Tick Tock

Tick Tock Tick Tock... oh the hands of the wicked clock.... on and on they go. Time just keeps moving when all I really want it to do it stop.  I want the world to grieve with us.  I want time to stand still, I don't want another day to widen the gap between life and death.  I can't imagine how life will be when Declan will have been gone longer than he was here.  It's a concept that turns my stomach.  It's a thought that scares me... I fear for the time when I no longer ache for Declan, I am frightened for the day when Declan is not the first thought I have when I wake up and the last thought I have before I drift off.  Although the past 10 weeks have been unrelenting heart ache, the pain reminds me that he was real... that he was here and was a part of our lives so completely.  Everyday that passes, I am one day further away from the last time I was able to touch him... one day more removed from his smell.... one day more away from his beautiful smile.  I know it is ludicrous to think I will forget... but I also know how busy life can get, how quickly people can get caught up in work.  I know there will come a time when we will be busy running Courty and Noah around to their various after school activities and there won't be enough hours in the day to breath, let alone continue to grieve.  There will come a day when people no longer think of us as the family whose baby died....there will come a time when we meet people who won't know we are a family of five.... there will come a time when his name is no longer brought up... there will come a time when life goes on and is normal.  Right now, I don't want that.  I want to remain right here in this moment... as close to Declan's life as I can be.  I want to still be able to close my eyes and see him playing in the tub, I want to close out the world and hear his voice.  I am scared those are memories I will lose.... as the clocks hands slowly make their way around, I am a second, a minute, an hour, a day further away from my son's life than I just was... and memories fade... It's a terrible, scary, heartbreaking thought.

Taking the Good with the Bad.

There are good days and there are bad days.  There are moments when life feels like it might just be ok and then there are moments that make me want to give up.  There are times when the ache is so strong it feels like a really bad case of heart burn... but it's nothing that can be fixed with a simple dose of tums.  There is no fixing the hurt I feel.  There is nothing to speed up the process of healing.  There is nothing.   I have to bear down, hold my head high and hope to get through.  Today was a bad day.  Nothing in particular that was difficult, just my same ol' same ol' life... a life that now thrives on routines, schedules, and 'mundaneness', but there are times when the structure of our lives is the very reason I am overwhelmed with sorrow.  We have adapted, we have adjusted, we have become a family of four again.  We have to live that way, but my heart screams 'we are FIVE!'  I have to figure out how to accept what we are, what we've become without allowing myself to sulk in despair.   I often look at us, sitting in the car... having ice cream at the store.... watching a movie and I can't help but think we will never be a complete family again here on this earth, one of us will ALWAYS be missing.  So really... I don't know why today stunk, but at the same time, given the situation we are in, I think the more meaningful question would be, why is any day good? Why isn't every day sucky?  I have no answer for that.  I do know that I fully embrace the good, while accepting the bad.... I often wonder what would make one day better than the next and I truly have NO IDEA.... all I know for sure is that there are good days and bad days...good moments and bad moments.  The mysterious cycle of grief.

12 weeks of LOVE

I still weep at the knowledge that there will be no more pictures, no more smiles, no more anything... I miss Declan beyond expression.  The 12 weeks and 3 days he was here with us were filled with the most extreme love we were able to give... not one day, not one moment was he not surround by our love.  I can not wait until we meet again Declan!  I love you!

The pleasure of being a mom

I take no credit for the following poem...  I didn't write it, I didn't think it up... I only found it.   Being a mother has been the best part of who I am, I only can hope that someday my children will look back and be as thankful for me as I am for my mother. 

A baby asked God, "They tell me you are sending me to earth tomorrow, but how am I going to live there being so small and helpless?"  "Your angel will be waiting for you and will take care of you." The child further inquired, "But tell me, here in heaven I don't have to do anything but sing and smile to be happy." God said, "Your angel will sing for you and will also smile for you. And you will feel your angel's love and be very happy." Again the child asked, "And how am I going to be able to understand when people talk to me if I don't know the language?" God said, "Your angel will tell you the most beautiful and sweet words you will ever hear, and with much patience and care, your angel will teach you how to speak." "And what am I going to do when I want to talk to you?" God said, "Your angel will place your hands together and will teach you how to pray." "Who will protect me?" God said, "Your angel will defend you even if it means risking it's own life." "But I will always be sad because I will not see you anymore." God said, "Your angel will always talk to you about Me and will teach you the way to come back to Me, even though I will always be next to you." At that moment there was much peace in Heaven, but voices from Earth could be heard and the child hurriedly asked, "God, if I am to leave now, please tell me my angel's name." "You will simply call her 'Mom.'"

Who am I now?

