Angels – Page 10 – Sunshine, Angels and Rainbows

Growth

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A friend posted this quote to their FB wall and it’s had me thinking since. Since Benny’s death I’m not a big fan of platitudes. The last thing that you want to hear in your moment of grief is someone spouting off a canned phrase that makes them feel better and you feel even more alone.

This one got me though. It made me think. It made me wonder what, if anything have I learned in the 4 years since Benny’s death? Is this something that I even want to admit to or explore? Should I consider Benny’s death as a learning experience or is that too vulgar? God, grief is complicated.

Maybe instead of asking myself ‘what I learned from Benny’s death?’ I should ask myself ‘how have I grown/shrank in my grief?’ It’s just semantics, but I’m definitely more comfortable with these terms.

Four years seems like a long time to evaluate. It’s longer than my son’s lifetime. I could spend days going back and reading all of my posts to look at where I was then relative to where I am now. But let’s be real here, I have a baby that doesn’t sleep, a toddler pushing the limits, a 9 year old on school vacation and a mountain of moving boxes to still unpack. So off the top of my head…

Embracing My Crazy

I’m not really sure that admitting that you take on too many things while knowing fully well that you shouldn’t is growth here. This last year has been beyond anything imaginable. My God there have been so many moments when I just wanted to quit. I wanted to get in my car and start driving and leave everything behind. I have never had so many days (months) in a row where things just kept piling up.

Overwhelming does not even begin to describe what has been going on. Some of it was our doing, other things were out of our control. This is the first time since we lost Benny that I have had to dig so deep to try and hold it all together. This is not to compare this year to 2013 or the accident. This was a whole different type of stress coming at me from every direction. It was time to embrace it or lose my mind trying.

Now I don’t know if I can even pinpoint coping mechanisms here. A lot of it was changing my mind set to just accept that this was how things were and to go with it. I had to stop trying to fight the circumstances and try to figure out how to make them work instead. Obviosuly much easier than accepting the loss of my child. It still sucked.

Saying No

Saying no came first. Telling people I just couldn’t continue to be a part of things was hard for me. Taking a break from some of the fundraising and charity work was absolutely heartbreaking. I’m a people pleaser and I hate to think that I’m letting someone down or that I’m not doing my part to give back. I just keep reminding myself that just because I said no today, doesn’t mean that I can’t say yes tomorrow. It doesn’t have to be an end, just a hiatus.

Asking For Help

There’s nothing more that I hate more than asking for help. I am fiercely independent and to me asking for help is a sign of weakness. It’s me it’s admitting that I cannot do it all on my own. It literally kills me.

After Benny died it was so easy. I didn’t have to ask for help, it was just offered (thank goodness because of my afforementioned issues with help). There are times that I miss that. Especially with the craziness of last year.

Sometimes you just have to suck it up though. Find those people that you know that you can depend on, and hope they still take your calls when you ask them for help moving. For the fourth time. In less than a year.

Knowing when to seek help for yourself and your family is also a big deal. Grief never ends. It’s shifts and it changes, but it never fully disappears. You may be feeling great and then the world comes crashing down. Sometimes it’s more than you can handle on your own and you need help from a professional. Knowing when to call them back and check in is key. We are working through that with Darcy right now. Growing up grieving is tricky.

Apologizing

If I’m being brutally honest here, the only thing I hate more than asking for help is apologizing. Then I would be admitting I did something wrong, which no one wants to do.

I have my father’s temper and my mother’s remorse, a tough genetic cocktail. It’s exhausting being in my head. But I’ve found it’s easier for me to live with myself if I let people know that I’m sorry for my actions.

I could write a whole blog about the many ways that I’ve shrank since Benny’s death. I wanted to keep tonight’s positive though. Another ponder for another day.

‘This Is Grief’

That’s what ‘This is Us’ should be titled. Or maybe ‘This is Loss’ or simply ‘This Sucks’. I don’t think they’d get people tuning in week after week with those titles though.

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(Spoiler Alert!!!)

This show grabbed my attention from the beginning because the first episode deals with child loss. For a TV drama they did an amazing job of capturing how that feels. I was super impressed with how the topic wasn’t glossed over (except in Rebecca’s case, I keep hoping desperately that they circle back to her grief a little more) and they really show how the central father figure that we all love deals with it.

Part of why you fall in love with Jack is because he’s flawed. He has a drinking problem, and after trying to hide it over the years he finally deals with it. He stops trying to run away and confronts it. It’s powerful to watch.

He’s clearly someone who loves his family. He goes back into a burning house because of his daughter’s dog. I’m an animal person, but leave the damn dog!!

