death of mother – Page 2 – Sunshine, Angels and Rainbows

I’m gonna love you

I just heard this song for the first time tonight and I’m a puddle. Such powerful lyrics with a message that I know all too well.

All of this ‘Berenstein’ vs. ‘Berenstain’ Bears nonesense has me thinking. I distinctly remember ‘stein,’ but have talked to other folks that remember ‘stain.’ I don’t get it, I really don’t and I’ve been reading articles most of the evening trying to wrap my head around it all.

I was reading one article aloud to Parker that talked about a parallel universe existing or several, where there were other ‘me’s’ that make different decisions. I looked at Parker and said maybe Benny’s alive in another universe. Maybe I brought him into the house like I was going to and then tried to take the key out of the car. Maybe we never went out that day. Maybe we never bought our house, but one with a flat driveway. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

It really got me thinking though, maybe there was no Benny in another universe because I never went to Wentworth and I never met Parker. Maybe my mom didn’t die of breast cancer and I ended up going to school in Virginia as planned. It’s amazing how much one little decision can affect the course of your life. I have no answers for the Berenstein debate. I do not understand how something that I swear to be true isn’t. There’s so many things about this life that I simply do not understand. Maybe there isn’t an answer, it’s not black and white.

Back in May, right before Mother’s Day, I went on my second grieving mother’s retreat. It was much easier the second time around because I knew so many of the mom’s from last year and my support group in Worcester. I wasn’t as anxious going into it. It was an amazing day of relaxation, yoga and being amongst friends. At the close of the day, we sat down with Peggy Huddleston, who authored the book ‘Prepare for Surgery, Heal Faster’ where she talks about the mind/body connection and illness/injury. She also lost her son and was working with us to get into a relaxed state so that we could communicate with our loved ones.

I was a little dubious. I still couldn’t explain my experience with Maureen Hancock and I certainly wasn’t a medium. I had a hard time relaxing the first time that we did it. It was almost like being hypnotized, it’s hard to explain. I’ve always been a mind over matter type of person, especially when it comes to pain, but I was distracted by the person sitting next to me shifting around in their seat. I was seeing flashes, Benny’s face, but I wasn’t sure if I was seeing them because I wanted to or because something else was going on. We went around the room and shared what we saw and Peggy led us through the relaxation again and told us to ask our loved ones a question.

I panicked, I had no question for Bennett. I didn’t want to ask him if he blamed me, I wasn’t ready for that. I thought about it and figured I would just ask if he was with my mom. I’ve received so many signs from Bennett and so few from my mom over the years. I wanted to know where she was.

As Peggy put us under the second time I was really able to relax. At first I saw Benny’s face in my memory, but not Benny at 18 months, but an older Benny, a 3 year old Benny (which he would have been at the time). I’d never really imagined him as older, I wouldn’t let myself, it hurt too much. For whatever reason, this is what I saw. It was like looking at a movie with no sound. I asked him if he was with my mom and the picture changed to when he used to play her organ and shake his curls like Jerry Lee Lewis. I wasn’t sure if he was telling me no, or what. The picture shifted again and all of a sudden I was watching him walking. Then the picture zoomed out and he was holding a yellow balloon in one hand and my moms hand in the other. Clear as day, they were walking away from me.

I wasn’t sure if I saw what I wanted to or I was actually able to communicate. Peggy said not to question it, but logical me figured it was too good to be true.

A week later, my friend/neighbor Angela was chasing down WXLO to try to get tickets for their Mother’s Day brunch. At the last minute she was able to win some tickets for myself and another mother who had lost her teenage son exactly a year ago on that day. The brunch was at Uno’s in Millbury and the morning show was broadcasting live. They had a medium there and a nice little spread of food. I had no idea what to expect, as Angela had just messaged us the night before to let us know that she got tickets.

I’ve been warned by friends to be suspicious of mediums. My experience with Maureen Hancock was amazing, but I had taken every precaution so that she wouldn’t know my name. This time, we got the tickets the night before and they were in Angela’s name. There was no way that they had my information.

