Work it Out

Middle school health class has taught me exercise releases endorphins and endorphins make you happy.  Well, to be fair to my good friend, the health teacher, I’ll admit it’s a bit more complex than that, but you get the idea.  I’ve never been one of those people who will claim to love working out, I’ve actually always kind of hated it.  To be real honest, if I could just eat the way I often do and suffer no consequences you wouldn’t catch me dead at a gym.  I started working out again a few months ago, less for body purposes and more for my mind.  At this point in my life, I’ll do anything I can to increase the happy-factor in my days.  And so, to the gym I go.

I took up kickboxing.  With the exception of a Spandex-clad Billy Blanks dvd in my parent’s living room as a teenager, I’ve never done it before.  I found a Groupon for a place near my house and decided to give it a whirl.  The first class kicked my ass but I really did like it.  It could have just been the endorphins at play but I enjoyed myself.  I don’t know if it was so much the working out that I enjoyed or the anonymity that I relished.  No one knew me there.  When I met the instructor I offered very little about myself other than it looked cool and I wanted to check it out.  Whenever the other women there talked I usually kept quiet, offering a smile or a little laugh to whatever they were talking about.  I wasn’t getting too invested and didn’t want to put myself in a position where any questions could be asked of me.

Often, for me lately, all roads lead back to Jack.  So any conversation always has the potential to go there, usually because I may bring him up.  But not there.  Though I’ve slowly begun making small talk, there I rarely even mention Kennedy.  You see if I mention that I have a daughter someone usually asks how old she is.  I tell them but then quickly shut the conversation down, hoping I give off body language that could convince people I’m really into the workout. 

The constant worry I have is that the next question would be, “Do you have any other kids?”  How do I answer?  Yes? Sort of? I did? Do I explain I had a son but he died and it’s been awful and I’m just hoping that punching things, sweating, and barely being able to breathe will make me feel better?  Not a gym-type conversation.  But really, truth be told, it’s that I don’t want anyone to know is because then it will be one more place where people will wonder if I’m okay.  They’ll feel the need to ask, and regardless what the answer is, I’ll feel the need to say something like, “I’m okay” or, “hanging in there”. 

So today we’re doing some floor work and the conversation turned to having babies, the various topics that go with that and suddenly I felt this irrational need to run out of there to my car, or pretend I had to puke in the bathroom, anything to avoid being looped into the conversation.  I just wasn’t confident that, today of all days- 5 months exactly after I lost part of my world, that I could nonchalantly answer anything that was asked of me.  I couldn’t breathe and if anyone noticed I probably looked absolutely nuts.  Luckily the trainer called time and we had to put our gloves back on and hit the bags again, no one talks then.

The problem isn’t that I don’t want to talk about Jack.  I love to say his name and see his face in my mind when it’s said out loud. It’s just that it’s nice to go somewhere that no one has any framework to make a comparison of who I was one year or even 6 months ago.  I’m just any other chick with a sweaty, red face trying to better herself in some way.  I get to take a break from being Tricia, grieving mama, and just be Tricia, girl with a jiggly belly determined to have a six-pack.  Okay, I’ll settle for a four-pack.

A Father's Love

A father’s love comes in all shapes and sizes.  It manifests itself in so many and sometimes even strange ways- talking to friends and family members over the years that became very clear to me.  I could find their father’s love for them in the stories they’ve told me, even those ones that didn’t paint dear old dad in the best light.  Even when I think back to times when my dad and me butted heads during the teenage years, as a parent now, I can find the love that was present if I look hard enough.  Some dads hug and kiss their kids non-stop.  Others stand on the sidelines at countless sporting events no matter the weather.  Other dads yell at their kids to remember to change the oil in their car or teach them to change a tire.  Some dads are a healthy mix of all of that and more.  My children?  They are some of the lucky ones that hit the jackpot when it comes to fathers.  Sean and I made out pretty damn good too. 

