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.

Dear Brian

June 19, 2017

Dear Brian,

I just got through reading your Journal to Paxton yet again.  It breaks my heart just as much two years and ten months later as it did that first week when we found it.  Still what a Divine Gift that was.

As I read back over it the words you leave to Paxton are like knives to my heart as you say things like you are writing these things down so that Paxton can come back and read at any time the things that you had to share with him; the musings and life advice. With every line I read I hear a man that adores his wife and child; plans on the baby growing up someday and reading this and knowing how much he mattered to his parents.  I hear a man that sounds as if he plans to continue writing this for years to come.  Every line stabs at me as I read how much Kara wanted a baby, what a good mother she was, how happy you all were, how hard you worked on your house, how proud you were of it, how smart Paxton was and how you wanted to give him a general idea of what life was like when he was born, what he was like at each stage of his growth and a record of each of his little milestones.  You wanted to tell him how you met his mother, how much you loved his mother and how much the two of you loved and wanted him. 

As I read it in retrospect I want to scream – “He will never read these words.  He will never know your love or your intention.  He will never need your advice.  He is two and a half – and he will never be three!”  I want to protest and stop time where you are on these pages and never let August 23^rd 2014 come.  Just to see the year 2014 written out makes me turn literally sick.  As I read the dates you mention in these pages my heart pays careful attention. It is November 2011 as you begin you are 38 years old – I pause and count up the time you have left on that date.  You go back in time now to the date you and Kara met – February 6, 2009 my heart lightens as I remember how happy you were at finding her and I remember exactly when you broke the news to me and your dad that you had asked her to marry you only days later.  I remember distinctly looking straight at her and asking “Are you crazy?”  You were not amused.  But you looked at me and said: “I know what you’re thinking and yes, she knows I’m in debt and that Alex has been in trouble and I know how crazy this sounds Mom, but I let her get away one time and I am just not going to make that mistake again.”  You mention your wedding date July 11, 2009 and my mind flits back to the events of that day.  I typed up your vows that you were to read to each other.  Hers were silly and falling right in line with the goof- ball you had portrayed to her.  Yours would melt my heart.  I thought that day – how yours and hers were going to be so vastly different and how yours would surprise her – but they would not surprise me.  I knew how serious you really were about this and what this marriage meant to you.  And while it was true that you certainly had a silly side and were constantly joking and cutting up – I knew what she did not, that most of the time it was a smoke screen to hide years of hurt and heartache not only from those you were with but from yourself.  It was a light-hearted attempt to detract from the tragic life of hurt that had plagued you for years. Intended to make you laugh and forget.

January 26, 2013 – I read and quickly calculate that you have one year and seven months to live.  You mention to Paxton that he was born on December 10, 2011 – I go back…to the hospital the night of his birth, Kara is in labor, you are a basket case.  You cover it trying to fidget with the medical items in the room like a 12-year old boy and you pace.  They take her down for an emergency C-section and I quickly assess the panic that crosses your face for just a split second before you hug Kara and tell her everything will be okay. 

You tell Paxton then that you moved into your new house in February of 2012 and I remember the pride and excitement you both had at having a home that you made your own with the blood, sweat and tears of weeks of intense hard work as you both side by side patched a thousand holes, hung doors, replaced plumbing fixtures, painted over bright red enamel paint that spanned the 20-foot cathedral ceiling, I remembered feeling so proud of both of you but maybe especially Kara – at her age – digging in and working night and day beside you to lay custom tile in the kitchen, put in new countertops, hang and stain new cabinets.  She was learning as she went and never complained but actually seemed to enjoy it and she actually saw the beauty in the two of you doing this together.  I was amazed.

Your next entry is December 2, 2013 – My breath catches and my heart skips a beat as you inch closer and closer to the date. You mention Paxton is about to turn two.  It is 8 days from his birthday – his last birthday.  You say it is creeping up on Christmas –the last Christmas; the last Christmas you will ever see; the last Christmas I will ever enjoy.  December 2013 was our last Christmas with our complete family; my last Christmas with the baby; Kara’s last Christmas and the last Christmas her family will ever enjoy.  Then I remember two events from that Christmas – the baby yelling out “NANA, I MISSED YOU!” when I never heard him put two words together.  And then I remember what I said when everyone left that day.  As the last one got in their car to go, I turned to your dad and I said, “I will never do this again.”  I had my feelings really hurt because I had worked for weeks to decorate and plan, cook, shop and wrap for Christmas and everyone stayed about 45 minutes and ran out the door saying you all had plans to go to a movie – I was devastated - movies play 364 other days out of the year.  Christmas comes once a year.  Jamie and Marie had driven over 400 miles and spent 45 minutes with us.  And after weeks and weeks of planning and days of working - I was alone on Christmas day hurt and angry.  And I said, “I know you think I don’t mean this – but I’m serious I will never do this again.”  And prophetically, I never will.

