The morning after.

I thought I was going to pass out with exhaustion when we got to our room at the Ronald McDonald House, I was seriously dragging butt.  Nate and I got the kids settled in to the pull out bed and headed to our room to crash.  My head hit the pillow and there was no way I could even close my eyes.  The events of the day kept coming back to me... I went and laid with the kids, and possibly got a few hours of sleep.  Waking up was probably the hardest...realizing my nightmare was real and that Nate and I had to figure out what the next steps we needed to take were.   I sat in the shower, with the water as hot as I could get it, crying, wondering how many other parents had stood here just like me and felt so helpless.  I thought the events of the previous day would have been the hardest, but in truth, Wednesday was terrible.  At least on Tuesday, Declan was with us.  We were together.  Wednesday, we were now missing a piece of us.
 
We packed up our newly purchased clothes and bath items and headed out to the breakfast area... together with our parents, started planning my son's funeral.   We thank God they were there, because trust me, if you are a parent you've never really put actual thought into how to plan your child's funeral.  'Where were we going to bury him? Would we buy the plots next to his? Would we have the service in Round Lake or in Mankato? Who would we get to perform the service?  What would Declan wear?  Who needs to be called?' We sat there for a few hours and took notes on paper plates, made phone call after phone call to different people, who thankfully were able to help us set some sort of plan outline.  We left Children's at noon.

I was dreading going home, but knew we needed to pack up clothes and get ready for the emotional week ahead of us.  Walking into the house was hard.  There were many reminders of all we had lost.  It was almost like I needed to walk into each room and have a break down... the memories of the last time we had eaten together as a family of 5, the last bath I had given Dex, the last time he slept in our room... it was hard and it sucked.  Oh and to top everything off, we had put our dog down the same morning Declan passed away so the house seemed even more empty and sad.   We were thankful our Pastor was able to come over and we talked about the unfairness of the situation and then planned out Declan's funeral.  I had the shakes so bad, but I wasn't cold... just a strange body reaction to stress.  We sent the kids home with my parents and then were faced with the silence of the house that was so loud it almost hurt my ears.