grieving mom – Page 13 – Sunshine, Angels and Rainbows

Year Two Reflections – Work

After the accident, I was fortunate to have a very compassionate and understanding boss and co-workers. They truly did everything in their power to help us out. They showed up ‘en mass’ and brought us food, brought Darcy a ridiculous amount of presents and just supported us in so many ways. They donated vacation time so that I could continue to get paid while we figured out my disability and what my options are. My boss became my friend, never pressuring me to return and always willing to talk to me as a friend first and then as my boss. They continue to be a presence in our lives. I honestly don’t know what we would have done without these people.

About a month ago, I finally left work. I’ve been having nightmares about it for months. It was plaguing me. With not driving so far, there was no way that I could even imagine commuting to Boston every day again. It killed me. I was one of those people that really loved her job. I loved the feeling of control. Now I’m stuck between feeling proud of walking away and sad. Another decision I wanted no part of.

I’m no longer the bread winner. In some ways that’s a nice feeling because the pressure is off and it means that Parker is really able to make a living at something that he loves and is passionate about. I’m so proud of all that he has done and how he has really stepped up. He has taken on more of a role of ‘the boss’ and has less time to really focus on his own work, because he is constantly helping his employees. He’s surprisingly enjoying himself and maybe it was time. I’ve always been involved in the business, but with him so busy, it has taken on a new role. I’m happy to help out accounting, marketing, HR, etc. that he needs. It has also brought back to me a sense of control over something. In the last few months I’ve gotten into a new groove of working from home daily and trying to keep up with the administrative tasks involved in the business. It works for us because Parker and I actually enjoy working together and make a really good team. It probably also helps that I work from home and we both have our own separate responsibilities.

We went on a ski trip with my co-workers about a few weeks ago. This is a yearly trip that my company pulls together and is great little family vacation for us. We went last year and it was tough, but I was still in such a fog. I think this year was harder because I no longer am part of the company. It’s weird to sit there and not be able to talk about projects or clients, to not even know some of the new staff. I had a very uncomfortable start to the day. I realized that this is now the ‘after me.’ The person that no longer works for DPM. When I’m working with Parker, I’m completely content, but then throw back in with my co-workers and I’m sad, I miss it. It’s another reminder of all that we have lost. Another part that I have lost of myself. Damn you Year Two!

Grief Articles

These were sent to me by my friend Tara B. and I wanted to share. It’s some things that I’ve said here and probably some thoughts that I’ve had along the way.

Grieving Mom Request

Pregnancy After Loss

My Thoughts on Year Two

I spent a lot of late nights last year looking for ‘others,’ other moms and dads that were in the same crappy situation as myself. I wanted to understand what we were in for, I wanted to understand how they handled it, I think that i just wanted to understand something.

I very quickly noticed a pattern in those that were further along, year two was harder. I started going to grief meetings and I was being told the same thing, watch out for year two. I couldn’t fathom it. How could it possibly be worse than those first few seconds after Benny was hit? How could it be worse than when we had to tell Darcy that her brother was dead? How could it be worse than it was holding him for the last time???

November 8th, 2014 came and went. We got away to the Cape, I couldn’t be in this house, where it happened. Against all odds, we had a very nice family vacation. We went to the beach and wrote Bennett’s name in the sand as the kids ran around, not fully comprehending what the adults were feeling. We visited the cemetery briefly as it was biting cold that morning and windy on top of the hill where he now lies. Several amazing people sent us beautiful tokens for Benny in the mail.

That weekend I felt contentment. The anxiety of the date came in advance and we dealt with it, but November 8th, 2014 wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I’m sure that the little guy in my belly is a huge part of that, the ability to look forward and hold onto some hope for my future family.

The other side of November 8th, 2014 has been different. It’s as if a line has been drawn in the sand and it’s now ‘time to move on.’ I couldn’t feel more different from that, but it’s the feeling that I get from others. All of a sudden I was expected to make decisions again and start moving forward.

People stopped talking about Benny, they had moved on. It was a subtle cue that I was to do the same. Yes, we still have an amazing support system, it had just gotten much smaller. People stopped asking how we were. The expectation was that we had moved forward, especially because of the new baby. For me, it felt like he foreshadowed Benny’s death, that now everything was OK, because we were having another boy. I don’t think anyone meant it to come off that way, it just has.

One of my close friends said it the best when she said to me that we had time off to grieve, we had therapists to talk to. They had to go back to work the next day, bring their kids to school and daycare, make dinner and lunches. They didn’t get the time to grieve that we did. They didn’t get the chance to wrap their heads around any of it, so they moved on, because that’s what they had to do to survive.

I can understand it, I truly can. I just don’t want to. I want the world to stop turning for everyone else, because it did for us. If that’s selfish of me, so be it. I still cannot give a free pass to those that have disappeared or expected us to move on. A year is not long enough to grieve a child, period.

After a year of shock and numbness, you awaken to see that everyone expects you pick up and move on. They want you back the way you were, which will never truly happen. You all of a sudden have to make some large, life changing decisions that you have been avoiding over the past year. The biggest decision, is who are you going to be now, how will this child’s death affect your life? How on Earth are you supposed to move forward? And how do you do it when you feel like the world is judging you for still grieving the child that you’ve lost?

Yeah, maybe year two is harder.

Replacement

Someone close to us actually tried to explain away my miscarriage in the Fall. I got the whole, ‘oh it happened for a reason, and if it didn’t, you wouldn’t have this baby,’blah blah blah. I probably could have been a little more rational if this happened before Benny, but I honestly wanted to cause this person bodily harm when they said what they said. I ‘uh huh’-ed them and moved on.

This really bothers me, because a baby is a baby and hope is hope. If anyone ever says this about Benny, that we wouldn’t have this new baby if it weren’t for his death, they probably will be hurt. One life cannot replace another. We didn’t ever consider having another child to try to ‘make up’ for Benny’s loss. If anything, his loss makes this whole thing that much harder.

Parker and I talk constantly about the what if’s. What if he looks like Benny? What if he acts like Benny? Will he be as smart as Benny? What will our relationship be with him? Will we put him in Benny’s clothes (probably not), so what will we do with those clothes now? Do we try to put the baby in his old room? Does Darcy really understand any of this? Do we want her to? What stuff is off limits here?

There are no right answers. I’m constantly burdened by what is the right thing to do for our family. I’m sure that there will be plenty of judgment (there has been already). As excited as I am, I’m scared of all of it. I don’t know what the right choices are.

Rainbow Connection

Shared by a friend. This was actually Darcy’s dance song weeks after we lost Benny. Listening to the lyrics now is so poignant.

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.

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

My Yellow Balloon

For the Adults:
The Boy on the Green Bicycle

Children Are Not Paper Dolls

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!!