June 22, 2014 – your last entry.   I realize I am sitting here “accidently” rereading this and writing “this” exactly three days shy of three years since that last entry.  Countdown.  Two months and one day.  You tell Paxton some of the funny stuff he does and what he is like at this age, you mention things you do together and talk about his new puppy.  Then you cut to the chase – you talk to him about God, you tell him again how great his mother is, you relay life lessons about women, marriage and patience.  You tell how much he means to you, and you talk sweetly of your special time with him and how much you value that time.  I realize as I read from an almost three-year perspective that though you thought you were writing this for him – you were in fact under God’s instruction – writing this for all of us. 

I am both sad and extremely thankful.

Christmas...yet again.

As hard as it is to believe here we are back in December and chose again not to celebrate Christmas  and again this year two days from Christmas Day --sitting at a funeral.  Last year it was two days before Christmas - funeral. My aunt passed away.  This year - two days after Christmas - funeral.  Another aunt passed away.  Last year right after my aunt passed away my youngest sister lost her brother in law unexpectedly.  This year right before my aunt passed away my other sister lost a sister in law unexpectedly.  Both were in their mid 50's.  Last year we had Christmas dinner in the Waffle House and I thought that was bad.  This year we were in the middle of nowhere in South Georgia and there wasn't even a Waffle House.  We ate day-old fried chicken from a gas station! 


Seriously, this has got to stop.  That is about more weird than I can handle.


Tomorrow is New Year's eve.  And keeping with tradition, we are heading to my best friend's house to spend the night.  Again, glad to see the year come to a close but not nearly as glad as last year and I'm not sure why because it did not change a thing. 


Christmas came and went.  We ran away from home as usual.  We went down to South Georgia to see Brian's oldest son.  I didn't want him to be alone on Christmas and it brought me closer to his dad to be with him.  Then we left there and went straight to where the funeral would be held.  Maybe this is God's way of getting me to gather with family for Christmas?  Last year it was my mother's family.  This year it was my father's.  Scares me a little wondering what's coming next Christmas.


On a different subject - I've been thinking about something lately.  Since I remember very little about Brian's Memorial Service and everything about not being at Kara and Paxton's service seemed so wrong.  The three of them separated and even in separate states just seemed so terrible to me.  I've been considering having another private Memorial Service for the three of them - maybe on the second anniversary. 


I want both families to come together and have a service for them as a family.  It is asking and expecting a lot I know and it may not be received very well but I'm just considering it - for closure - for comfort - for having them and us together - for letting go?  It's still in the thinking stages.  And it may not work out any better than the birthday dinner we planned last year for Brian's birthday - who knows?  But that is just a thought that has been steeping lately. 


December was a rough month as bad as I hate to admit it - we kind of went backward a bit.  It was an entire setback month.  Today I talked to my cousin that I'm very close to.  She lost her youngest daughter at four years old. That was in 1977.  We've almost never spoken of it because it very nearly destroyed her.  But today we did.  And I asked her "How long? How long before you actually wanted to live again?"  I know everyone is different and I know everyone grieves at a different pace but no one will even give me an idea of what to expect and I really, really need to know.  "Three years."  She said, "Maybe three years or maybe a little longer."  That gave me a measure of hope ---for about two minutes right before she added: "But I'm better now."  Now!  Now? Dear God.  Did you get that part about it being thirty nine years ago? 


We are in serious trouble.

Home is where the heart is...or at least where it used to be.

We are coming up on Paxton’s fourth birthday and with Christmas but two weeks later I have decided to get an early start on the crying.  I’ve done a little better lately but am having a rough time getting through December.   I had hoped that after the first year of holidays that Christmas could return.  And maybe it will some time but clearly this is not the year.  This year, we are just going to let it slide again.  I don’t “think” I am being rebellious about it.  I hope I’m not.  But I am just not up to it.  Especially since the last Christmas we had together, was the one where Paxton cried out “Nana, I missed you!” when he saw me and brought both me and his Mama to a puddle of tears.  He had just turned two and I had hardly heard him say a single word you could understand and suddenly he throws out an entire sentence.  That is all I have been able to think about for a week.  So when and if Christmas comes back – it is going to have to look a whole lot different.

Thanksgiving however, was actually good --better than I could have hoped.  We had fourteen which is way above our normal Thanksgiving crowd.  I had a long-time friend and her daughter come that I had not seen in twelve years.  That was a pleasant surprise and she and I had a really nice catch up visit for the entire weekend.   

