Shared by a friend. This was actually Darcy’s dance song weeks after we lost Benny. Listening to the lyrics now is so poignant.
Category: Child Loss
Silence – Last September
After the accident happened and they loaded Benny and I into ambulances, I started praying. I’m not a religious person, but I knew in that moment that I needed a miracle. When they don’t let you ride in the ambulance with your child, you know it’s bad.
I don’t remember much about the ambulance ride except for the pleading that was going on in my head. I begged my mom over and over to save my little man. I begged my grandmother, my aunt, my uncle, Parker’s aunt, Jodie, anyone to make it better. I begged and pleaded over and over.
When we got to the hospital, the EMT’s told me that they would let us in where they were working on Bennett, but that I had to control myself. If I couldn’t hold it together or I became a problem, they would take me away. I nodded and knew it didn’t matter because I was so devoid of feeling at that point anyway. I just kept praying.
I begged the doctors to save him. I tried to explain how special he was. They just kept saying that it didn’t look good. I kept begging, praying and pleading in my head. Someone had to save him. This couldn’t be happening. Not to my son. Not to us.
There was nothing, there was silence. No one saved him for me that day. We didn’t get our miracle.
10 months later I am here again. We found we were pregnant, on our anniversary. We were surprised, happy, elated. I was ecstatic that Darcy would have a sibling to grow up with. I was scared, but so happy for the first time in a long time. For one week, things were looking up.
The night of the 10 month anniversary of Benny’s death, I started bleeding. I knew something wasn’t right. So I started praying again, begging even. This couldn’t be happening, not again, not to us. I spoke to the doctor’s office and they said based on my bloodwork, my numbers were low, it was ‘indeterminant’ if I was pregnant. A chemical pregnancy they called it.
I’ve prayed, I’ve begged, I’ve pleaded. I don’t know what else to do. It’s been met with silence. I don’t know how to make sense of this. What cruel fate have we come upon? How many times am I supposed to pick myself back up? Do we ever get the miracle? Will we ever get a break?
News
I recieved a call today from our midwife that all of our tests have come back perfect for Baby Roaf. As of today, little less than 20 weeks, he is healthy. For months I have been blogging in the background about the excitement and terror of going down this road again. Making the decision to have another was not something that Parker and I took lightly.
This has been a tough road to get to this 20 weeks. Back in September we suffered another loss, an early miscarriage. It didn’t feel right from the beginning and I just convinced myself that I was being paranoid, that we had suffered enough. I was devastated to find that I was right and we lost ot only a baby, but the hope and excitement that we had for the future, yet again. It was probably the worst I’ve felt since losing Benny. It felt so unfair.
We became pregnant again right after and went through a roller coaster as they said this one didn’t look viable either based on early numbers. Well, they were wrong. We soon found out it was another boy, but I couldn’t begin to describe how that feels. A mixture of joy and terror.
It is also with a mixture of joy and terror that I share this news. While we are excited, I am also tremendously scared of what the future holds and what this means for me emotionally. What I have now is hope though and I’m holding onto that tightly.
I will back post the blogs that I have been writing for the last 20 weeks in time. There’s so much Benny involved in this recent pregnancy, it’s crazy.
Ummm…
“The morning after and my wife and I are still dealing with the fallout of that Nationwide Insurance commercial. To be clear, we 100% support the efforts of groups, like the Long Island Drowning Prevention Task Force , who raise awareness about preventable death – through responsible education . There is a right way to start the conversation and a wrong way. In our opinion, Nationwide Insurance blindsided families that are suffering EVERY day with this pain during a time when our families are together celebrating a national pastime. What should have been joyous occassion was ruined by their ill-conceived ad that could have gotten the same message across without being so traumatizing to families that are all too aware of what they are missing out on. Some commenters pointed out that If the commercial “saved one child’s life, then it was worth it” – but that’s not the point. The point is that they could have accomplished the same message without so overtly rubbing salt in the wounds of parents and siblings who already know this feeling and don’t need to be reminded by a multi-billion dollar company that stands to profit by the exposure. This is all we are going to say on the matter and we look forward to getting back to doing what we do: Making this world a KINDER place, one Rees’ piece at a time.”