He’s witty and smart. He loves his life more than himself. He’s an amazing father. He’s motivated. He sacrifices his dreams for his family, yet he’s still a dreamer. And he still dies.

And in a simple stupid accident. There’s no plane crash, no explosion, no dramatic scene of him getting shot in a random bank robbery. Jack dies because of a faulty home appliance and because he and his wife forget to change out the batteries in the smoke detector. Well, he dies as a secondary result of the smoke inhalation, but nonetheless.

Completely freak accident. No way of ever imagining it could have ever happened. But it did and the man that viewers have fallen in love with is gone.

I have read so many commenters blaming the neighbor George for giving the Pearson’s the crockpot that started the fire. If you pay attention, he gives them the crock pot nearly 18 years before the fire happens because Rebecca is pregnant.

We always need someone to blame. We always need a reason to justify when someone dies. Why is that? This show has really made me think long and hard about the human rationalization of death. I’m not sure that I can even begin to understand or explain it.

Most likely it’s a coping mechanism. The show beautifully portrayed how each member of the family dealt with Jack’s death some 20 years later. It showed how differently each character grieved. How no way was wrong, but how each person needed to do their own thing to get through the day. It was very relatable.

Hats off to this show. They have taken a topic that is so real and is something that EVERYONE will deal with in their lifetime and brought it into focus. I feel like I am tuning in week after week and watching pieces of my life unfold. It sucks. Parker keeps asking me why I’m watching it, it’s just too close to home (like when Rebecca had to tell the kids that Jack had died, my God that one brought me back). It’s cathartic though. Maybe I’m dealing with it like Kate. Maybe it’s just easier seeing someone else go through the many things that I already have.

The Unreality of it All

I was driving somewhere today and thinking about how disconnected I felt from Benny. I was wondering if the accident really happened, if he was really real. From time to time it’s hard for me to grasp the reality of it all. I was feeling empty.

Did he really die? Did we really survive that? Did I actually carry and give birth to 4 children? There are just times that I cannot wrap my head around it all.

Then I figure it’s just my mind’s way of protecting itself. I was giving myself a break from the pain of it all. Let’s face it, the holidays suck as a parent if you’ve lost a child. I was enjoying a few moments of ‘unreality’.

Then of course I feel guilty for even having these thoughts. Has my life become so busy that I’m not taking the time to stop and really tune into my dead son? What kind of mother am I?

Fast forward to this evening and I’m relaxing on the couch watching Scrubs with Parks. It’s probably the last show that I would expect to get to me, but it did tonight. Now that I think about it, there are several episodes that deal with death and grief and the different way the characters handle it. Sometimes serious, sometimes not. Maybe that’s why I love this show.

Tonight the main characters that are doctors were dealing with a patient that was afraid of dying. They talked about how they hoped that their last thought would be a happy one. The episode closes with “maybe in the end all you can really hope for is your last thought is good, even if it is just about the taste of an ice cold beer”

Wow. Just wow. This brought me back from my ‘unreality’ super quick. It was the punch in the guts that made me feel raw all over again, even these 4 years later. Now I’m sitting here wondering how I could have ever felt any type of disconnect from Benny’s death.

I’m also wondering what his last thoughts were. Was he scared? Was he still groggy having just woken up? Was he confused by my frustration at him being awake?

Or can I really just hope that death is like they say in the movies? That your life flashes before your eyes and it’s like watching a movie. His movie would have been short, but my God it would have been wonderful. He made so many people so very happy and he was so very loved. Maybe that’s all that I can hope for then. That those last 7 seconds were happy thoughts.

Here We go Again…

Another day, another family to victimize…

3 Year Old Dies From Allergic Reaction

4 Years ‘AA’

I miss my son. Sometimes so desperately that I feel like I can’t even breathe. Other times it’s a dull ache. I miss who he was and who I think he would become. I miss who I was. I miss our life from before November 8th.

We are officially 4 years after the accident now. Four whole years. I think back to the broken people that we were. We are still not whole, I don’t anticipate that we ever will be. We will live the rest of our lives ‘incomplete’. We are learning to deal with that.

I was just reading my other ‘AA’ (after accident) blogs. I’m amazed at how much my life has changed. It gives me a glimpse into the shattered person that I was and how I have had to put myself back together. It has been a slow process. I don’t think that there will ever be a point where I will feel ‘healed’ or ‘better’. It just is for now.

Every day a part of me is sad or anxious or both. I’m terrified of what could happen. I nag my children, constantly trying to keep them safe and close. I snuggle the little ones a little too much, just wishing that they would stay small forever. I worry constantly how Benny’s death will shape his older sister’s life. I’m wistful for the naive life we lived before, where we couldn’t even imagine something bad happening. I’m sad that I miss my son.

