just sit and flip through hundreds of them at a sitting.  Today, they are treasures that do just the opposite.  I want to turn away quickly because they hurt with a fresh, deep, agonizing, physically painful hurt.  Just walking by them made me burst into tears. 

Best to do on days like this? Focus on helping others.  It helps me.  It helps "me" way more than it helps them. I find I desperately need to stay busy and keep my mind occupied and off of the sadness which at any given moment without warning can totally ambush me and sidetrack my entire day.  And I still need my time to cry but at least most of the time I am able to control when and where I cry --so that is an improvement.

I am so glad I naively did not realize I could still be "here" over four years later.  In many ways, as impossible as it seems, it is actually worse.  I do wonder when it will stop getting worse.  That news alone would have been more than I could have overcome in the beginning.  

One day at a time.  One step at a time.  One ambush at a time.

Today is not a good day but tomorrow will be better.

August

Birthdays, I think, are the hardest.  Yesterday would have been Kara's 33rd.  At least half of this month of August has been so difficult and I feel like I have really taken a major leap backwards and birthdays have played a large part in that.


The 16th - the date that I gave Kara her early birthday present because I had been unable to come home much with my sister sick and was afraid I would miss her birthday.  I never-ever give anyone their birthday or Christmas presents early.  Guess we now know why I was lead to make an exception this year.


The 18th - the date of the last video that Kara's made of Paxton and sent to me.  She also sent one to her mom.  Mine was of Paxton saying:  "Hey Nana, I love you."  Nancy's said: "Hey Me-ma, I love you."


The 22nd - Kara's mom's birthday and the last time she ever heard her daughter's voice and just hours before their deaths.  Her birthday will never be a happy occasion of celebration again.


The 23rd - the actual day they died but forever noted incorrectly because they were not found until the 24th. 


The 24th - the day that changed all of our lives forever.  The worst day in all of our lives up to that day.  The day that changed what we would have as a future but it also because of what the police said happened even made us question our past.  If that was true then nothing else we had ever known was true.  That day made us all question everything we knew, everything we believed in and everything we could ever hope for.


The 25th - Brian's oldest son's birthday.  It was his twenty third and it was the one that would change every birthday from now on because "this" would dominate.  "This" would mar.  "This" would be all he would ever think about for every birthday now forever.


The 31st - Kara's birthday.  It would have been her 30th.  A birthday she was looking forward to and dreading but would never see.  And now forever for her family they can never think of her birthday that the anniversary of her death does not loom over it.


I pray for peace for all of us as August is once again in the rear-view mirror thank goodness.

A stubbed toe - an amputated foot - same thing right?

Well I broke down and ate in the break room today with all of the co-worker friends I used to eat with; something I had really not done in a year and a half. 

It was a colossal mistake.

I only sat there long enough to eat a bowl of soup and was back at my desk in less than twenty minutes.  It was long enough however, to wreck the rest of my day.

The table conversation was about one of the girls’12-year old dogs.  She had four when we used to eat together.  A few years ago we both had a Chihuahua and I made the mistake of asking about hers. She told me that he had died around this time last year.  I told her how sorry I was to hear that at which she replied “I know. It was awful.  Losing him was just as bad as…” and she stopped dead in her tracks leaving the unsaid words hanging in mid-air.  Both of us sat in awkward silence knowing what she was about to say.  I was sitting desperately trying to think of what I was going to do if she had actually said it.  I probably would have stuffed it down, pretended I had to run back to work and brushed it off to keep from making a scene and making her feel bad.  But I was sitting there looking down at my phone staring at the wallpaper into those beautiful smiling brown eyes and what I wanted to do was shove that picture at her and say:  “Really?  Really losing your dog is exactly like losing him? I beg to differ with you.  I’ve had dogs.  I’ve had dogs I really, really loved but at no point would I compare the loss to losing my child.”

I remember sitting and watching the videos in GriefShare and hearing the story from a mother that had lost her two-year old to a drowning, tell about being somewhere in a social situation and having someone come up to her in a gesture of “comfort” and tell her to “Look at the bright-side, at least you won’t have to potty-train him.” What is wrong with people?

A few weeks back I ran into a friend.  She was visibly upset and when I stopped and asked her if she was okay the dam broke and she burst into uncontrollable tears.  I grabbed her and said, “Hey what is wrong?  What can I do? Are you okay?”  Instantly I felt the pain of her grief because judging from her reaction clearly someone important to her --had died. 

Nope.  Turns out she had a fight with her best friend and she had not called her in four days…

I seem to compare every loss against "this" and everything seems small in comparison. However, in all fairness I have sat and thought about what was earth-shattering drama to me just weeks before this happened.  I've thought many times about what I worried about, lost sleep over and even obsessed over.  How I would love to go back to a time of innocence where my biggest worry was getting in the long check out line at Publix or how aggravating it was to get cut off in traffic. Oh to go back to when I was blissfully unaware about how terribly cruel life could really be.  

