What to do???

Today starts month number 8 of my new life.  It has been 7 months and 1 day since I last talked to Mary.  Today Tony’s mom held a dog walk fund raiser for her UGA funds.  It rained the whole time, sometimes hard sometimes only misting.  But we had about 25 people and dogs show up.  Many of the dogs were mutts, rescued from the pound or from abusive owners.  It was bitter sweet.  Mary’s doggies were all rescued from some place, our house or the pound.  She loved each of the fiercely.  Now they are what Tony holds on to so he can be close to Mary.  Yes, Taco even sleeps with him.  She used to sleep with Mary when Tony was out of town.  She would go to bed with Taco’s head laying on the pillow beside her and wake up with Taco’s butt beside her.  Mary loves her doggies.

But Choda was their special baby.  They picked him from all the pound dogs in Athens the first year they started dating.  Each told their parents that Choda belonged to the other.  He lived at both their apartments equally.  He didn’t’ like the color red (so Mary says) and wasn’t fond of men.  But he did love Tony.  Choda loved the outdoors as much as Mary and Tony.  Mary crocheted a back pack for Choda to haul his food when they went hiking.  Dried dog food weights a lot and if you’re going to enjoy the outdoors you have to pay the price of hauling your own food. 

Choda was killed by a drunk driver in front of their house.

The dog walk was a great success (even with the rain) and will be even bigger next year.  This is going to be an annual fund raiser. 

As I said last time I read other journals on line.  One is about a family with 3 children.  The middle girl is about 1.½ and has a heart transplant.  The have a new born and a 4 year old, I think.   All was well with them until around last April.  The little girl has been sick with complications related to being immuno-suppressed in general.  Her heart is fine.  She has been in and out of the hospital since April.  I wish I could say something to the mom (she writes the journal) to help her smile.  I have absolutely no words at all that could possibly comfort her.  I can only say to myself, hold on to SaraKate and hug her tightly while you have her.  Every parent should remember that whether their child is ill or not. 

There are so many reasons why a child dies.  Only old age is acceptable.  I’ve read comments on TCF website – drug overdose, suicide, incurable illness, murder, child abuse, “accident”, etc.  There are so many and they are so varied.  I can’t imagine what a parent goes through for any other reason than ours.  There are no better or worse scenarios.  There is just death and the absence of your child.  I can’t bear to hear or think about someone else’s loss because it makes mine so much more vivid and alive.  Yes, it moves, it crawls, it breathes.  It eats you up and spits you out.  All I can do is put a blanket over it for awhile so it will sleep.  Then it starts to move again.  Brace yourself.

Will I always have to fake the laughter that I knew before

he took you away from me?

 

Will I always have to pretend to smile at the jokes that people tell

to try to make be feel relief?

 

Will I always feel your love sheltering my pain? 

Taking all the hits that this new life portrays?

Will I always see your smile looking up at me?

Finding memories that help me through my day?

 

Will I always have to blink the tears from my eyes that come

whenever I think of you?

Will I always have to have to wear your clothes and jewelry next to my

heart to feel close to you?

 

Will I ever find the peace that your love gave everyone?

To continue with this life empty of your grace?

Will I ever find the steps that I need to take?

This path is so dark you need to light my way.

 

Will I ever?

 

Will I never?

 

What will I do?

For Danny, too

I only need to hear your voice

Just for one moment

To remind me you’re still here

If only for now

I only need to see your smile

Just for one second

To remind me of your love

If only for now

But I still need to know that you’ll always be with me

No matter what happens at the end of the day

I only need to feel your touch

Just for one second

To know you will hug me tight

Forever and a day.

Just a phone call away

I read the journal entries of several different families as they go through the before and after transplant process with their children.  Other journals are just life in general with the problems and trauma’s in life .  For some the days have been good to them for some their life is constantly churning with issues and stress.  I would give anything to be one of the ones who are walking on the edge because it would mean Mary was with me no matter how bad the situation.  I almost said I would trade places with them but I would not trade places with anyone.  No one should know the path I walk, that my family walks.  More so because Mary’s death was so fu*^&% preventable.   I would not even trade places with her killer because I believe the only thing as bad as where I am is where he is or should be.  At least it it would be for someone who gives a damn about people.  It would also mean one of his children would be gone.  I wish that on NO one.  But I hope he is tormented to the day he dies with the knowledge of what he has done.