He would have gone to kindergarten this year. He would have been 5! If I concentrate really hard, I can almost see him heading off for his first day of school. He would have been a big brother. What I would give to see him and Fletcher playing together! Maybe he would have played a sport or taken up drums, or furthered his interest in the cars.

Four years later and I still don’t have any answers. I don’t know why this happened. I don’t know how different my life would have been if it hadn’t. I celebrate my mini victories and life milestones as they occur and try to take each day as it comes. Grieving is hard work! Choosing to find joy in each day is even harder.

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Stuff

Sigh. I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know when it began. Maybe I’ve been like this forever. Maybe the grief intensified my needs. I’m going to admit it here, shout it out loud to hold myself accountable, I have too much stuff!

There, I said it. I thought I was doing good before the move. I felt like I had gotten rid of so much stuff! It’s really hard to sift through 13 years of living in one place. Parker and I both had our own stuff and lot’s of it. We had lived on our own before. It didn’t seem like much until we put it together. Then add in 4 kids and pets and a house that is busting at the seams! It is completely overwhelming.

And that’s just life. We all probably have too much stuff at the end of the day. We can all feel overwhelmed by it. First world problems. Here’s where it gets complicated though. Grief compounds this.

My mom died when I was 16. You’re damn right I want to hold onto as many memories of her as I possibly can. I have to teach my children about their grandmother because they will never meet her. It is so important to me that they know who she was and where they came from. Does that mean that I need to hold onto her early 90’s mint green track suit to do so? Or her costume jewelry from the 80’s? I honestly don’t know.

Once someone is gone, how do you make that distinction about what is important to keep? Even some 22 years later I don’t have any answers. I try really hard to hold myself accountable. I try to weigh how important it really is to hold onto a physical memento. I’ve been able to let some things go. Others have been harder.

What do you do with 10 lbs. of toddler clothing from your deceased son? I’ve had a few blankets made with some of the clothing and I’m thinking of having memory bears made for the kiddos, but what do I do with the rest? I was able to talk myself into donating some of it, but there is still a good trash bag full. How about the diaper bag that remains untouched from the day he died? Sure I’ve looked at it. I just don’t know what to do with it now.

There’s this whole Konmari method of cleaning out where you’re supposed to ask yourself if the item in question bring you Joy. I’m not sure these items bring me joy, but they bring me back to a point in my life that I can’t ever get back to. When things were simpler. Less heartbreaking. My ‘before’ if you will.

Do I need these things? Probably not. I don’t know how long they will remain in boxes in the new house simply because they are not items that we use on any type of frequent basis. But still they comfort me, knowing that they are there.

I don’t know how long it will take me to let go. Maybe never. I guess that will just have to be ok for now.

Even More CYG 2017

Day 16:. Conscious Gratitude

Today is a day of gratitude. Part of the description for the day was about how hard it is to feel grateful while grieving. I find this interesting. For me, grief and gratitude are two very separate emotions and just because I was grieving Benny didn’t mean that I couldn’t be grateful for the good things that came into our lives. This is not every persons reaction, it just happened to be mine. I remember thinking a few days after about how grateful I was that Darcy was at school. Parker and I talked about how grateful we were that the car stopped when it did, that it didn’t hit or injure any other drivers or pedestrians. We felt tremendous gratitude to our community that did so much for us in the days that followed. I could go on and on. This is just how I’m wired. I wouldn’t say that I’m an eternal optimist, because I’m certainly not. In fact, I think I tend to be more negative than positive in general. But when it comes to making lemonade, I’ve become somewhat of a pro. When things are really bad, you just need to find something good. It will be there, I promise.

Day 18:. The Grief Shift

Where am I my grief journey? How have I come to terms with my grief? This is why I love I love this project. I would never think to ask myself this question otherwise. I’m not even sure I have an answer, but it certainly makes me think a bit.

I’d like to think I’ve made my peace with things, but I’d be kidding myself. I will never be at peace with losing my son. Maybe that’s me being at peace about never being at peace? Or something like that? Grief is complicated to say the least.

More CYG 2017

Day 10 – A Space Reimagined

This is supposed to be about creating a space to devote to your lost loved one. This one is really tough for me right now. It’s like Benny is in the ‘in between’ now because his stuff is mostly packed away. Sure thereare pictures of him on the wall, but there’s no space dedicated to him like we had in the old house. He had a shelf in the dining room and in essence, he shared a room with Fletcher. Now I have letters that spell his name with no home. There’s no place to put them here and I’m not sure where we will put them once we land somewhere final. I’m lost as to what to do with this. At the old house we still had his room, there was a sense of belonging. Now things are just so temporary, none of us have that. Renting right now and not being able to be settled is tough, especially around his anniversary. It will be interesting to see what we come up with once we’re settled somewhere.