I could sit down at any given time and cry and scream solid until this time next year and not even put a dent in all I have to cry about.  We could start with how the pain of losing my child, my daughter-in -law and my baby just goes on and on and how still seventeen months later I keep reliving that horrific day or waking up in a panic as I realize it is, in fact, really “real” over and over again.  Or I could cry about my sister and all that she is having to go through as I worry over her every single day as she fights the effects of not only the leukemia but worse still the treatment; overcoming one trial just in time for the next one to hit and sometimes they are overlapping.  Not to mention the frustration of going from doctor to doctor to doctor and the multitude of medication she has to take and all of the diagnostic procedures she is still having to suffer through not to mention the financial devastation of millions upon millions of dollars in medical bills that she will never be able to pay.  Or maybe on a slow day I could cry for the way that Brian’s existing two children are running off the rails trying to deal with all of this and the feeling of despair that I feel as I watch helplessly as their lives slowly deteriorate as this cancer slowly eats away at my family.  Or when I have nothing else to cry about – I could cry about the fact that after a year and a half I still do not even know what happened to my children or why and worse still is the fact that I may never know that.  Or I could cry over the fact that my other son has not spoken to me in almost a year because he has so much anger and nowhere to constructively place it so it landed on me.  So instead of losing one son, a daughter-in-law, the baby I adored – I can, for no real reason that I can understand, lose two. 

My entire family is in shambles and if that is not enough and friends are the subject of the day if I have any tears left I could cry about the friends I have lost as a result of this – not just one but several in all areas of my life.  Church friends, neighbor friends, work friends as well as the one friend that has shared every aspect of my life for the previous 37 years.  And I don’t even have tears enough left over to cry for my loss of her.  Sadly she is way down the list.  I’m sure I will get to it eventually – maybe in eight or ten years I can find time and tears to grieve the loss of that relationship. And then as icing on the proverbial cake there is the loss of my faith as I knew it and the loss of the relationship I have always had with my God and my comforter and really --what can compare with that? 

I have so much to grieve over that I don’t even know where to begin.  It will literally take years to even get through the list and so far I’m not having much luck getting past number one.

Girl's Night...

We are back from the concert.  One of the first songs MercyMe sang was The Hurt and The Healer – the song that started it all for me.  Thank you again R.B. That was an awesome concert and I wish I could have shared it with you!  We had a really great time. 

My best friend’s sister just lost her husband a few months ago and the day of the concert was his birthday; their first since losing him.  To keep from being alone on his birthday his daughter came up from Jacksonville, Florida and joined us at the last minute.  We all needed this and it did not disappoint. It was one of those little Divine Gifts that I ended up getting to see the very band that started my new love affair with Praise music.  I have not been to a concert since The Doobie Brothers!  This was a little different …

It was a girl's night.  Turned out to be an overnighter for my daughter and I because the concert was 75 miles away and so we stayed the night in a hotel and met the other girls for breakfast before we headed home on Friday.  There were six of us altogether and we had a really great time of good friends, worship and fantastic music.

And as I listened to the lead singer in the band speak of his childhood of shame and abuse I realized I had a lot more in common with them than just the words to their songs speaking to my heart.  Maybe that was the deeper common bond that drew me to their music. His music is from his heart, a part of who he is. 

Only thing missing that kept it from being a perfect night - was my sister.  But on that subject, Praise God, she got some good news recently and we will certainly take it!  She deserves some good news for a change.

Today is the fifteen month anniversary.  I have been doing better but somehow my spirit always knows what day it is even when I do not consciously think about it.  I dreamed last night that I was in a store in front of a display of hand-crocheted baby things and I had a little matched sweater set with a hat in my hands touching the soft yellow yarn and remembering what it was like to be shopping for and buying precious little baby things for Paxton before and after he was born.  And right there in the store I had just decided to pull up a chair in front of the display and do exactly what I always fear I will do. I sat down in the middle of the store right out in public and just cried. 

Sorry.

I've gone a little backwards and I've been kind of running off the rails lately.

The other night I drifted off to sleep and about an hour into what might have been a good restful sleep I "suddenly" remembered that Brian was dead.  In my sleep I had actually "forgotten" it and for just a split second when I woke up "remembering" I thought I had dreamed it and that it was not really true and then when I realized it was it was like hearing it for the first time all over again.  It rattled me so badly until I could not go back to sleep for hours.

How in the hell does that still happen?!  How can I live in the midst of this horror with it never leaving my mind day or night and suddenly have it hit me like it is all new and I am hearing it for the first time??? How?  I mean it was absolutely just like it was brand new - almost 14 months later.  I don't understand that.  I really don't.  But it is unnerving.

And I have been a mess ever since.

And this entire week - I have done little else but hide and sob.  I have been thinking about all of them but most especially missing Paxton again.  I have just been remembering him and all that he was; how sweet he was; how much he loved really simple things - like his little hot wheels cars. How he didn't really care all that much about lots of toys or complicated toys with batteries or remote controls or things that made noise or had motion like most kids.  He was a very simple child.  He had every toy known to man but what he loved was his plain simple little cars that he pushed around himself. He even played with them in the bathtub.  He had robotic cars that made engine noises, honked their horns, had flashing lights and ran by themselves,  But in a minute he would sidestep those and opt for his hot wheels. He had racetracks, computerized games and toys, books, movies, tents, telephones, a motorized tractor, a swing set, a trampoline, musical instruments, a bicycle, a motorized car that he could drive himself - literally everything a child could dream of.  But what he loved were his cars. He watched cartoons but only loved the ones that had lots of songs.  He loved music and different sounds and he paid attention to voices, accents, inflections and tones and used them even when he didn't have words.  He loved all animals and had absolutely no fear when it came to animals.  He would have walked up to a grizzly bear with his hands outstretched. He loved to dance and sing and he understood things that were so far above what he should have known.  Brian brought him over fishing for the first time just weeks before they died and he thought Paxton was going to be so excited to catch his first fish.  Brian cast out and got a bite and handed the rod and reel to Paxton and helped him reel the fish in.  Paxton saw the fish struggling on the line and he knew he absolutely knew that it was hurting the fish and he started screaming: NO!NO!NO!NO! and turned away refusing to look.