Well said. It was a good thing that I missed this commercial last night and to be honest I’ve only seen clips/descriptions. Shame on you Nationwide…there’s probably a better way this could have been handled.
Connecting the Dots
Today I had a doctor’s appointment and I was talking to the nurse who taking my blood pressure, weight, etc. She was talking about how she lived near me and how awful our hill is in the winter. Of course at this point in the conversation I’m wondering if she knows ‘our story,’ but this is a fleeting thought as we continue to talk.
I have to admit that she looked familiar, but I figured that I had just seen here there before. We’re chatting away when she stops and looks at me says that she doesn’t really know how to say this, but she was there, in the road with me the day of the accident. She was one of the nurses that gave Bennett CPR. I didn’t know what to say, I was completely caught off guard. I had known that there were 3 people to do CPR on Benny, but it was all such a blur. The police had no information for us on who was involved and we found the others on our own.
About a month after the accident, my sister found an article from the T&G that interviewed this nurse that had been on the scene of the accident. Quite honestly, I had no idea that she had been involved at all until after the fact and I had contacted her to thank her. She was the only person that I had still not met. Until today. I got to hug her and tell her how thankful we were that she stopped to help us, to help Bennett. She said she would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
Just another amazing stranger. A hero among many that showed up for us that day. How amazing for her to cross my path over a year later. I have to think that this is the work of a little blue eyed angel.
You Deserve to Be Ok
“Perhaps most of all, though, you deserve to be okay. You deserve to know that a day in which you can just barely get out of bed because you are sad, or sick, or simply not ready to see the outside is not the end of the world. You deserve to know that moments of weakness do not make you fundamentally weak, only fundamentally human, and that sometimes we’re not going to be effusively happy, and that is okay. You deserve to be happy just existing and not constantly holding yourself up to a standard of fake smiles and forced cheerfulness.” Chelsea Fagan
Couldn’t have said it better. There are good days and bad ones, and just because you don’t see the bad ones, it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Just because I’m smiling on the outside, doesn’t mean that it’s all happiness and light on the inside. People have moved on, have expected that we have done the same. Some people have started calling again, wanting to spend time with us. We have not moved on, we will NEVER move on. We live everyday with the knowledge that we have a son that will forever be 17 months.
Grieving Siblings
I am by no means an expert on this topic. I naively thought that Darcy was doing extremely well, until it all fell apart last February. All it took was one night away from Parker and I and the bottom fell out. She was extra clingy, acting out and night terrors had begun again.
How on Earth does a 5 year old process the death of her brother? How does she process someone close to her picking her up from school, bringing her home to see my car surrounded by police, ambulance and fire and no family around? How does she process that individual falling apart on her when she needed him most? Not getting any answers, but knowing something is terribly wrong. Darcy asks me a lot of questions about that day, but really hasn’t talked too much about what she through beyond coming home and saying that the police were nice to her.
Darcy saw the adjustment counselor at school twice in the beginning, which Parker and I were thinking was enough. She seemed to be adjusting ok. My cousin was on my case to set her up with her own counselor and after the holidays we did do that, although I had no idea what to expect. The first meeting was awful, Darcy wanted no part of it. I think a part of her sensed something was off. The second meeting went well and she warmed up to her therapist Annie and very shortly became the loving, playful person that we know, singing, dancing and playing through her sessions.
At first, I thought, ok, there’s very little going on here. We played, I enjoyed seeing Darcy interact and I figured, at least we tried. Then I talked to Annie one on one. She noticed that Darcy was constantly playing with cars, reenacting car accidents, ambulances and police coming to the scene. I had’t really even noticed, she always played with cars with her brother, so to me it was no different. She was trying to make sense of it all.