Friday night I had made plans with some girlfriends and wasn’t going to be around for dinner.  Sean decided he was going to make some chicken parm for dinner, making the sauce and frying the cutlets before I’d left; already I was impressed because if he’s not going to be around for dinner I usually pour Kennedy and I a bowl of cereal and call it a night.  While I was out I happened to check my phone and saw he’d tagged me in a picture he’d posted on Instagram.  When I saw it I remembered why I love this man so much.  He gotten himself and Kennedy all dressed up and they had a candlelight dinner, complete with a glass of wine and Capri Sun.  He’s that kind of dad.

I think because of his easygoing disposition it is sometimes easy to forget that Sean has a broken heart too.  Though it often looks different for him than it does me, it’s got some cracks in it just the same.  This has to be the case for most dads in a similar position to Sean’s.  So today, though I woke up with a heavy heart, I vowed to myself that today would be about Sean.  We’d celebrate him being a daddy, however that would look this year.

So how did that look for Sean?  What does the first Father’s Day of a grieving dad look like?  Something like this:

-      -Waking up before me to feed the dog and let him out, stopping in Kennedy’s room to turn on some Disney Jr. for her and came back to bed (I was already kicking myself here that I hadn’t gotten up first).

-       -Smiling when Kennedy came into bed with us and forced her way into the middle because she wanted to lay next to daddy, who she told, unprompted, was her best friend.

-      - Showing the perfect amount of excitement to thrill our little girl who excitedly gave the Father’s Day cards we’d picked out.

-       -Cleaning up an ENTIRE bowl of spilled cereal and milk from the coffee table without grumbling once (he had me beat here too).

-       -Taking care to pick out his clothes for brunch and planning what time we’d leave the house in order to have enough time make the stops we needed to before our reservation.

-       -Standing next to me, rubbing my back as I cried, at the cemetery asking what I though Jack would be able to do at this point if he were here still.  We both liked to think he’d smile a lot.

-       -Stopping at a Target no where near our house so we could pick up a 4^th curtain panel even though it killed him to spend so much on curtains when he wanted to leave the window open and bright.

-       -Sitting at the table at the restaurant with a smile on his face even though I was so annoyed no one had come by to ask if we’d wanted a drink after sitting for over 10 minutes.

-       -Never complaining about how hot and humid it was to be sitting outside when that is all I could do, even if I was the one who had asked to be seated out there.

-       -Allowing Kennedy to sit on his lap even though she’s a little hotbox that has to increase one’s body temperature by at least 10 degrees.

-      - Pointing out a robin’s nest to Kennedy that was made inside her favorite horse sculpture at the restaurant even though it forced us to stand there longer than he’d probably wanted to.

-       -Patiently standing as I took picture after picture, trying to get at least one of him and our little girl who was opting not to cooperate today.

It went on like this all day.  The point is what did Sean’s first Father’s Day as a grieving father look like?  Much the same as any other day looks.  He manages to continue on being the loving, patient, and consistent father and husband he always has been despite the loss he’s endured.  And try as I might to make things about him, he is happy when his girls are happy and he spends his days trying to make sure we are.

Happy Father’s Day to the boy I fell in love with 12 years ago that became the daddy to a beautiful, bossy little girl and a man our baby boy can look down upon and be proud of.

Happy Father’s Day to my Dad, a man who never forgets to remind me that I will always be his baby girl.

Happy Father’s Day to both of my fathers-in-law, two men that can always put a smile on my face, even in the darkest of times.

To all of the other dads out there:  Happy Father's Day.  Tell your kids you love them, the rest will fall into place somehow.

The Little Man of my Dreams

I wish there was a way to remember every single detail of a dream-the good ones anyway.  Whenever I wake up from a dream I want to remember, I close my eyes and try to will my mind to go back to whatever corner of my brain created it in.  I always hope to squeeze just a few more seconds out of it and have a piece of it to hold on to forever. 

One of the things I remember most about my experience at the hospital that first night after I’d had Jack and he’d past away was the sheer terror I had about falling asleep.  I was just so afraid dreams or nightmares I’d have.  Thankfully for the next few nights, I dreamt of nothing.  I truly believe the mind is a very powerful thing and mine was protecting me from anything that could hurt me any further. 