A couple of years ago there was a huge community yard sale and a lady there must have had a half acre of toys for sale.  Brian and Kara came and brought Paxton and Brian set him down right in the middle of all those toys and told him to get whatever he wanted.  There must have been over 300 toys there and he picked up two little cars and a school bus and went back to his daddy for him to pick him up.  He was ready to go.  Out of 300 toys - two tiny cars and small school bus was all he wanted! He was always just satisfied with the smallest simplest things and happy with whatever he had.

I have typically had very little patience with children and have not wanted to babysit anyone's children in years.  Raised mine and half-raised a few of other people's and I was kind of over it. But it was definitely different with him.  Although he wore me out I wanted as much time with him as I could get.  Sometimes I was glad to see him go home simply because my body could not keep up with his energy level and I was exhausted but I wanted him with me - always. I never turned down time with him no matter what until my sister got sick.  I had a love for him that even I did not understand.  I could not hardly go two weeks without seeing him or I was in withdrawals.

I have never been so broken over anything in my entire life as I am over the loss of that little boy. Broken.  The joy has gone out of my life.  I miss him so bad every single day until I could scream and cry all day every day.  I don't give in to it because I am desperately afraid I will go past the point of no return.  I don't.  But I so could.  I stand strong fooling the rest of the world but the truth is I'm a mess.

It is good in a way that I am able to hold up and function – but in another way it is not so good because I am laughing when I want to cry and going to my job, cooking and doing laundry when I really just want to go to close all the blinds, stay in my pajamas, never comb my hair and pull the covers up over my head.

Sometimes I am proud that I am able to keep going and other times it feels like it is choking me to death and I want desperately to just actually do what I really want to do and stop pretending that I’m okay. I want to give in to it and just scream to the top of my lungs. “I want my children back- NOW! I can’t do this anymore!”

And I suppose that I am a pretty strong person – or I used to be. But what most people may not realize is that what makes one strong is a long history of surviving many difficult circumstances. And though it’s true you are made stronger or at least you are able to appear stronger – the down side is that there is also a “cumulative effect” from all of that hardship. And inside you live in fear that at some point there is going to come a time when your mind and your body just say: “No more.”

What very few understand about that appearance of “doing well” is that though I may not react like a lot of people might that does not mean that I don’t feel the same things. They just stay quietly inside like a cancer that hasn’t been diagnosed yet.  No visible trauma on the outside but all the while it is silently, methodically destroying me from the inside out. All of the sadness and devastation that anyone else would feel – is still there and I absolutely feel every ounce of it. Most days I literally feel like I'm choking as I stifle the urge to cry and scream because I will never see my son, my daughter in law or my baby again.

Brian was always such a delight to me. If you have children then you know they are all different.  He was the only child that I had that would come to me and openly talk about whatever was on his heart. When he was a preteen, he would come to me at night and ask me if we could talk and we would sit up way past our bedtimes while he poured out his heart to me. He used to talk to me openly sometimes in tears about his puppy-love heartbreaks. We talked about God and spiritual things and he shared with me his dreams and aspirations and he often confided to me his deepest fears in life. Nothing went on in his life that I did not know about because we talked. As a child and even a teen, he was mindful, respectful and kind. As a general rule, he went where he said he was going and came home when I told him to be home. He was kind and loving and conscientious. Then at seventeen he made some really bad choices that affected the rest of his entire life. And I watched as life beat him down and changed him from the happy, carefree and funny child he had always been to a nervous, worried, anxious young adult in a bad marriage that destroyed his trust and ruined his life for the next 18 years until Kara came along.

Kara – I am also so brokenhearted over her and so terribly sad for her family. she adored both her mom and dad. And I used to envy the type of close relationship she and her mom shared - more like best friends than parent and adult child. And she loved life so much! She was beautiful, young, talented and energetic. She had a beautiful voice and loved to sing Karaoke and used to dream of singing professionally. And she worshipped that baby and he was the light of her life. I have seldom ever seen anyone that enjoyed being a mother more than she did. She treasured every moment with him. She thought everything he ever did was adorable and she carefully observed and recorded almost every move he made. And she loved my son. What more could you ask for? Though she was younger than he was by eleven years, she thought he hung the moon. She was the wife I always hoped and prayed he would someday find. She was the one that I hoped would make up for all of the hurt and disillusionment that he had with his first marriage. She was proud of him and she thought he was way more brilliant than he actually was! I used to laugh at the fact that she absolutely thought he could do anything. If he’d told her he was planning to build a rocket to the moon and was going to start a shuttle service on weekends – she would have called me breathless with excitement at what he was going to do and ask me if I realized that he was going to be famous some day! I believe she loved him with all her heart and even though she was young and talented and absolutely beautiful – on her wedding day she confided in me that she never thought she would ever get married and still could not believe that he actually wanted to marry her…

