Angel baby – Page 6 – Sunshine, Angels and Rainbows

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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Life Can Still Suck

For weeks now, things have been going wrong. Ok, that’s an understatement. They’ve been going terribly wrong. I cannot begin to explain the amount of stress happening in our lives right now, both personally and professionally. I just want to scream ‘Uncle!’ so that I can maybe get a break already.

I won’t bore you with the details but it has to do with moving, taking over another business and having a baby all within the last month. The easiest part of all has been the baby, believe it or not. She is the calm in the midst of our storm.

My husband and I want to kill each other all of the time because, well, stress. The kids are dealing with a new sibling and a move gone so wrong and all of the uncertainty of our lives right now. There has been a lot of crying and acting out and not just from the kiddos. We’re all just a little maxed out over here.

But every time someone asks how we are, or says they don’t know how we’re doing it, I put on my brave face, shrug my shoulders and say, ‘we’ve been through worse’. It’s true. We have. There’s not much worse than losing a child and all of the hopes and dreams that go along with their future.

It’s given us perspective on how bad things can get and how quickly they can go wrong. I always remind myself when I start to freak out that it isn’t as bad as losing our son. I punish myself, feel guilty for getting frustrated or upset at the way life is going. It could always be worse.

I need to stop this. I’m being unfair to myself and my emotions. Yes, in all reality things could be worse than they are now for us. But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t allow myself to be pissed off or upset when things go wrong. I need to stop the comparison and just dive in and own what I feel.

I need to stop feeling guilty about being sad or upset if something goes wrong. Life, outside of grief, can still suck! It’s ok to feel that way. Guilt be damned!

Today I realized how true this is and I’m done. I want to scream out loud that it’s ok for me to admit that it sucks right now. I want to own it and cry and yell until I have it out of my system. Until I feel ok about it. Until the guilt is gone. Until I allow myself to be able to feel emotions outside of my grief and realize that that too is ok. That it’s part of my path. I have to stop letting the grief define me and instead begin to define the grief.

Just Moving.

Thirteen years ago Parker and I set out to purchase our first house. We were 24 years old and living in our first apartment together. I had some money left to me from my mom and it was fairly easy to get a mortgage back then.

We started looking about 30 miles west of Boston, but there was little in our price range. We knew that we could handle a fixer upper and looked forward to getting our hands dirty. Because the market was crazy at this point, we ended up looking in Worcester. It was much farther west than we wanted, but it was what we could afford.

I remember pulling into the driveway of 72 for the first time. We got out of the car and walked through the jungle of the back yard and I knew. This was it. It was exactly what we wanted. We went inside and took in the wood paneling, shag carpeting and green metal cabinets. Looking back, I’m overwhelmed at the amount of work we took on with this house. But over the last 13 years we made her ours.

At first it was Parker, myself and our crazy pack of cats and dogs. We celebrated Christmas’, birthdays and hosted numerous parties. Parker proposed to me in that house after we lived there for a year and a half. We had our wedding rehearsal on our front lawn. It’s where we began our marriage and started planning our future.

We found out we were expecting our first child within those walls. I had so much fun setting up a nursery and spent a year painting a barnyard mural. Teriffied as all new parents are, we brought home a little baby girl. She got to spend 8 years growing up in that house and playing in that yard. She learned to walk on the hardwood floors in our living room and spent numerous Halloween’s trick or treating around our neighborhood.

Once you have kids is when you really begin to meet your neighbors. We were lucky to have some kids move in over the years and be able to form a close knit community. Some of these people have become our closest friends.

Because our daughter needed a sibling, we had a son. Suddenly we were busting at the seams, but in a good way. There was so much laughter and love. Such noise and chaos that can only come from 2 kids, 2 dogs and a cat. Life was good.

When my son died right outside that very house, I thought that our world was over. I could not imagine how we could move forward. At the hospital, my sister asked me if we wanted to go home or would we rather stay at a hotel. I paused for a moment, but decided I wanted to be home and sleep in my own bed. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was making a very monumental decision.

That aside, our community came together to take care of us in numerous ways. These amazing people that were our neighbors took care of us and held our hands during the hardest time in our lives. We were so lucky to have this support system. These people took care of us and showed us so much love. It helped us to be able to grieve.

Over the course of the next year I struggled with our home, the driveway mostly. I refused to step foot where the accident had happened. I closed the door to my son’s room and didn’t go near it for a good 3 months. His toys were still all over the house and the baby gates were a constant reminder of what was missing. It was awful. But it was still my home.