The medium started with a family behind us and honestly, I felt that I had my closure. I had what I wanted from Maureen and I was silently hoping that Angela’s friend Heather’s son would come through for her.

As the medium was walking around she said that she was getting a Margaret name. When no one spoke up I said that Margaret was my mom’s middle name. She asked me if her name began with a J, guessing Jane and I corrected her with Joan. She said that the she was sitting in the empty seat next to me. She asked me if there were 3 kids in my family growing up to which I said yes. Then she asked about the baby. I asked her which one, and she said that my mom welcomed the baby and was with him. She said he was in very good hands. She asked me if my grandmothers name was Anna, to which I said yes. My mom said she is with my kids and that my daughter has family blood (she’s a spitting image of me and my mom). She said that I’m very close with my mom’s sister (Aunt Dorothy) but that she’s very different from my mom. She asked me if my mom was sick to which I said yes. She said that my mom was the center person in our family and after she died that I took on that role. She said that my dad never recovered and deserves a ‘swift kick’ for falling apart on us.

I’m sure there was more, but my mind was blown. Even if the medium had my name prior to the event, there’s no way that she could have come up with that information. My mom died in 1996, none of this showed up on a google search with my name. She knew my grandmother’s name. I have no explanation. A week prior I was asking her and Benny if they were together and why I never get signs from her and instantly I have answers. I got validation.

After the readings were all over, they pulled a name from a hat for someone else in the room. I was hoping that they would pick my name so that I could give a reading to Heather. I was sitting there in my head saying please Benny and mom over and over. So they picked my name. And Heather got her reading.

I can’t make this stuff up. I can’t even begin to understand most of it. I don’t have an answer. Maybe it’s ‘stain’ maybe it’s ‘stein.’ I don’t know. I’m thankful that those damn bears got me to finally write this post that I’ve been holding on to since May. Believe it, or not, it happened. I can’t explain it, it just is. It just keeps happening, he keeps sending me signs and giving me exactly what I need. God I miss him.

The People That Don’t Know…

The night of the accident, I had both of our Facebook pages taken down because we were scared that the media would pull information/pictures from them. It was almost a year before we reactivated Parker’s because he needed it for work. Mine remains down and I use Parker’s. I couldn’t fathom dealing with people from back home that didn’t know about the accident. I was already the girl who’s mom died in high school, I didn’t want another title.

The other day I dropped Darcy off at camp and was talking to Tara while toting around Fletch. A woman approached me said, ‘I don’t know if you remember me, but our girls took dance together at the Y.’ I recognized her and began to panic. Darcy was in dance when I was pregnant with Benny. We had a few play dates, birthday parties with this family and Benny had been there. She knew Benny and probably had no clue about the accident.

She asked how old Fletch was and started asking about Darcy. I redirected the conversation to her girls and hoped she would leave it at that. Tara was standing next to me and I knew she could tell as much as myself what was coming.

‘How’s your other son, Bennett I think? How old is he now?’. Now I’ve become pretty adept at telling people that he passed. I’ve never told anyone that knew him before. It was awful. Her reaction, the silence, all of it. I’ve been living with it for nearly 21 months now, but her reaction brought it all back, how truly awful it really is that he’s gone. It cut through me.

I felt bad for her, to ask such a simple question and get such an awful answer. Where can the conversation really go from there? She said she was sorry and I said it’s OK, which it’s not. We talked for a few more minutes about dropping her daughter off at camp and she left.

As soon as she was gone I think that Tara and I took a collective breath. I didn’t have to say much, Tara knew. It was like being on a train headed for a collision with no brakes.

The irony was that I had toyed with the idea of putting my FB page back up, but I don’t think I’m ready for that. For now, I’m ‘Parker.’. It’s a good thing that Parker really doesn’t care what I do as long as I maintain his business page. Things that were so simple before have become so complicated.

Year Two – Mother’s Day

Yes, I am behind on my 17 Days of Benny blogging, but there is just so much going on right now. We are ‘attempting’ to finish up some lingering projects around the house so that we have some options in the future. I have been busy with Parker and the business. I am now officially the treasurer for the North Atlantic Packards Club as well. Let the chaos begin.