And that baby – number ten counting my step-daughter’s two sons –was the absolute light of my life. I was so young when most of the others came along and I had not really gotten over the trauma of three teenagers yet. So I could never fully enjoy them like I should have which makes me very sad. So when Brian told me they were expecting a baby – I admit I was less than thrilled. I had five grandchildren before I was forty and all were born to very young parents. I loved them. Oh my, how I loved them but I worried. Non-stop. So much so that it stole much of the joy out of having them. I worried about what, up to that point, irresponsible kids would do with a baby. I worried how they would take care of them. I worried how on earth they would afford milk and diapers and clothes and medicine and the bazillion other things that a baby needs. I worried how on earth I could help them when I was at my financial breaking point and they just kept coming. I had done nothing but worry about them and I was just about “babied out” by this time and the last thing on earth I expected was for a baby to come along and wedge his way into my heart like he did. As a matter of fact a few years back when I was without a cat and begging my husband to let me get another one I laughed one day and asked him “Well what would you rather have a cat, or a puppy or a baby?” thinking of course, that I had him on that one. His answer that stopped me dead in my tracks was --a baby! I almost fell out of my seat. “And why on earth would you say that?” I asked baffled. And his smart answer? “Because I figured that would be the one thing you absolutely would not want!” I just cracked up. He had me. So no, I did not expect for him to melt my heart like he did.

When I think of him --I want to sit in the middle of the floor with a lap full of hot wheels cars and a pacifier and sob till my heart bursts. I want to scream and rage at the unfairness of it all and the waste of such beautiful lives. In some ways I want to be okay again and in other ways I don’t want to live another day because so much of the joy has gone out of my life. I cannot imagine that I will never see him run or play or hear him laugh or sing again. Though I had managed to live fifty eight years without knowing him and only had him for such a short time, he made such an impact on my life until I cannot imagine now having to live another day without him. The sadness and devastation is at times, almost too much to bear. Most of the time, I just feel like I am dead inside. I’m functioning but I don’t know how or why. So I may look like I’m doing quite well on the surface and I’m glad that I do – but the honest truth is I know I will never even be okay again.

More Grief Lessons

I wonder if everyone thinks like I used to and has sort of a line drawn in the sand about what you think “can possibly happen to me” and what “simply can never happen to me”.  For instance when I’d hear of a certain tragedy that befell someone, I’d think either “Oh my God - that could have been me!” or it would simply never cross my mind because things like that “just can never happen to me.”  There was kind of an “awful” factor that determined where everything fell under one of the two categories:  - Could possibly happen although I hope and pray that it never does and - Much too horrible and can never really imagine “that” could ever happen to me. 

Seriously, is it just me or does everyone kind of think like that?

I mean realistically I knew you could/would lose family members and that if you lived long enough everyone would experience loss to some degree.  I had lost aunts, a cousin, my grandparents, two brothers in law and they were all terrific losses to me.  But there still were certain things that I thought were kind of off-limits; just not the kind of thing that could ever happen to me.  Like: I will never get cancer; I will never lose my mother or a sibling; I could never lose a spouse; I will never lose a child or a grandchild and maybe still a little bit of “I will never really die”.  Unrealistic?  Absolutely. But true just the same.  Like the average sixteen year old that thinks they are invincible.  They know death exists, they know what the risk factors are: like drinking and driving, experimenting with drugs, jumping from a nine story building with an umbrella etc.  They know other people die from these things.  And yet, somehow they magically believe that it can’t happen to them??? As parents of that sixteen year old, we drill home the fact that that is magical thinking and it certainly can happen (“so don’t do them!”) but as adults in the secret recesses of our own heart, we think at times just as illogically about what can and cannot happen in our lives.

But when you lose a child, an in-law child and a grandbaby in one single horrific day – suddenly you realize you are open game.  If “this” in all its multiple layers of horror, can happen to me --ANYTHING and everything can happen.  The line between those categories has been erased and everything falls under the “Oh my God, that could have been me” side of the list. 

Though I’m pretty sure I never actually consciously thought that I was immune to horrible tragedies. I mean I’m of average intelligence and that is really not logical but being a Christian and fully believing in the goodness of God and the power of prayer I was somehow lulled into a false sense of security.  Maybe it was simply because it made life a little less scary and slightly easier to deal with.  But that is one example of those things that you can’t undo.  Like I said about being unable to go back and be five years old again.  I cannot go back to the innocence of believing ever again that I am safe and protected from anything.  Anything that the world has to throw at me without limits – can be my fate at the drop of a hat.  Instead of being immune to these things; I now feel like I have a target painted on my forehead. 

I think it is human nature to look for things that make the evils of this world make some sort of sense, or perhaps we look for something that may give the illusion of having control over what happens to you.  To feel that everything is just “random” is a scary thing. 

Like in the book of Job, when all of the tragedies that literally destroyed his life came on him; his friends, instead of comforting him, wanted to make the tragedies somehow justified by his own actions – I think it is human nature to believe that when you are inherently “good” or you do good deeds or you try and help people and you are not cruel or selfish or dishonest --that you will be spared the really horrific things life has to throw at you and if you are dishonest, intentionally hurtful, self-centered and cold – that those are the ones that suffer horrific loss.  This is both a logical assumption and a safety net of sorts.  It gives you the impression that you have some semblance of control over how much bad comes into your life.  However, If you are familiar with the book of Job then you already know not only was that NOT at all the case but God reprimanded Job’s friends for their assumption that Job had done wrong and was being punished for it.  Just like we jump to the conclusion like Job’s friends that when horrific things happen to someone that it is somehow their fault or repayment for some un-repented sin; we also believe the opposite is true if we are basically a good person we can somehow avoid the horrors of this world.  I think Job was as confused by the outcome of things as his friends were and frankly the book of Job has never quite set well with me and that would be because I believe it is human nature to feel that good should be rewarded with good and evil with evil but the truth is, just like in the book of Job, that is not the way the world works.  Good and evil falls on all of us just like the rain. And our belief in how we feel it should fairly happen is really our desire to be able to control what happens in our world. 

