Tag: loss

Breath-taking love and heart-breaking pain

Grief Blessings3 Comments

It took me a while to name this blog post. I already had in mind what I was going to write about, but most of the time the title isn’t a problem. It’s not about creating a show stopping headline – it’s about creating a message that reaches out and grabs the very person who needs to read this.

Four years tonight I sat in a PICU watching my sweet baby, who was almost 18 years old, lie quietly in a bed on a ventilator after suffering from a grand mal seizure. I wonder some days if I had known what was going to happen 11 hours later, would I  have handled things differently. I don’t know. But what I do know is that it wasn’t in my control. God was in charge of this outcome.

As I sat there watching her, I remember thinking how are we gonna get out of this one girl. I talked to her constantly, hoping by some miracle that she would respond. It was so hard to sit and wait. To sit and watch and feel helpless. This child of mine, who I loved with such joy, who struggled her way into this world, was now struggling to stay in it. I would every so often sweep her long red hair away from her face and tell her a story about when she was young. Some of the things she would say hoping for some kind of response. There was none.

After a short while things turned ugly and she took a drastic turn for the worse. A code was called and we were told we probably will want to wait outside the door. The nurse in me wanted to stay, but the mother in me knew I had to wait and let them do their work. I couldn’t watch what I knew was about to happen. It’s a hard thing for the body to go through when it is being resuscitated. Hell it’s hard on everyone involved. So as a parent – I don’t recommend watching – it’s a traumatic event and one that you can never totally shut out of your mind.

They managed to get her back and then I took my place again at her bedside and just stroked her arm and head the way a mother would pray for a miracle. Praying she would awake from her coma and say “mom I want to go home”.  After hours and hours of sitting and watching machines make endless amounts of noise. She would move and then the nurses would come in and make her more comfortable.

Then again she became unstable and a code was called again. And again we were shuttled out of the room. This time it took a little more time, a little more medication and a little more of my little girl. I know that because I’m a nurse. Then I really began to pray. This had been the 3rd code of the night. Things weren’t looking too good and I had a bad feeling in my gut that told me what I didn’t want to face. The probability that she wouldn’t come out of this alive.

As a parent, or even better as a mother the love a mother is capable of is incredible. It’s like this vast amount of emotion welled up inside of your heart that bursts every time you see the life that was given to you for such a short time. People don’t get this type of love unless you’ve given birth. But I really don’t think parents get this unless they have lost a child. I call it “breath-taking love”. When I would look at Brittany sometimes I would just think to myself – “God she is just so beautiful and I’m so lucky she is mine”.

But in reality she really belonged to God, and he just gave her to me for a while to care for. To love endlessly and to mold her into the wonderfully funny young woman she grew into being. Without a doubt I couldn’t have been more proud to be her mother. She taught me so much about how people should be more accepting of others. How to pay it forward. How to not be judgmental towards others.  She truly blessed my life beyond measure.

At 6:55 am October 13th I said goodbye to the only thing that ever really mattered to me. My daughter died after complications from a seizure. I walked out a heart-broken mother. An empty shell of a person who has existed for 4 years in this life that I hadn’t planned on. That I would have never planned on.  My life ended on that day. The life I knew. The life I thought I’d have – all gone.

I miss my girl more than I can say. The words don’t even come close to the pain that will always be there deep within my heart from her absence. Some days it’s just plain hard to function. Some days it’s all I can do to just get through the day. My life has been so empty for so long. It’s hard to see the future some days. But I do feel something different now. Life is creeping back. My heart is healing, but the wound is still very raw and at times it feels like it’s going to kill me.

I feel I am capable of letting love back in my life, and back into my heart. I never imagined I’d be able to trust love again. For me love always meant loss of some kind. But I have a faith that is strong and I  believe in a God who wants more for me. Wants me to be who I am supposed to be now. To love again. To feel passionate about life again. To feel like I matter in this world.

So I am here and I am present and I am ready.

until next time

m

Thoughts and Feelings

Grief Blessings4 Comments

So yeah it’s October. Damn I hate this time of year. I have so many thoughts and feelings that come and go in my mind, so many that I don’t know if I can think straight. My mind is filled with so many memories. Times that I would give anything to have back. A life that I took for granted. A life I miss more than I can say.

So where do I go from there. I still don’t know. I’m still searching for that road, that idea, that concept….it’s still elusive to me.  As much as I think that for the most part I got this; I really don’t always. This is the time of year when my vulnerability shows. When the cracks begin to appear and my pain breaks through. This time of year I just can’t seem to hold it in any longer. It’s exhausting to keep it all in check.

Here is what I knew…. Four years ago I knew I had purpose. I knew that my daughter loved me unconditionally and made me the happiest person on earth. Even on the days when I thought I would go crazy when she’d act like the teenager she was, I knew my life was on the right track. That life with her, all be it crazy at times, was making me feel complete.

Then in 12 hours it was all over…..

Here is what I knew….One day your life is going along and the next day the rug gets pulled out from under you and you don’t even know who you are. You can’t figure out what to do next. You don’t know what to say, what to feel – because all you feel is a numbness that is all-consuming. You try to get through every minute because looking at your life by the hour seems to daunting.

Then the first year came and went…..