Brian’s only daughter and first grandchild came – a bitter sweet time for both of us.  This was the first time she had been back to our house since the Memorial Service the week after they all died.  It was difficult for her I know but I am hoping that now that that hurdle has been scaled, it will get easier for her and we will begin to see more of her and the baby.   All in all, it was an enjoyable family gathering.

Speaking of family gatherings, this house has always been the family gathering spot.  We have a lot of space and it has been great for entertaining.  Problem is that is what all of us see here now.  Every family thing we have ever had included Brian and for many years – just Brian.  We have had Sunday Dinners, cookouts and egg hunts, fishing and canoeing, swimming and hiking.  We have held every Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day,  July 4 and Labor Day celebration that was held --here. All of the grandchildren learned to swim here, caught their first fish here, climbed their first tree here.   This is where three little boys and me camped out in the back yard - for about two hours before they said, “Nana, camping was FUN!!  Now let’s go inside.” 

There are so many memories here both good and bad.  We’ve been snowed in together without power for a week here during the only blizzard I have ever experienced in over 60 years.  This is where Brian’s oldest son got snake bit on my birthday the year he was two.  The boys worked side by side with Donald and I as we built our very rustic barn from a hundred year old oak tree that fell on the property.  And the boys and Donald spent weeks building an apartment for my mother in the bonus room over a detached garage and that was where she moved into and spent the last four years of her life. 

We have taken 20 plus years of family milestone photographs here including prom pictures, graduation pictures, first car pictures, first fish pictures, wedding pictures and baby pictures. 

This has been the home that has always drawn a crowd and over the years we have hosted well over seven thousand people here for various functions.  Think about that just a minute....

For the last three years of my mother’s life I hosted a party for all of her retiree friends that she worked with for over thirty years.  I have had cookouts and picnics for forty plus friends and co-workers at the last three places I worked at.   We have held over 100 weddings here and at least half-dozen baptisms and of course every single family holiday was here.

For the past twenty three years this is where we have called home and it has truly been the first place that I ever really felt “at home” safe and like I belonged.  The roots we planted ran deep.  Since living here we have loved and then buried twenty years of family pets and here we have experienced every stage of our family’s life – watching as our family has grown exponentially from a family of five to a family of twenty one. 

But this is also where we were when the world came crashing down on us.  This is where I collapsed in a puddle in my bedroom floor surrounded by a steady flow of tears and prayers as together both immediate family and church family learned the details about the loss of my son, my daughter in law and the baby I adored.  

This is where I became intimately familiar with the fuzz in the dark corners of my closet floor as I reeled in shock and tried to absorb all that had happened.  This is where hundreds of friends and family flowed in and out for the following week bringing food, words of comfort, prayers, cards, and support however we needed it.  This is also where I was stared at everywhere we went for the months that followed.  This is where we felt deserted and disillusioned as most of the same friends that had been here that first week seemed to drop off the radar and have never set foot here again.  This is where total strangers and casual business acquaintance asked questions and pressed for details prying open the gaping gashes torn in my heart.  This is where the guy that was so enthusiastic about getting to cut our grass and do some landscaping for us asked around and found out we were “those people” and suddenly refused to show up or take my calls anymore.  This is where for fifteen months my granddaughter and my oldest son have refused to come back to because of the sad reminders that will always connect them to the worst day of their lives leaving me feeling lost and abandoned and not knowing what to do because though that is true for all of us --this was my home.

It once seemed like home to our entire family. 

It's sad that it doesn't feel like home here anymore.  

Today...

I keep trying to write but for some reason I am having a really hard time; me - the person that can sit down to write a thank you note and ramble on for ten pages.  I cannot think of anything useful or edifying to say.  I never had any plans when I started this blog for how it should go, what it was going to be about, where it was headed or when it would end.  I just needed an outlet so I jumped in and wrote whatever was on my heart that day.  I needed to be able to express the torrent of thoughts that bombarded me daily: the questions, the memories, the insecurities, the inconsistencies, the anger, sadness and confusion as well as the doubts, the lessons, the insights, the epiphanies and the other boggy, mud-covered steps I’ve taken through this process.  But eventually something would have to change.  Either there is growth and progress as I healed in which case it would eventually just ride off into the sunset or it would have to morph into something completely different but you cannot just keep going with a continuous rant about the same old stuff.  And I am certainly not healed and the journey has not ended. Not by any stretch of the imagination but instead it seems to be going in a circle and I really don’t know how much can you write about a journey where the scenery never changes?  