But, we are not in control.  Never have been.  Never will be.  And just because evil has not yet touched your life – it does not mean: 

A – That you are all good or that being good will ward it off

B - That you are immune to such horrific tragedies or

C - That it never will.

I learned that the hard way along with a lot of other things that the school of grief has taught me.  Like, I am stronger than I ever thought I was.  That what you think would absolutely kill you – does not – no matter how much you wish it would.  Your life can be forever changed with one phone call.  And there really is no security in life this side of Heaven. 

New Normal

It has been ten months now.  I wish I could say I'm completely resolved to again trust God & pray as before.  I am better.  I am beginning to pray a little from time to time though I can't say that I am actually sure who this version of God is yet.  And quite frankly I'm not real sure what I can pray for anymore.  But I'm trying to make a conscious decision to trust and have faith.  I am trying to find my way back from the darkness.  Some days --too many days-- it still overtakes me.  I am now closing in on that magical "one year" mark.  I remember reading over and over that "The first year is the hardest."  Leading me to believe it would be better after that first anniversary.  Ten months in I realize I can stop looking for that.  No miracle is going to suddenly take place and magically erase all the pain and emptiness that has become my constant companion.


In the beginning that is all I could think of --getting to the place where that would happen - muddling, struggling, hanging on by my teeth and toenails just to survive it and make it to that magical first year mark; which of course I knew would be very difficult in and of itself but after that very difficult day - I'd be all better.  We could finally move.  We could sell the house.  I could make major decisions again.  I could sleep.  I would stop eating myself to death.  I could stop sobbing at random.  I could be in crowds or attend social events again.  I could go through the kids things finally.  I would be healed.  By then, I would have learned to live with this horrific loss.  I would be able to trust, pray and find comfort in my faith again.  I could rekindle my shaky relationship with God.  I could enjoy family functions, holidays and vacations again. I would find purpose in all this pain, realize that something good has come from it and be able to thank God in it - not for it - but in it.  And all of my friends would come back - sounds kind of like a country song in reverse doesn't it?


And at one time, I actually believed all of this.


I now know better.  And I know that I am at least five months of "sitting in the bone marrow clinic" behind in the process.  And I know that since I pretended my way through most of the first year I have postponed any first year progress I might have made but besides all of that I have come to the realization that "this" will never be over.  There is no magical point in time that is going to make me not want Brian back again; no appointed date that will make me okay with never seeing any of them again.  There is no set time when I will not ache for that baby and want him back in my life and back in my lap again; no day ever when it won't matter to me what really happened. 


There will likely come, as there are now, days that I will be able to get through without dwelling on it, outwardly grieving for them or crying for them whenever I'm alone.  But I now realize that those days are fluid.  They are not here as permanent fixtures but only as much-needed reprieves.


The misery will return.  You adjust to the reality of the truth.  You do integrate the loss into your world.  You get up and you function inside the misery.  Sometimes giving in to it and sometimes not but you do not wake up one day and it is just gone.  There will not suddenly come a day when you are fine and you function just like before.  You are not the same person.  This is not the same life.  It can --I believe, I hope, I pray-- be good again but if so it will be a long, long time coming. 


I can no more be "healed" and have the same life I had before anymore that I can go back to being a five-year old again.  That ship has sailed.  I cannot go back to the innocence of childhood and I cannot go back to the innocence of life before this catastrophic loss.  I am not that person anymore.  Just as I am not that five-year old anymore.  My view of the world, my faith, my version of God, my trust, everything not only in my world but inside of me --has been forever altered. 


Whatever I next grow to believe and whoever I am when this shakes out - will absolutely not be who I was a year ago.  I may be better and I hope and pray that I am but nothing is going to magically restore me.  It may be new but it will never be normal.

Paxton

There was always something different about my relationship with this child.  It began in the dream that I had of him before he was even conceived.  I knew him.  I loved him with everything I had in me.  But I did not know even whose child he was in the dream.  I just knew I loved that child with a love that was beyond anything I had ever known. 

Not a big baby-lover as a general rule – so feeling this kind of love for a child I did not even know – was definitely memorable. 

When he was conceived and I knew he would be a reality I still felt kind of “nothing”.  I tried to be excited for Kara’s sake but I wasn’t really so much.  Her mom, my daughter and I gave her a baby shower and normally I detest those kinds of things but instead I embraced it with fervor.  Weird.  We decorated cupcakes that looked like baby faces with pacifiers (funny I did not know at the time how appropriate that would be.) And cupcakes that looked like baby rattles.  I made a "diaper cake" and strung a clothes line across the room and had new baby outfits and socks pinned to it with clothespins.  I had the best time doing something I normally hated.  I attended the sonogram to see what sex he was going to be – as if I did not already know. Which seemed weird considering I actually already knew what he would look like.  But I went and pretended to be surprised when they saw the "package" and announced to the rest of the world that they were having a boy.  I took "baby belly" pictures with bows tied around her.  I crocheted tiny heirloom baby booties.  And when she went in labor – I was there.  I took pictures.  Lots of first pictures.  But still my reaction was very subdued inwardly.  Outwardly, I was doing all of the appropriate things but I felt pretty much like I did with any other baby.  He was my grandchild, I would of course love him but for the most part I expected to be able to take him or leave him.  I was excited for them but he was our 10^th grandchild so this was definitely not my first rodeo.