Day 11 – Life is Short

You’re supposed to take some time to remember how short life is and make sure to tell those you love how imporant they are. Even with one of the toughest lessons in loss, I forget this some days. I get so caught up in the chaos and minutia. It’s sad really. None of that is important at all. What matters is that others know how much you care for them. This whole exercise is turning into looking at how I live my life and what changes I need to make. There’s always room for improvement.

Day 13 – Student of Life

Simply put, I’m supposed to learn something new. Darcy had a school project to make a scrapbook for the state of NJ. Right up my alley! I love anything creative, crafty and colorful. We set about researching the project and printing out pictures. I did truly learn a lot that I didn’t know.

When it came time to do the actual scrapbook, that’s when it got complicated. I have a background in design and an obsession with perfection. I tried to tell Darcy several times that she had too much going on on her pages and she needed to let the pictures tell the story. After we went back and forth several times, she finally looked at me and said, ‘Mom, it’s my project, and I really like it this way. We really just have different opinions’. Yep, that moment when your child is more mature than you.

She was telling me nicely to back off. I forget sometimes that she is just 8 (especially when she handles herself like this). I have to stop being a perfectionist and just let her be a kid. She is her own person and I need to respect that. Raising humans is damn hard!

CYG 2017

So clearly I’m not going to hit every day of this exercise and that’s ok. It’s all about self love and healing and I’m not going to muck that up by stressing myself out. Sometimes all I can do is my best and I’m learning that that’s ok.

CYG Day 4: Belonging

I could write a novel about this topic, how it has felt to find ‘my tribe’. I’m lucky in that I have taken some of my closest friends with me into this new normal. It made the transition much easier. Did we lose friends, yes. It’s taken me a long time to make my peace with that. It’s easier because of all of the new people that have stood by us. Most of them never even knew Benny, but they have seen us at our worst and helped us through. These people amaze me. Where others would have turned and run, they have stepped up. They have allowed me to be unapologetically who I am.

I think of all of the other bereaved families that we have met. The tribe not one of us wants to be in. The amount of love and support from these people has helped tremendously.

CYG Day 5: Soul Therapy

I’m supposed to do something today that makes me feel good, that feeds my soul. So I went for a walk with a friend and then snuggled my baby for a nap. It was a great day!

CYG Day 7: For the First Time

Today was supposed to be about doing something new to honor your child. I’m still thinking on this one.

CYG Day 9: Clear and Let Go

This topic couldn’t be more fitting right now. I feel like since we made the decision to move, we have been clearing out a lot of the useless ‘stuff’ in our lives. We got rid of so much stuff, but we still have a ways to go. It’s truly eye opening when you take your whole life and pack it up. Ours fit in a 10×20 storage unit, 2-10×15 units, a 24′ car trailer and some various outdoor items tucked at friends houses here and there. We do not need so much stuff! I have made it my mission to get rid of more. Even though we are moving to a larger home, that does not mean we need more stuff. It just overwhelms me at this point. And I thought we had it under control!

Capture Your Grief 2017

I did this project a few years back and really enjoyed it. Because it’s been such a crazy few months, I thought it would do me good to jump back into this again. The project can be found Here in case anyone else wants to join in.

CYG – Day 1: Sunrise Blessing

Ok, so I see the sunrise, alot. It’s usually in the company of a beautiful little lady. She typically wakes around 4 AM for a snack and then we snuggle and snooze until the rest of the house wakes up. This is probably my favorite part of the day. I get to wrap my arms around her warm little body and breathe in that sweet baby smell. 20171003_220810 There is no better way to start my day. All too soon she will be too old to do this with, but I will enjoy it now.

CYG – Day 2: Rise + Shine Mourning Ritual

Today I was supposed to set an intention for the day. How I wanted it to be. I didn’t start out my day with this goal in mind, but I certainly ended it that way. Things have been super stressful. Today I took the time out to stop. I actually relaxed. After I stopped feeling guilty about it, I was able to take a step back and realize it’s time to get back to basics. I need to get back to yoga. I need to get out and go for a walk to clear my head. I need to enjoy the company of great friends. My husband and I need to take time out for our marriage to catch our breath. These things need to become priorities. I need to sit down every once in awhile and check in with myself to see what I need instead of just going, going, going. I need to give myself a break every now and then.

CYG – Day 3: Meaningful Mantra

This is one of my favorite quotes that I found after Benny died.

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