This has been on my heart for several weeks and I actually took the blog down from public view for a week or so.  I had a little feedback from people closest to me asking what happened or blaming themselves and so I put it back up but I suspected even as I did that – that it probably wasn’t for long.  I didn’t want to take it down again without at least letting everyone know what was going on.  I owe you that. 

It is beginning to sound like I am in a phone system loop.  Push one if you would like to hear about my unabated anger, Push two if you want to hear about my latest crying fit, push three if you would like to hear about about my faltering faith, push four if you’d like to repeat this menu…

Better instead of bitter - that's what I'm shooting for and in checking my inner feelings against those of others that have experienced profound loss I do see a few things that I feel that are different from a lot of them.  I am not now nor have I ever been angry at Brian.  I do not see other people that still have their sons or grandchildren and feel jealousy or anger at them and wonder “Why my son and not yours?” That has truly never crossed my mind.  I would not want any human being to suffer this loss. And I can look at it and say instead "Why not mine?" I'm nobody special.

I can see people enjoy their small children or grandchildren and it does not bother me or make me sad. What does bother me however is a child crying over something preventable; a parent that does not seem to appreciate the child they have or a parent doing exactly what I would have done prior to this – taking something away from their child because of rules or to make a point and making that child cry.  That will make me cry in a New York minute and I do have an almost uncontrollable urge to tell them to please just give the baby whatever it wants, just let it be happy and love it while you can.  You could be sitting where I’m sitting.

So here is a progress report – I am functioning. Better.  I laugh but I also still cry – randomly and without warning. I am able to shop and pass the toy department and baby department without the trip ending in a puddle of tears and me running out of the store.  They are still the first thing on my mind when I wake up and the last thing on my mind before I go to sleep when I can sleep but there are more times in between that I don’t dwell on them obsessively. Strangely enough, it is getting more difficult to look at their pictures and videos??? I don't get that.  I still have most of their stuff in my building.  "Most" being the key word here.  I still have Brian’s Pepsi in my fridge and Paxton’s booster seat is still attached to my dining room chair and I am still breaking my nails on child safety latches on my kitchen cabinets.

I am beginning to go out in social situations although still few and far between.  I still prefer to be with family or close friends on a one on one basis.  I still have problems with crowds or large social functions.  But I am pushing myself.  I have tickets to a Mercy Me concert next week with my daughter, one of my two best friends and her sister.  It will be a crowd.  It is a social situation and it is not one on one or just family so that’s a baby step. 

I am planning to have Thanksgiving Dinner this year on Thanksgiving Day and try slowly to stop “pretending” (sneaky denial.)  I am still not planning to celebrate Christmas – I’m just not ready for that and I don’t have a “new normal” version to work with yet.  But again, it’s a start. 

My faith – here, we are still on shaky ground.  I’ve done everything I know to do to hold it together. One corner falls down and I run get a book or two and put under it.  It holds it for a little while and then the other side begins to lean – I go grab some Christian music and a few podcasts from Charles Stanley and carefully prop it up on that side.  We’re good for a week or two and the other side starts crumbling again.  I borrow some faith from my sister to use to fill the cracks, nail another sermon from church to that side and grab a chapter or two from the bible and glue them along the sides.  And I’ve managed to hold it together long enough to go search for more material. It is not a plumb, square or sound structure. And it is just as shabby as it sounds and I hate that but I’m doing all I know to do.  Truthfully, some days I want to take a bulldozer and just mow down what’s left of it and push the whole mess off a cliff.  And actually that may be what it takes. Maybe I will have to let God rebuild it from the ground up because my shoddy patch job trying to put it back together with the scraps I’ve got is just not working all that well.

To me, that is still the scariest part; the saddest part and believe it or not, the worst part of all of this. 

And how much longer I will keep the blog going is still up in the air but for what it’s worth that is where we are today.

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. 

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. 

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.  

Insight to feeling nothing...

Today is eight months after the tragic loss of my son, my daughter in law and my two year old grandson to what we were told was a murder/suicide.

Today I found a post on a blog that I follow - What's Your Grief? an absolutely wonderful resource that I wish I had found months ago. There was a great article on “emotional numbness” after a tragic loss. I was totally unaware prior to my own personal experience, that this was even possible.  I just remember being seriously concerned because I seemed to be handling the tragic triple loss of my family -so well.  What a joke.

All of my life I would have assumed the loss of any one of my children would have just spontaneously killed me and yet here I was not only still living, breathing, walking and talking but what was more concerning was what I was not doing.  I was not fainting, screaming, crying or wailing hysterically.  As a matter of fact I wasn’t feeling anything at all.  Not grief, not pain, not sadness --not anything.