I bought a port a crib thinking that would "do" in the event they were here and he needed a nap or on the off-chance that I ever babysat.  However, before long I had ditched it and shuffled furniture around and replaced it with a full size baby bed and wicker rocker in what would become “his” room.  "This" I did not see coming.

As I’ve mentioned before I kept him as a newborn while they worked on the house.  So he spent the first few weekends of his life with me where I fed and changed and bonded with him like a parent.  I loved him of course.  I loved them all.  But the love that I felt in that dream – was so much more.  I went through the motions.  I rocked him.  I sang to him.  I took dozens of pictures.  I bought little outfits, blankets, socks and hats, shoes, pajamas and cuddly toys and somewhere along the way and I can’t actually pinpoint when it happened – he totally stole my heart.

I kept him regularly – something I had not done in 23 years since my first grandchild.  I took him with me wherever we went; to Sunday- School and Church even wrestling with a car seat and dragging everything he owned to do so.  And I bought for him – Oh my - did I buy for him.  Not big stuff ever – but lots and lots of little stuff.  And he seriously did not need one thing.  He had so much stuff that Kara began to give things away for lack of space. 

My husband thought I’d lost my mind.  I could not walk in a store without coming out with something for him.  I don't know why.  As a general rule, I just don't do that.  It was way out of character for me.  And still today I have a hard time going in a store because I was so habited to buying for him until it is a huge trigger for me.  I recall shopping for baby shoes (yet again) and the child had more shoes than I do and my husband looked at me with a puzzled look like “Seriously? More shoes?” and I distinctly remember barking at him “What?  This is what I work for! I work to buy for him. Okay?”  I said it as a joke but suddenly I realized at that moment that it was nothing but the truth.  That day I realized that almost everything I did – I did for him.  Suddenly, he had become the primary focus of my life.  When did that happen?  I really didn’t know.  It slipped up on me when I wasn't looking - but there it was staring me in the face.  When had I stopped playing the role of “Nana” and become the grandmother everyone hated to see coming with the photo album? 

Out of ten - he was the first baby that I ever sat up half the night to just watch sleep because I was so fearful he would stop breathing, smother in the blankets, get cold, get wedged between the rail and mattress...my imagination went wild – all the time.  I was terrified to give him a bath afraid he’d slip out of my hands and drown.  He was the first time I ever put child proof locks on my cabinets or safety plugs in my electrical outlets.  

For the first time ever I let everything in my house go and stopped to just play with him not for an hour but for the entire weekend I had him.  He could lead me anywhere and con me into doing anything.  He could shove me in a tiny linen closet to play hide and seek or have me in the floor on my hands and bad knees chasing him around the couch.  For him I ran up and down the 650 foot driveway in 100 degree heat because he never tired of pushing  his little toy up and down the driveway.  I never told him no and the first time I even tried – I said, in a deep voice to get his attention, “Boy, your Papa is going to get you.” as he was turning all the knobs on the stereo equipment – it was so unusual that he naturally assumed I was playing a new game and he yelled back at me --also in a deep voice, “MUHH!” (his version of “Boy”) and from that day forward that was our new game.  He went through the house yelling “MUHH” until he almost drove Brian and Kara bonkers with it.

He had me; hook, line and sinker.  He had me. 

As I sit here tonight and write this with a 20/20 hind-sight perspective,  it seems very clear to me now that somewhere deep inside me there had always perhaps been an inner knowing.  I would have never allowed myself to even think it but from where I sit today looking back; the nervousness I felt with him after having children in and out of my life and my house for over 40 years; the constant fear I had of some unforeseen danger and the feeling like I should not waste a moment that I had with him - it certainly seems clear to me now that somewhere deep inside I had always had an unspoken inner knowledge that he was not here to stay. 

For Better or For Worse...

Well we actually went on our vacation.  We drove 1,400 miles in six days.  We figured if God could create the world in six days we should at least drive past most of it.  

We did come home a day early but that really was doing pretty good since I was wanting to come home on day two.  It was okay – not great but better than I expected.  I had one minor set back as soon as we arrived on Sunday (Mother’s Day).  Something triggered it – I can’t imagine what -- but it was short-lived because I felt guilty for ruining my husband’s vacation so I stuffed it.  I can sense that he is losing patience with the never-ending snot-fest.  I know men don’t grieve the same and not that this is a bad thing but I feel like his life has resumed and his philosophy is: “Yeah, I’m sad but there is nothing I can do about it.” Huh? I kind of took that to mean since there is nothing he (or I) can “do” about it – all this crying and stuff is a waste of time. 

They really are from Mars.