Even after all that had happened, it was still my safe place, my bubble if you will. After the accident, I was teriffied of going out, being anywhere where ‘something’ could happen. I mean if an accident can occur right outside your home, then surely much worse can happen out and about. I felt safest in that house.

Over time, I slowly put my son’s stuff away. The baby gates disappeared. Toys went into his closed up room. We remodeled some of the house and these projects got me excited about the house again. They gave me something to focus on, something to change.

We began to heal in that house. It didn’t happen overnight, but slowly over time. Like a catepillar in a cocoon working towards becoming something beautiful. Let me tell you, it was a lot of work and a lot of therapy.

A year after the accident we decided we were ready to try again. We were willing to give the Universe another shot and give our hearts again. I miscarried in that house. I think I was more angry than sad at that point. I was so pissed that we could lose something more. At that point I wasn’t scared, I was damn determined that we get another shot at love.

We brought Fletcher home to that house nearly 9 months later. It was hard having another boy, especially one that looked so much like his brother. We struggled. I had no choice but to accept the driveway as it was because this little boy had to be carried to and from the house in his carseat safely.

Eventually we made the decision to move Fletcher into what was his brothers room. It sucked at first. I rocked him in the same chair where I last sat with his brother, looking at an almost identical face. I added Fletch’s name to the wall, right below his brothers. It was as if they were sharing a room. In some ways that was true as all of Benny’s clothes were still in the dresser, same as the day he died.

We raised another boy in that house for 2 years. We held our breath until he was older than his brother had been when he passed. I panicked over every sickness and accident and would google myself into a frenzy. We spent 15 months of sleepless nights with that little guy as he settled in. Those walls somehow held me together.

When we found out we were expecting again, we knew our days in this house were numbered. We were crammed in there and had eeked out every available square foot of living space. We hemmed and hawed. We loved this house, but it was time to go.

I was ok with the idea as an abstract. Maybe it wouldn’t sell. Then we’d be stuck and have to make it work. Well it sold, and rather quickly.

Then I was excited. We were moving! A new house to decorate! A fresh start. Then it was ‘we’re moving forward?’, ‘moving on?’. Nope. Just ‘moving.’

Just moving. Leaving our home behind. Taking our kids out of their house. Walking away from where we raised and lost our son. I can honestly say that I haven’t cried this much since my son died. And this was our decision!

I’ve had a few months to really think about this. I am heartbroken to leave my house. It is the longest I have ever lived anywhere and there are so many memories and so much of my life tied up into this one house. Not one room has been left untouched, we have spent countless hours making that house into exactly what we wanted. Our home. I am absolutely devastated. Just because we decided to leave doesn’t make this any easier.

This house is where Benny lived. It’s where he took his first steps, said his first words. It’s where he’s real to me, where he exists. This is so hard to walk away from.

It’s also where he died. It’s the last place that I held him. It’s where our lives completely changed. It’s taken me a very long time, but in this process of moving I’ve come to realize that I finally made my peace with it. I feel ready to move because I’m ok with this house.

I cannot describe how freeing that feels to be able to say this. I never imagined a time when I could feel this way about this house, I didn’t think it was possible. Maybe it’s because we’ve redone the house since Benny’s passing, or because I’ve brought other babies home here. Whatever it is, I’m so glad that I chose to come home the night of the accident. It allowed me (forced me) to deal with the reality of everything. It was a massive part ofy grieving process. It’s just taken me a long time to figure that out.

Thirteen years almost to the day that we purchased our home we said good bye. Someone else is living there now. God, it pains me to say that. I’m broken up even as I write this.

We said good bye to our house and our community and it is killing me. I have brokenheartedly had to say good bye to some of the most loving people we have ever met. Sure we’ll still see them, but I will miss being outside and waving and chatting with everyone. It’s just not the same. So much of what made our house a home were the people that lived around us and supported us.

We won’t go far, but it is so much further out of my comfort zone. My bubble is gone for now. It’s time to make a new one.

Back to School

We’ve been super busy. New baby, moving, new business, stick a fork in me. I’m just trying desperately to keep my head above water.

So feeding the little lady today I was on Facebook scrolling along. Then I saw it. The picture of the little boy Benny’s age with his big smile and first day of Kindergarten sign. I completely missed that yesterday I should have been dropping off two children to their first day of school.

How has that much time passed already? I remember thinking I wouldn’t make it through the day and now here we are nearly 4 years later. Two more kiddos. Darcy in fourth grade. Life just moving along.

Another milestone over. And I didn’t even realize it. Sigh. This doesn’t get any easier. Just different.

So This Happened

This was not planned. The car happened to be back in the shop and Parker and I looked at each other and both saw ‘the Benny photo’. Life is funny sometimes. Round and round we go.

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