Here is what I knew….That first year was the worst. Nothing mattered. I couldn’t eat because I spent most of my waking hours choking back the pain. No way you can get food past that. I walked around with a lump in my throat that was a constant reminder of the pain that lie just beneath it. In looking back I was just existing because I had to but not because I wanted to. I was going through the motions of life because that is what I was told to do. It will get better they said.

Then the second year came and went…..

I started my life over so to speak and moved back to my hometown. Thinking that moving home would be a good thing because living in Michigan was so hard. It was if my old life was being thrown back in my face every single day. Every day that I drove up to the house where we lived, I would park my car in the drive and then break down and cry because I knew walking in that house would be another reminder that my life just plain sucked. But moving away proved not to be as healing as I had hoped.  I read that the 18th month – 24th month was a crucial time in a grievers life. I felt a sense of relief when I read that because I felt as if I was falling apart during that time. Just when I thought I was making progress – it all came crashing down.

Then the third year came and went…..

By now I have gotten into a routine. I call it a routine because in reality it is what my life has become – a routine. I get up and go to work and I come home and exist. I go to sleep and get up the next day and do it again. That is what my reality had become. The third year seemed to take a toll on me. I feel like the 3rd year aged me significantly. I remember looking in the mirror and thinking what the hell has happened to you? Who are you? I just didn’t know any more. The answers to all my questions still unanswered. The purpose in my life still yet to be determined. Or so I thought.

And now the fourth year is about to begin…..

I still don’t have any idea where I am going or how I will get there. So much has changed, but my heart still aches the same way. The pain that exists in my heart is just as strong today as it was on October 13th 2006. The reality of that day is still as palpable today. The emptiness of my life is so profound – it’s hard to breathe. Some days I let you all in just so you know it’s still real. It will always be a part of who I am.

I know that I am changing or maybe a better term would be “evolving”. Perhaps for the first time in my life I am becoming who I was meant to  be all along. And I do know that this change will be better for me, but I imagine there will be those who will not agree with that. But that will all work itself out eventually. One thing I know is that I have to figure that out first before anyone else can understand it.

until next time

m

Reminders

Her life was my purpose. In forgetting her I begin to lose myself.

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As I ponder my next blog topic I felt the need to write. As some of you may realize I am entering the “dark times” as I’ve so fondly called it. The dark times I have come to know oh so well are the months from September through December. Every August I get the since that the dark times are almost here.

I begin to notice subtle changes in my mood. I become more withdrawn, less social because I don’t want to see all the reminders of what I have lost. When I see a woman out in public having dinner or shopping and she is with her mother – I am reminded that my mother is no longer here with me. When I see a woman out in public having dinner or shopping and she is with her daughter – I am reminded that  my daughter is no longer here with me. And when I see women together out in public with young children, I am reminded that I have lost so much.

I keep a picture of my mother on my dresser. It’s one of my favorites. It is from a family picnic from long ago. It is a four-generation picture of my great grandmother Lovina, my grandmother Martha, my mother Judie and me. I treasure it for it reminds me of the great women I have had in my life that are now gone. The sorrow of their absence in my life overwhelms me.

I also keep pictures of my sweet girl Brittany. I have them at work, and pretty much in every room in my home. I had once entertained the thought of removing them because seeing them brought such pain, more pain than joy. But I have now come to a place that I can see them and smile. But this time of year it’s more difficult to hide the pain. More difficult to smile. Because the emptiness is so very present.

I have saved some very special treasures that I keep in a cloth covered storage box that is about 3 feet long by 2 feet wide. It contains some great memories of my daughter. I have her American Girl doll from our trip to Chicago that we made one summer with another mom and her two daughters. It was a fun time. The doll she picked was the one where they designed it to look like her. So yeah it reminds me of her. I placed Brittany’s christening dress on the doll and laid her upon Brittany’s baby blanket which my mom began to crochet before her death. The one I found sitting behind her chair after her funeral. I finished it just in time to bring Brittany home again.

Some of the other things in the box are Brittany’s favorite blanket, her stuffed bear from Andy, her boyfriend at the time of her death and several photos. But the most difficult thing that box for me to see or hold are her glasses. Shortly after her death I picked them up and felt such a feeling of sorrow – it was unexplainable. All I knew is that I could somehow feel what she saw before she had her seizure. It was as if I could feel her pain or her aura before the seizure took her away from me. To this day I cannot pick them up without experiencing that horrible feeling.

I keep that box out of my sight for it brings more pain than joy – but on October 13th I open that box and let the sorrow take over – it is my way of letting the whole year of missing her flow out of me. I feel so alone during this time as I cannnot share it with anyone. No one can possibly understand this type of pain unless you’ve lived it. Yeah I can move on, I can work, I can laugh and enjoy life, but this small part of me – it’s never leaving. It’s always there and it’s always haunting me.

I have the most precious memory book I created that helped me throughout the first two years after her death. Don’t get me wrong it was so very painful to sit and look at pictures of her during such happy times. Knowing I’d never see her again. But I am so glad I took the time and created such a book. I can now look at it and share it with others in hopes that we don’t forget her. To my dying day I will not let her life be forgotten. Her life was my purpose. In forgetting her I begin to lose myself.

So my dear friends, the dark time is about to arrive and I ask you to pray for me, to love me and to understand that this to shall pass come January 1, 2011.

Until next time

m