Don’t get me wrong, he has been kind and supportive and patient but it is getting real clear he is tiring of all this and he feels he has been patient long enough and he wants his life back.  He is blatantly ready for things to get back to normal -- more specifically --his wife.  I definitely feel that and after 38 years I know him well enough to finish his sentences.  What I have prayed would not happen that “this” would come between us --appears to be leaning in that direction.  “This” has just about destroyed every relationship in my life and now I can feel the heat of its evil eye on my marriage. I’ve read the warnings and I knew it was a real threat.  I have tried to shield us from it and prepare for the possibility but it’s aiming for us and when I least expected it – when I thought we were past the danger zone.  It sneaks up and rears its ugly head in the timing factor.  He is tiring of all of the sadness and depression.  It is pulling him down.  He has invested all he has to invest and it still hasn't gone away...he wants his wife --and his life back.  He’s over all the crying and sadness and lethargy and depression and anger and theories and he wants to live normal again.  Oh I don’t blame him –I really don’t but I can’t give him what I don’t have.

I can’t make the sadness go away.  I wish I could and I wish I could tell him “Okay in three more months I will be better.”  But I can’t tell him that and I can’t tell him in fact, that it will ever get better.  And I think he is sensing that too.  I try and cry where he can’t hear me but I don’t want to pretend anymore that I’m not sad.  What he doesn’t understand is that though he has had almost nine months to get past it I have not.  I spent the first five in the Bone Marrow Transplant unit for six to eight hours a day during the first and what should have been the worst of my grief time, in a 3X4 space with a curtain around it; all that separated my sister and I from about forty desperately sick cancer patients along with a small army of physician’s assistants, nurses, nurses aides and doctors. 

There was no privacy and your every whisper was in earshot of at least ten people.  Ten terribly sick people, pale, bloated from steroids, no hair, vomiting, fevered, a tangle of I.V. lines hanging from them like Christmas tree lights and all of them fighting desperately for their lives.  I could certainly not sit “there” and cry.  Besides I was expected to listen to the nurses and the doctors instructions, read and understand treatment plans, listen for the warning signs of viruses, graft vs host disease or any host of other possible issues I needed to watch out for.  I had to carry armloads of stuff from waiting room to treatment room to radiology, to the different medical offices and down two elevators and to the car nine miles away.  But the heaviest thing I carried was my grief.  It was with me night and day but couldn’t be released except in small doses in the bottom of my closet late at night.  How do you sit in that environment with all that everyone there was going through –and cry and feel sorry for yourself?  You don’t.  You just don’t.  That said - had I not been sitting there and had I been allowed to collapse in the bottom of the closet like I wanted to -- I don't think I would be here now. So even though it postponed a lot of my grief-work it was for the best because I am stronger now in many ways.  But still it isn’t nine months to me.  It is fresh, raw and stifling as I am finally able to feel the sadness that was strangling me, grieve what was lost, cry for my baby and my son and my daughter in law; and do what I’ve wanted to do for months.

I can’t help that I am not enthused over a vacation and that all I want to do is curl up in my pajamas and never get out of bed or scream to the top of my lungs or sit in the floor holding toys to me and sob till my eyes swell shut over the injustice, the unfairness – the horror of it all that I still find impossible to believe.  So I feel that it is progress that I don’t – I just cry usually somewhere alone quietly behind closed doors.  I get up every day and I go to my job; I do enough around here to get by maybe not very well but I cook some.  I do laundry.  I pay the bills.  Most days I’m still amazed I can do what little I do.  I planned, made reservations, packed and drove on this stupid vacation and I am really proud of myself when I can function even at half capacity so I really don’t understand why everyone isn’t proud that I am not in the closet floor.  So what if I’m sad some days or don’t want to do things right yet or that I am not the picture of efficiency.  I want to be normal again and I wish I could promise that next week or next month or even next year that it will all get better and I will stop crying and being sad and analyzing this.  I’d love to tell you that –but the truth is I don’t know.  I don’t know that things will ever be normal again.  Truthfully, I can’t imagine it.  And while I am not where you wish I were and not even where I wish I were – I’m not where I was.   So what I want to say is: Cut me some slack.  I’m holding on the best I know how.  Be patient and love me for better or worse – this is “worse” and I’m doing the best I can.

So Wasted...

Well it has been a while since I have posted.  Sorry. 

We, meaning of course, my husband, my daughter, my son-in-law and my brother – not me - spent four weekends moving the last things out of Brian and Kara’s house.  Kara’s sister retrieved Kara’s things for her family months ago and then the kids took all of the furniture and anything else that they wanted.  So what was left was really only stray stuff – books, exercise equipment, camping gear and the kind of stuff that you have no idea what to do with.  But I did not want to chance anything personal being missed like pictures or letters or anything so it has all been brought back to my home for me to go through and then dispose of.

Then right in the middle of that our lease was up and we had to move out of the rental house.  So we have been in moving hell for more than a month and are living in a disaster area and you seriously could not kick your way through any room in my house for two solid weeks. 

Tuesday was the foreclosure sale of their home - a difficult day to say the least.  That has brought on a lot of renewed anger.  I guess just the pitiful waste of it all.  Wasted efforts of us trying to help them and of course the haunting question – did their being in that house in any way contribute to this? Had we not done that – would we be where we are now?  I realize that in the logical, reasonable world that does not really make any sense – but it haunts me with guilt and fear just the same. 

Then there is the wasted time and effort and the long days and nights that they spent working on the house and what a beautiful job they did and how much love they put into it.  Someone else now will reap the benefits of all that love and hard work without ever knowing how much the home had meant to the family we lost in there.