On the Compassionate Friends website people leave updates about themselves and those they lost.  So many of them say “I lost my child (any age) 7, 12, 18 (etc) years ago….  It is hard for me to grasp that many years going by without Mary beside me.  It’s hard to grasp 7 months coming up.  Time does not heal.  It just screws everything up to where I don’t know what’s coming or going.  Sometimes it gets me through the day, some times it doesn’t.  Tonight it didn’t.  I was watching a TV show, a musical.  The mother was singing about watching her child grow up and leave her.  Wondering if she would ever get her back.  Well, that sent me to the laundry room to finish washing clothes and cry on the floor.  I called Danny just to hear his voice.  Even as I sit here and write this the tears are blocking my vision like rain drops on a windshield.  Too bad I don’t have eye wipers.

Many of the parents from TCF group have found solace in contacting mediums or spiritual readers to contact their children.  They have “after life communications” with their children.  Believe me, I have considered it often although I haven’t acted on any suggestions from psychics.  Where are all the billions of people who have died since Adam and Eve?  Just a phone call away?  Do you need something special to talk to a loved one?  Wouldn’t everybody be standing in line at every mediums door begging to talk to someone?  Just a thought….  I want so badly to talk to and see Mary again that I think I could twist every leaf dropping, door opening, bird call at 3 am, ray of sunlight, rainbow overhead, etc… as a “sign” from her.  I don’t want to rely on signs other people tell me are my link to Mary.  I want to see her standing in front of me.  I know I will see her when I leave this earth.  But I want to see her now.  I don’t want to “think” I see or hear her.  I want to know.

So, for now, I’ll just get by as I have been for now.  She has gone away for awhile.  She’s still my sweetie and I’m still her mom and we still take care of each other.

I only need to hear your voice

Just for one moment

To remind me you’re still here

If only for now

 

I only need to see your smile

Just for one second

To remind me of your love

If only for now

 

But I still need to know that you’ll always be with me

No matter what happens at the end of the day

 

I only need to feel your touch

Just for one second

To know you will hug me tight

Forever and a day.

One of those nights

This is one of those nights. Everything yesterday and today reminded me of Mary.  I could not get away from the sights and sounds of her life. I even dreamed about her for the 2nd time since she left.  But this time she was laying on a bed downstairs with her arms around me waiting to die from some long, slow disease.  Don't know if she was in pain just that she was holding me.  Aren't dreams weird?  Wonder if they really mean anything.  Wonder what anything means anymore.  

Tuesday was Kerry and my 36th wedding anniversary.  Just not the same..........

Cars cars cars.....

Some day I'm going to start off this journal with "today has been and ok day".  But not today.  My nerves are scrunching up my neck and I can feel the weight of the world, my world, hanging over my head.  I guess the days I'm breathing ok are the ones I don't write much. 

Last weekend Danny, Amanda, and I went to Augusta for the Mustang Car Show and the Boshears Air Show.  We left Saturday and it rained the entire ride over so the air show was rained out and we sat in the hotel room and waited for Sunday.  The car club gave Danny's transplant fund $1,000 last April, even before they knew about Mary.  He was chosen out of a group of people waiting on hearts who have funds.  Then they asked him to be their special guest for the car show and pick the 4 "Best of Show" cars/trucks on Sunday.  They told me all proceeds from the show will go to Danny.  I cried.  The first time since "before" I actually put a dab of mascara on and it all came dripping down my face.  Thank goodness for sunglasses.  Danny got to ride in the very first Mustang Fastback every made.  

We got to go to the air show for an hour - it was right beside the car show so we saw most of it without being in the audience.  It was awesome also.  

Then Monday comes with the mail and rains on my smiles.  Julie's divorce is getting bumpy and there's nothing I can do.  I've had to accept the fact that there is nothing I could ever do for anything in my life, even when I thought I could or was.  They say all you have control over is your attitude and right now, that's even out of my control.  I couldn't tell you from one minute to the next if I'm going to breathe or break down.  Lack of control is a very hard lesson to learn, kind of like learning to have patience.  I guess the only thing I can REALLY control is who and what I love.  It's mine to give to take away.  That's all that matters.