Then comes Mother’s Day. Right in the middle of it all. Or perhaps just May in general. Last year sucked. I was in a terrible mood all day, staining countertops and just trying my damndest to ignore the whole awful thing. It was bad. I didn’t know how to handle missing my mom and my son.

This year I decided to try something different. We started the day with a yummy brunch with Parkers mom and then headed to the cemetary. It was completely packed! There were tons of people there, we couldn’t believe it. Darcy had brought Benny two pinwheels, so we cleaned up his toys a bit, visited and then walked around. We noticed that there was a new headstone in the baby garden, which killed me. They were twins that passed on Darcy’s birthday last year. It broke my heart.

Parker and I sat down on a bench as Darcy walked around. We were the only ones in the baby garden until another couple walked over and sat down by the twins. It broke my heart again. I watched this newly grieving couple cry for their children. I wanted to go over and hug the momma. I just sat there silently crying for them and everything they lost.

I sometimes forget that it’s ok to cry for us too. It did happen to us too and we’re allowed to be upset. I can’t use housework to cloak my grief forever. I sat there watching that couple, seeing us. I cried for all of us and it felt damn good.

We left shortly after to work in the yard, play in the sprinkler and pool, burn the Christmas tree and just spend the day together. It felt good. I felt like I honored Benny. The day wasn’t nearly as bad as last year.

My heart still misses Benny and my Mom terribly though. At the cemetary I was wishing that she was buried closer so that I could visit and Darcy could sense some physical connection. I hate that they’re not here, hate it everyday, but especially today. It’s comforting to know that they are together at least and that is something that I know with absolute certainty.

Loving and Missing my Mom and Benny always…

Simple Man

We went to our first wedding since the accident in August. Weddings in general make me emotional, I’m a happy cryer. You get to witness two people pledging their life and love for one another surrounded by the support of friends and family, it doesn’t get much better.

It was a close friend’s wedding, Parker was the best man and I was doing the reading during the ceremony, so unfortunately I had to hold it together. It had been so long since I had felt so much love and happiness that I had forgotten what it felt like. It seemed like the perfect day.

Then it happened. I didn’t see it coming and I was completely taken aback, I felt as if someone had slapped me in the face. They did the mother son dance to ‘Simple Man.’ I tried very hard to hold it together, but I had to walk out of the reception. I tried to go to the bathroom to breathe, but ended up outside on a park bench sobbing. I don’t think that I’ve heard that song since the accident. It was heartbreaking. Here I was facing everything that I lost. Thank goodness for good friends that come find you when you fall apart on park benches and cry with you.

I try very hard not to dwell on what never will be. I’m afraid that if I do it will destroy me. I already feel that I’ve been robbed of my graduation, wedding, birth of my children without my mom. Rationally I know that Bennett will never grow up, but until that moment I hadn’t thought about the fact that he will never get married, he’ll never know that happiness. I’ll never get that mother son dance. Pieces of a life never lived.

Waiting

Today we saw Darcy’s therapist for the first time in over a month. She has been doing so well, so we had agreed on spacing out her appointments a bit. There is a great deal of solace in the fact that we found ‘the one,’ this perfect woman who has spent so many hours with Darcy and I bonding over our shared loss. She has saved me in so many ways and truly helped me to become a more patient mother.

We often color, or play with legos, cars or a dollhouse. In the beginning, Darcy would play act with cars and create accidents, police, ambulances, everything that her little mind witnessed the day of the accident. Darcy wasn’t there when it happened, a reason for which I am eternally grateful. She came home to the aftermath, the helicopters, police tape and onlookers, she saw my car across the street and she knew that something really bad had happened.

We’ve worked hard with Darcy to help her identify her emotions instead of acting out and she has made incredible strides in opening up to her therapist and my husband and I. It’s hard to watch your child go through the loss of a sibling at any age, but at 5, death is still a foreign concept. She acts so mature sometimes, that I forget that she really still doesn’t understand.