Annie started to push Darcy to talk about Benny. At first she would remain tight lipped and wanted nothing to do with it. To Darcy it was easier to not talk about him at all. This was hard for Parker and I. Darcy started to ask us to stop crying, she was done with it all. Annie pushed her a little more each session and in about 8 months, she was bringing in pictures and drawing her family album including Benny. She had truly opened up and begun to share with Annie. I found that she looked forward to our meetings with Annie. Over the summer when she started doing really well, we had gone from seeing Annie from once a week to two times a month. Darcy was missing her time with Annie desperately. Annie worked for us, she worked for Darcy.
The other day she came home from school with a paper she wrote about her family. She talked about all of our pets that have passed and how she loves her baby brother. That wouldn’t have happened a year ago.
Before I was born, one of my cousins died, he was hit by a car coming off of the bus. His older brother was there when it happened. This happened 40+ years ago. I sat at the table with my Uncle who said that he regretted not getting help for my surviving cousin. I think about how long ago everything happened to them and how different therapy was conceived. Because I was so young and never knew my cousin or their situation, I was surprised by how similar our stories were. I am also so hopeful because here they are today, decades later, surviving.
There’s no right or wrong way to grieve, period. When it comes to kids, I don’t know the the right way to handle things, I just know what worked for us. I consider us lucky to have people in our lives that pushed us to get Darcy the help that she needed. I owe my cousin Annie, who pushed us to get Darcy into counseling my peace of mind.
I think I’ve talked about this, but I’ll say it again that a close friend gave us the book ‘The Invisible String’. We read it at Benny’s memorial services and it speaks about our connection with close friends and family without being overly sad for kids. Recently we had our neighbors over and Darcy chose to read this story to them. It made me feel really good that she felt comfortable reading this story that’s so closely intertwined with her brother’s services. There are a few additional books that I will also recommend below. I will add more as I find them.
For the Kids:
Invisible String
For the Adults:
The Boy on the Green Bicycle
Benny’s Bunch
What started out last year as a ‘last minute 5k’ for the Greg Hill Foundation has grown into something else. To quote my friend Erin, “Amazing how less than two years old and he has the power to gather the masses. An incredible day to honor and cherish Benny.”
This year we had over 50 people walking/running last Saturday, it was incredible! We were easily the largest team to participate in the event. Watching the sea of Benny shirts on the route was inspiring. To know that this many people turned out to support our little guy and our family. We had folks traveling from CT and NH just to walk with us. There was so much love in that crowd.
Santa was there as well as cookies, candy and carolers to keep us moving. This year it was a balmy 35 out, so we didn’t freeze! Afterwards we went over to 29 Sudbury to carb up great food and free beer while we listened to the live entertainment and watched the kiddos run around.
People sent in donations for us to drop off as well and we were able to turn over an additional $120 to the foundation. It was an incredible day and an incredible feeling to be surrounded by that much love. Thank you once again Benny’s Bunchers!! Thank you GHF for all that do to support local families and bring us some hope during our darkest hours!!
Sandy Hook
I remember when this happened, I cried. I had 2 nephews in school in CT and had no idea if they were safe. I was sad for days over children and teachers that I had never met. I kept saying ‘I can’t imagine how you survive something like this…’ It wasn’t a year later and Benny was gone.
No matter what side of the gun battle you’re on, the first few paragraphs written by this mother speak to me. They speak volumes about our life now. What the death of a sibling does to the other siblings. I can relate to a parent of Sandy Hook. It makes me so sad.
Words
I’ve written a lot about the disappointments surrounding child loss and the stupid things that people say. There’s really nothing that anyone can say to make it better when your child dies. A year later, I can look back and tell you what people said that helped to make it bearable. These phrases have stuck with me.
“We WILL get you through this.”
“Benny was a lucky boy and I couldn’t have hoped for two better people to be his parents.”
“You are the best mom. I parented like you, I used to come home and tell my husband that you said to do something a certain way, so that’s what we did.”
“I lost my son too. You will survive this.”
“You will find a way to turn this around, you always do. You will turn this into something to help others.”
These words weren’t the typical platitudes, but spoken sincerely and from the heart. A year later and I haven’t forgotten.
Sunshine, Angels and Rainbows 