Nicole came over last night and I went through Mary's things looking for her cold weather clothes.  Some of them Nicole can wear, some were too small.  They'll get used doing what Mary loved, playing in the outdoors.  Tony and Nicole are heading to a little town near Denver for the winter. 

The Gap

This is from The Compassionate Friends web site.  

By Sharon Throop 

We lost our only daughter, Wendy, 13 years ago the 12th of next month. I was just sent a prose, that sums up so much for so many who walk this road. You may have read it before, but if not, send it on to some of your friends and realize that it sums up the loss of our children.

The Gap

The gap between those who have lost children and those who have not
is profoundly difficult to bridge. No one whose children are well
and intact can be expected to understand what parents who have lost
children have absorbed, what they bear. Our children now come to us
through every blade of grass, every crack in the sidewalk, every
bowl of breakfast cereal, every kid on a scooter. We seek contact
with their atoms - their hairbrushes, toothbrushes, their clothing.
We reach out for what was integrally woven into the fabric of our
lives, now torn and shredded. A black hole has been blown through
our souls and, indeed,it often does not allow the light to escape.
It is a difficult place. For us to enter there is to be cut deeply
and torn anew, each time we go there, by the jagged edges of our
loss. Yet we return, again and again, for that is where our
children now reside. This will be so for years to come and it will
change us, profoundly. At some point, in the distant future, the
edges of that hole will have tempered and softened, but the empty
space will remain--a life sentence.

Our friends will change through this. There is no avoiding it. We
grieve for our children in part, through talking about them, and our
feelings for having lost them. Some go there with us; others cannot
and, through their denial, add a further measure, however unwitting,
to an already heavy burden.. Assuming that we may be feeling
"better" 6 months later is simply "to not get it". The excruciating
and isolating reality that bereaved parents feel is hermetically
sealed from the nature of any other human experience. Thus it is a
trap--those whose compassion and insight we most need are those for
whom we abhor the experience that would allow them that sensitivity
and capacity. And yet, somehow, there are those, each in their own
fashion, who have found a way to reach us and stay, to our
immeasurable comfort. They have understood, again each in their own
way, that our children remain our children through our memory of
them. Their memory is sustained through speaking about them and our
feelings about their death. Deny this and you deny their life.
Deny their life and you have no place in ours.

We recognize that we have moved to an emotional place where it is
often very difficult to reach us. Our attempts to be normal are
painful, and the day to day carries a silent, screaming anguish that
accompanies us, sometimes from moment to moment. Were we to give it
its own voice, we fear we would become truly unreachable and so we
remain "strong" for a host of reasons even as the strength saps our
energy and drains our will. Were we to act out our true feelings, we
would be impossible to be with. We resent having to act normal, yet
we dare not do otherwise. People who understand this dynamic are
our gold standard. Working our way through this over the years will
change us as does every experience-- and extreme experience changes
one extremely. We know we will have actually managed to survive
when, as we have read, it is no longer so painful to be normal. We
do not know who we will be at that point nor who will still be with
us.

We have read that the gap is so difficult that, often, bereaved
parents must attempt to reach out to friends and relatives or risk
losing them. This is our attempt. For those untarnished by such
events, who wish to know in some way what they, thankfully, do not
know, read this. It may provide a window that is helpful for both
sides of the gap.

O M G

Today I emailed Mc Cray's Tavern with the details of Mary and Danny's life for her birthday party in January.  I tried to send a link to the newpaper article from April with pictures of her and Tony in it.  I mistakenly opened the other one and saw her car.  I ended up laying under my desk crying uncontrollably but I did manage to close my office door so no one would hear.  There are not enough words in any language to describe what I felt when I saw that picture. It was only for a second or two until it registered what I had done.  But it was enough.  It was even worse that I had imagined.  My counselor told me there would be set backs in this journey and this is one of them.  I am numb.  I am empty.  I am broken.  I am, once again, seeing images that now are not speculation but fact.  I hate that man even more that I thought possible.  Mary could not have come out of that wreckage in one piece.  Now, you imagine what I saw.

Tomorrow Danny and I are going to Augusta for the weekend to the Mustang car show.  It will be better than sitting around here.