I was completely numb.  I could not cry.  I could not taste.  I couldn’t even feel physical pain.

I sat completely unemotional through the service.  All through the week following their deaths everyone kept making comments about how well I was taking this and how together I had it.  What!!? I knew that wasn’t true but I could not explain nor did I even understand myself what was happening. I wanted to die.  I knew I was crushed beyond words but even I remember worrying that I was a soul less creature that had no feelings because I literally had no feelings.  As a matter of fact, I was in a numb stupor for weeks literally at times staring blankly into space with very little facial expression.  I felt nothing most of the time like I was completely dead inside.  The world had no color. I saw nothing as if I were looking right through people and things.  I heard no sounds except garbled background noise.  Food tasted like paper.  What was wrong with me?  Did I not even have a heart?  I knew I loved them.  And that baby was the light and joy of my life.  I wanted to die every single moment and I knew how broken I was but I had literally no reaction to any of it.  It was bazaar and unnerving and was the source of added anguish for many weeks.

Several weeks later maybe three or more I began to feel and cry a little at a time in short bursts.  Then the dam broke and I began to feel EVERYTHING and almost lost my mind – I would sob for hours --deep racking sobs that felt as if my heart were literally going to burst.  I physically ached inside so bad until it felt like I was being crushed.  Then I got angry.  I mean ANGRY; screaming, cussing, throwing things, raging --angry. As if all of the emotion of everything that had happened, their deaths, the crappy investigation, the way we were treated by the coroner and lied to by the investigators, the way the news reporters stole pictures from my daughter in law's Facebook account and plastered my children's picture all over the news before we could even notify family members, the fact that we never got to see any of them, the legacy this left for my son; one of the best dad's I've ever known, the cruel things that people have said, the way my friends have turned away, the way that strangers were staring and whispering about us everywhere we went, the extreme waste of such beautiful lives, the insecurities I now felt about law enforcement, prayers and friendships, my sister's leukemia and the timing of the treatment...all of it - all of it hit me at once and I had anger beyond anything I could even imagine.  

Then I began to seriously wonder if it were ever going to let up.  It was then I realized the benefit of that numbness.  Clearly it was a safety mechanism to keep tragic shock and resulting aftermath from completely washing over you like a tsunami.  It is there so that you don't feel it all at one time but instead it allows the sadness and anger and devastation to seep in a little at a time as you can stand it.

And the article I found was dead on it when they said that although you would think numbness would be so much better than pain it really is not so much - it is a pain in and of itself.  You really are aware that the pain and devastation is actually there - somewhere deep - you just cannot feel it.

So very weird.  Like drowning in a bowl of beige jello.  Blank, bland, nothingness - like you are the walking dead.  You feel dead but you know you are not.  You know there is sadness; a deep terrifying sadness but it seems so far away until you can't quite touch it.

The article really resonated with me and brought back all of those first weeks and I know absolutely that it will be helpful to so many that felt as I did and don't understand it.  As I said, I so wish I had found it months ago.  (www.whatsyourgrief.com)

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•

2014 is finally gone!

But before it left...


We actually did go to my best friend's house for our traditional New Year's celebration.  We stayed in and had a nice visit and a great dinner. However, the holiday was overshadowed when upon arriving I found out that she had received a phone call from her doctor that day and her mammogram and subsequent sonogram came back showing several cysts and one tumor.  She has been referred to a surgeon for a biopsy/lumpectomy and has a breast cancer scare looming over her head.


My little granddaughter ended up in the hospital from dehydration.


My grandson brought home a stray kitten that he found on his job.  The poor little thing was about starved to death and appeared to be a little sickly.  My daughter thought rescuing a little kitten might give her something to feel good about so she agreed to the addition to her household. 


She took the kitten to the vet thinking a checkup, a little food and some vitamins would quickly get him on his way back to good health. A hundred and thirty dollars later she finds out that the kitten has "cat herpes" that has blinded him in one eye and also showing signs of it being in the other eye. She was told it was non-curable, would flare up periodically, and cause him to be sick the rest of his life. It was also highly contagious to any other cat, pose a danger of infection to anyone that had sensitive eyes (which she does) and could be dangerous to anyone with a compromised immune system. 


She had now exposed herself to eye infection, exposed her family cat to an incurable disease and also exposed every cat in her neighborhood.  So she had to turn right around after thinking about it and pay seventy dollars more to have it put to sleep and disposed of!  And the rescued little kitten that she was hoping would make her feel better after losing her brother, sister in law and nephew - lost his life to the tune of two hundred dollars at Christmas!


Unbelievable.


It's going to get better.  I know it is.