Since Dex passed away, I have been left wondering, 'what defines a person?'  What makes me, me? I once felt very secure in who I was... there was a time when I felt certain I understood my place in this world.  Now I am left wondering where that place is.  Where do I go from here? Is my identity now associated with my son's death?  Is that who I am... the girl whose child died.  A fear I had, even prior to leaving the hospital, was that Nate and I would forever be labeled the 'couple whose baby died'.  I was nervous that people would stop talking and start whispering, looking over their shoulders at us when we walked into a room...like a scarlet letter upon our chest.  I've been able to spend sometime recently among old friends, people I haven't seen in a while and the funny thing was, the treated me very normal... they seem to treat me like they always had, there was no mention of Delcan's passing... but their silence about his death was like salt to my wounds.  It is such an opposite response to what I expected.  It's hard to explain the conflicting emotions.  I don't want people to associate us with Declan's death, but at the same time I want people to acknowledge it... I am still trying to figure out how to feel, what to think, how to go on with my life as 'me'... It is my identity right now...  I struggle with wanting to blurt it out to people, strangers even... "My son died... oh and my name is Holle."  I hope, as I continue to heal and recover from Declan's death, I will figure out how to fit his passing into my story, into 'me', without it needing to be the first thing I tell people.  I don't believe you can go through the loss of your child and not be different... not come out on the other side with a new perspective on life.  I am trying to regroup and refigure out where I belong in our world... I want Declan's life and passing to be part of me, but yet I don't want it to be all of me... so who am I now... I'm still a mother, still a wife, still an educator... and now the survivor of my child's death, but I will never completely be the same as I was prior to losing my sweet Dex.  Who am I now.... its a question I don't have an answer for yet.

The gift of Life

The evening Declan passed away we were faced with the daunting decision to donate his organs or not. I wanted to put off the discussion, I wanted to pretend I didn't have to make that decision.  I wanted someone to donate something to save my son's life... but of course, Declan's organs were perfectly healthy, not one thing wrong with them... a donation wouldn't have saved him.  The representative from LifeSource was nice enough. I remember sitting with her and Nate in Dex's room.  She was talking on and on and all I could think about was how tired she looked and wondering if she knew she looked exhausted.... thinking a little bit of concealer might make her look more alert.... I wonder if that is how the mind tries to protect your heart... or if that is how the mind tries to keep the situation real, as 'normal' as it can be?  She was very informative and filled with lots of insight we wouldn't have thought of on our own.  The big surprise to us was that if we wanted to donate Declan's heart, kidneys, liver ect... he would have to be on a ventilator for 72 hours... and that time didn't start until there was an official declaration of brain death... which for whatever reason, could not be made until he had been on the ventilator for 48 hours.  I told the representative that I wasn't comfortable with that... I thought it would be hard to have him on the ventilator for that long and it would be stressful to be in the hospital that long... she then made some comment, and I am thankful I don't remember it verbatim, but the effect was 'once he is declared brain dead, you wouldn't need to be here.... it's the same as if he passed away.'  I remember looking at her, wondering if I was totally understanding her.... she wants me to leave after the declaration of brain death, but Declan's heart will still be beating?  He will still be breathing?  He will be all alone...  I really couldn't believe it.  There was no way! I finally mustered up the courage to say, "as long as his heart is beating I will not leave his side. Ever!" We all kind of looked awkwardly at the floor, finally Nate says 'is there anything else we can do?' and yes, there was.  We could donate his heart valves and his knee cartilage.  We agreed.  After the decision was made, the representative from LifeSource and Nate and I had to fill out 'some' paperwork... it took an hour!!  Question after question... for both Declan's medically history and mine since I was still breastfeeding. It was arduous to say the least, but something Nate and I felt was important. The hope that a different set of parents would not have to endure losing their child seemed worth it.  It has been a roller coaster of emotions since we agreed to donate.  There are times when I think about it and I get mad.... Somewhere some parent is rejoicing, thanking God for answered prayers... while I sit here in my grief, crushed and broken because my child died.  Upset with God for not answering my prayers.... those parents have a future, where we no longer have one... they get to hear giggles and receive hugs, they get to see their child grow up... we do NOT.  I was darn right pissed for awhile... then Nate, my ever present support and voice of reason, talked me out of that anger, made me see that those parents didn't pray for a child to die, but that if a child were to pass away, God would grant that child's parents the ability to chose donation.  I still struggle with the idea that there is some family somewhere rejoicing at their new gift, their new lease on life, while our family will never again be the same... I KNOW with time I will come to terms with that.  I think of the day when I will meet the receiver of Declan's heart valves... I can only imagine wanting to hold him or her.  I can't imagine how it will be to know part of my son is living within them.  How strange, yet I know when that day comes God will help me accept the complexity of it.

The Agony of Grief

The Agony of Grief

What is there to say about grief?

Grief is a tidal wave that overtakes you,

smashes down upon you with unimaginable force,

sweeps you up into its darkness,

where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces,

only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.

Grief means not being able to read more than two sentences at a time.

It is walking into rooms with intention that suddenly vanishes.

Grief is three o'clock in the morning sweats that won't stop.

It is dreadful Sundays, Mondays that are no better.

It makes you look for a face in the crowd,

knowing full well the face we want cannot be found in that crowd.

Grief is utter aloneness that razes the rational mind

and makes room for the phantasmagoric.

It makes you suddenly get up and leave in the middle of a meeting,

without saying a word.

Grief makes what others think of you moot.

It shears away the masks of normal life

and forces brutal honesty out of your mouth

before propriety can stop you.

It shoves away friends,

scares away so-called friends,

and rewrites address books for you.

Grief makes you laugh at people who cry over spilled milk,

right to their faces.

It tells the world that you are untouchable

at the very moment when touch

is the only contact that might reach you.

It makes lepers out of upstanding citizens.

Grief discriminates against no one.

It kills. Maims. And cripples.

It is the ashes from which the phoenix rises,

and the mettle of rebirth.

It returns life to the living dead.

It teaches that there is nothing absolutely true or untrue.

It assures the living that we know nothing for certain.

It humbles. It shrouds. It blackens. It enlightens.

Grief will make a new person out of you,

if it doesn't kill you in the making.

~Stephanie Ericcson