Her therapist asked her today if she was scared that something would happen to me or Parker. Unsurprisingly, her answer was yes. She knows that I lost my mom to breast cancer and often asks me when I’m going to die, or if I’m going to get sick. She doesn’t get it and I’m mad that she has to.

Her therapist asked her tonight if she wonders if Parker and I will have more children. At first I was a little taken aback by this question because I really didn’t want to discuss my family plans with my 5 year old. What she said, shocked me. She wanted to know if I was going to have another little boy. She said we would call him Benny, Captain Crazy. She thought that we could make another Bennett. It broke my heart to explain to her that there was only 1 Benny. I told her that there was only 1 Darcy too, but she had just met a woman named Darcy on the walk, so naturally she corrected me. I tried to explain that every child is different, they look different and have different personalities. I reminded her of how different she and Benny were. I think she got it, but I don’t know. The fact that she thought that we could have ‘another Benny’ surprised me.

I love that she believes in magic and fairies and santa clause. I love her innocence. I wish we could all hold on to those beliefs as adults. At the same time, I wish she were older, it’s such a fine line to walk. I wish I could talk to her like an adult and know that she understands what I’m saying. I wish she were old enough to read this blog, I honestly cannot wait until she is. I want her to understand so badly. She’s my best friend, now I just have to wait for her to grow up.

I’ll be here future Darcy, waiting…

9 Months ‘AA’

I look at the date on the calendar and it reads 8/8. It’s been 9 months since the accident, the same amount of time that it took me to grow him inside of me. 9 long months of pain. 9 months to physically heal from the accident.

I’m exhausted, I’m sad, I’m hurt and I’m alone. How I hate it when Parker is not in bed next to me, reminding me that we’re in this together. Holding my hand when I need him to and kissing me to remind me that he’s here.

Last night was a doozy. We hit some pretty bad weather outside of Colorado and I was terrified. Parker did his best in his exhausted state to try to keep me calm, but I panicked. I held onto Darcy tightly and cried, so scared that I would lose Parker or her, that something would go wrong again. Parker kept saying it would be ok, Benny would take care of us. I have to wonder though, why wasn’t my mom taking care of Benny and me during the accident? Why were we forgotten?

We’ve been driving through the Denver area and I feel so exposed. There are no trees, no hills, no curves, just flat land and mountains. When it storms, you see the lightening touch down. So much open space.

I’m tired down to my bones. I ache to have something that I will never have again. I look at this new version of myself and I’m not happy with what I see. I’ve never felt so beaten down by life.

I want to return to the living, but I don’t know how. I cringe at meeting new people, to have to answer the question about how many children I have. I despise driving. The furthest I’ve driven myself was 40 minutes. I cannot handle much more than 20 minutes by myself in the car.

I am angry at people that cannot understand. I have met strangers that have been truly amazing, loving and kind, yet some of the people closest to us are disappointing. I don’t know how to handle this, I don’t know what to do with this anger. Is it misplaced, no doubt, but it still exists and I still hurt.

I’m tired of the purple elephant in the room. Yes my son died, but please don’t forget that he lived. That he was loved. Please don’t feel weird talking about him. I’m so tired of hearing ‘I don’t want to upset you.’ I’m sad all the time over losing Benny, if I cry that is my way of working through it. Please don’t make me feel bad about it.

Most of all, I miss my son.

8 Months ‘AA’

I’m angry. I’m angry and I’m sad. We sat down to update our pictures in our picture frames. We will never have pictures of Benny past 17 months old, he will forever be frozen in time. I will never know what he would have looked like because he will never grow up. When he was born I remember the nurse holding him and asking him if he would be the one to cure cancer or create world peace. We will never know what amazing things he could have done with his life. I look at Darcy and she just seems so damn grown up. I miss having my little guy around. Like Parker said the other night, I just want to blow raspberries on his tummy.

It’s been 8 months. I don’t know how this happened. When we hit 17 months we will have lived without him the same length of time that we lived with him. We’re almost halfway there. It kills me inside. I don’t know why this happened to us. I don’t know why it was him and not me. I don’t know why I’m here again. My grandparents, my aunt, my uncle, my God parents, my mom and my son. Maybe I’m cursed. Maybe this is hell and I don’t even know it. Sure feels like it some days.