Then there is the waste of all of their dreams including the dream of Kara having her first child and that house was the only home he ever knew.  He chased Minnie up and down the halls while she barked and he laughed and squealed; he pushed his little “learn to walk” toy that his aunt Michelle had given him up and down the hall a million miles.  That home is where he “Skyped” with his Mema and Pap-Pap that lived out of state, several times a week.  That was where he played in the bathtub --with cars and not boats and that was where I videoed him playing in the tub the last time I babysat with him and laughed while he tried to teach a Lamborghini to swim.  That is where he stood on the sofa and looked out the window every afternoon waiting for his daddy to come home and where I always looked for his little face in that same window as he waved goodbye to me whenever I left.   He jumped on his trampoline in his back yard there and slid on his slide and played with his little special friend next door on the swing set his Mema and Pap-Pap bought for him.  And that was where with tiny hammer in hand, he helped his daddy build the “enormous” woodshed out back.  And where he and his Mama picked the vegetables they had planted together every afternoon from the raised bed garden boxes his daddy built for them.  That is where he used to, in a fit of giggles, shut me in the tiny linen closet I would barely fit in - for a quick game of hide and seek and also where he and I raced  tiny cars around the coffee table hundreds of times.  It was there that I took the last video I have of him singing “Haddy Dirtday” to me just weeks before --he also died in that house.

That was where Kara hosted her first and last Thanksgiving dinner and where she snuggled the newborn baby that she never thought she would have.  That is where she worked and painted and worried over making his nursery just perfect and where she then graduated him from the muted pastels of a “baby nursery” to the toddler “Veggie Tales” theme of bright primary colors and her hand-made people-sized cucumber wall-hanging and then later to the Disney movie “Cars” theme as he developed an obsession to anything with wheels on it.  That is where she hosted a graduation party for my daughter’s son when he graduated high school and where she had her first cookout on the deck and we all gathered for fireworks for the fourth of July.  There was where, with all the patience in the world, she helped Brian’s daughter do her freshly painted conservative neutral beige room in leopard prints and hot pink splatter paint.  And that was where we surprised her with the designer purse that she’d had her eye on for months for the very last birthday she would ever celebrate exactly one year to the day before the day that rocked our world.

Even after all the hard work and talent that Brian put in there, the thing he was most proud of about that house was the fact that it would be paid for in seven years.  He never took that for granted and he was always so grateful to us for helping them out like that.  He could hardly believe that he would be able to provide that kind of security for his family and he thanked us for it repeatedly.

He worked tirelessly on that house from the time he moved in until the week before they died.  In the three months prior he had just put in a new front door, built the woodshed in the back and had the new vanity and tile to begin the remodel on the bathroom – the last of the upstairs to be redone. 

It was the first time he had felt at home since he sold the first home he bought with his first wife 18 years earlier.  And that was where he finally felt like his life was coming back together.  He had started his own business there and much to my dismay had not decided to pursue something that allowed him to use his God-given gifts in wood-working.  He has built some of the most beautiful furniture - bookcases, shelves, chess tables, bathroom vanities, gun cases and even a reproduction of a Victorian “lady’s writing desk” for me.  And of course, he was also so talented at home improvement and carpentry as well and I keep thinking back to when he and I had talked about a joint partnership buying and redoing foreclosed homes since he had outdone himself on the remodel of this house.  Little did I know that the first foreclosure sale I would attend would be the sale of this home under “these” horrific circumstances.  So yeah, there was a lot of emotion surrounding the house sale and a lot of anger at the magnitude of the waste.

But on the other hand, it has caused me so much anguish worrying over what to do about it until now that it is done – I just can’t think about it anymore.  

My latest gift...

I had had a particularly difficult week again last week and was feeling like God was so far from me.  I was finally able to sit down in the quiet and pray a little.  All I could pray for was for God to let me know He was in fact, still there.  I just needed to hear from Him in some small way to give me the little bit of assurance that I needed to get by another day or another week.

The very next evening I received yet another gift. 

He gave me the gift Brian’s humor.  Words straight from Brian that literally made me laugh out loud.

I had been sending photos that I had of the baby and Kara to Kara’s mom and had decided to go onto my Shutterfly account and see what was on there that she may want.  Turns out I had not been on the site in a couple of years.  The last time I’d signed in and downloaded some photos I had “apparently” set up a family page so that the kids and my sisters would have access to the pictures that I had taken.  As I told Kara’s mom about the pictures I was sending her – I love taking pictures and sometimes I would just randomly take Paxton outside and let him play and just snap away.  So consequently, I have hundreds of pictures - bad shots, shots of him crawling away, shots of him crying and sometimes that rare --perfectly timed, just the right lighting, just the cutest expression – “perfect shot.”  I had downloaded an afternoon of that kind of session to Shutterfly and sent Brian a link. 

Two years and seven months later I go back to find he has left goofy comments on a few of my crazy pictures.  Comments I had never seen; comments so typical of Brian until I could almost hear his voice as I read them and then for the first time in many months I thought of him and genuinely laughed out loud.  It felt so good and so right and I was so grateful. 

Thank you God for answering that prayer in the sweetest way.  

Enjoy!

brian m "so if I slip you this $5 bill, then did you still see me poop my pants? 

brian m

"and she kept taking these pictures of me doing dumb things...I told her I had enough but..."

brian m "so I was like, give me my keys.  I'm good to drive home...then it hit me - I'm a baby, how the heck did I drive here?!"

August 31, 2012•