8 months. There’s that number again. November 8th, the day he died; May 8th, the day we buried him; June 18th, the day the water main broke; 88, Parker’s car number on the Great Race. I’m not sure yet the significance of 8. I know that turned on it’s side it symbolizes infinity. How ironic a sign of infinity in this case.

I look at my physical scars, mostly healed now and I’m frustrated. How do I look the same 8 months later on the outside? There are a few scars, but nothing that really tells the story of the accident on my body. How is that possible? Why am I spared? There are days when I feel that I should carry the scarlet letter A on myself, for accident.

I’m scared to meet new people because I don’t want to answer the question about how many children I have. It feels wrong to not mention Benny. It’s easier when people just know, although if I have to listen to another person ask me how I’m doing, I might scream. How do you think I’m doing 8 months after watching my son die? I know they mean well, it just gets tiring. I’m tired. Of all of this.

8 months and I’m still numb. 8 months and I still don’t understand.

Heavy Heart

This year I’m going to do the Breast Cancer 3 Day – again. Over a decade ago I started this journey for my mother as I tried to wrap my head around why I had to say good-bye to her so early. I signed up by myself and took a deep breath. I wasn’t the type to take on something new by myself, so this was a huge step for me, but I was committed.

The most amazing thing happened during that first walk, I met some of the most amazing women. This feels like an understatement. I have spent the last 10 years walking, sharing, crying and laughing with these ladies. We created our own little family in which we raised our kids and continued to grow closer. These ladies and their husbands sat by our sides, held our hands while we cried in November and helped to take over arrangements. I cannot explain the type of bond we have formed. I am forever thankful for my BFF family.

After the accident, I debated not walking this year. My heart wasn’t really in it at first, I wasn’t sure if I could commit to the fundraising or training. I was so focused on what I had lost, yet again. It felt like so much in my life had changed, I wasn’t sure if I could do this walk again.

I know now that I NEED this walk. I need something to work towards. I NEED to not give up. I switched cities so that I wouldn’t have to face my fellow 3 Day walkers that are familiar with my kids and so that Tara could walk with me. It will be weird, to not be surrounded by my Boston 3 Day friends, but I’ve accepted it. It will be awful to not see Benny cheering me on in pink alongside his sister.

My kids are such a big part of this walk. As much as I do it in my mom’s memory, I always got involved because I was so scared that my kids might one day lose me to cancer, I never in a million years thought that I might lose one of them. I need to find a purpose again, to remember what I started all those years ago and why it’s still important to me.

It’s with a heavy heart that I walk this year. Will it be hard, yes, it will truly suck. I feel robbed again by life. This walk is such a symbol for my life now though, putting one foot in front of the other. http://www.the3day.org/goto/sheri2014

Life Goes On

It’s getting in the way again. I’m too focused on bills, mortgages, insurance, I’ve buried myself in this pile of paperwork. Maybe it’s my escape, some place that I know I will be safe from the hurt. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because we had a busy weekend and it’s a busy week.

Darcy had her dance recital on Sunday. She blew us away, she was amazing, not only as a dancer, but her stage presence was unreal. She has such poise and grace for such a small person. It made me cry to watch and wish that my mom and Bennett were here too. I wish that they could also watch her in awe and be as proud of her as we are. It’s so hard going to these things without them. I miss chasing Benny around everywhere we go. I ache for my daughter to be able to know her grandmother’s love. It’s so hard for me because I know how much Darcy is missing it out on.

We had several birthday parties. It’s weird going with only 1 child, singing happy birthday, watching all of the other children in your life growing older. We sang happy birthday and released balloons for Benny, but there were no candles, he didn’t get to make any wishes. I try to picture what he would be doing, what he would be saying. How tired I would be at the end of the day, but so content, because he was so full of life.

It keeps happening, days pass, weeks, months. He’s still gone and it’s still so unbelievable. Holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, and they still happen even though he’s gone. It all just feels so hollow, so sad. I miss him.

Tag: death of mother