For a few weeks I would stay awake through the night, avoiding going to sleep, nervous about what was waiting for me.  Part of me was relieved when there were no dreams and another part was so desperate to see my baby that I would settle for whatever I could get.  

When a dream finally did come, it met the expectations I had in terms of the heartbreak that came with it.  I dreamt that the doctors had made a mistake.  Everything was happening as it had actually happened at CHOP.  They told me Jack had passed and gave him to me as soon as the surgery was over, except that he yawned; he was breathing.  I was screaming to anyone that would listen that he was alive, they’d been wrong.  I was so happy and so relieved.  Those feelings had been so real to me that when I opened my eyes I was so confused.  I thought maybe I had woken up to feed him or that the whole ordeal had just been a god-awful pregnancy dream-those can be intense.  When I got my wits about me and realized I had just been dreaming, that my son had in-fact died, it awoke the feral beast in me.  I cried again in a way most people can’t imagine.  After that, I didn’t sleep again for days, if I did it was for less than an hour at a time.  For days I thought of that dream, I wouldn’t let go of it.  I couldn’t.

There have been a few more like that over that last few months, but not many. Last night, I dreamt of him again.  When I woke up this morning my heart hurt.  I felt the loss all over again.  All day I felt so sad.  I felt so angry that this is how my life will be for the foreseeable future, so desperately wanting to wake up from this bad dream.  Like I do whenever I feel like this, I talked to Sean.   I cried as I told him about the dream and he didn’t tell me not to cry.  But he did say something that I thought about the rest of the day.  He said that maybe I need to look at these dreams in a different way.  Look at them as a chance to see Jack.

We aren’t able to curl up on the couch or nap together like I did when Kennedy was an infant so Jack Holden meets me in my dreams.  And every so often when my heart seems to call out for him, I dream of the little boy I miss so badly.

 

Her Father's Daughter

There are times when I’ve been told that I remind people of my father.  Now granted, they have generally been when I am driving in traffic or in a confrontational situation but what can I tell you, it’s the Italian in my blood, we get worked up.  The other thing I hear far more often is that Kennedy is a “mini-me”.  People say she acts like me, looks like me, speaks like me.  Sometimes I feel bad for the poor kid and other times I think to myself it’s not all bad.  But this past weekend all I saw was a mini version of Sean.  She is definitely her father’s daughter.

Sean and I have been to two weddings in the last 2 weeks.  We have two more this summer.  Now there is nothing, and I mean nothing, my husband loves more than a wedding.  I don’t know if it’s the open bar or dancing he loves more but suffice it to say wedding season is his favorite time of year.  Generally I really love going to weddings also, more for the dressing up/dancing combo but in any case we tend to enjoy ourselves. 

In the last four months there have been certain situations where I am fully prepared to have emotional reactions; being out and hearing an infant crying, going back to the OB/GYN office, seeing a toddler with their baby brother or sister, etc.  It’s the times I am not expecting to feel sad that seem to send me for the biggest loop.  One of those times happened last weekend, at the first wedding.  At the church while the couple was exchanging vows I got a little emotional when the priest spoke of “good times and bad” and I thought of how when the same words were spoken at our wedding five years ago I never dreamed they could get as bad as they have this year and it just put another tiny crack in my heart.  I was so happy for them as they shared their first dance and smiled at each other as if no one else were in the room with them, and I just wished that Sean and I could go back to being that happy again even if for just a second.  I know eventually we will feel happy again, everyone tells me over and over and over again, but it will have to be a different version because what has happened in our life together can never be undone.

 And while the smile on my face may have faded a bit the love I feel for this guy hasn’t a bit, if anything I love him more than that moment we took our first spin as husband and wife.  The past weekend solidified that as I watched Sean and the little girl that holds both of our hearts danced the night away in their Sunday best.

I watched Kennedy, who was more her father than I have ever seen, have the time of her little life.  She couldn’t wait to get out on the dance floor, asking while the speeches were made, “Is it my turn to dance yet?!”  When she could wait no longer she got her groove on next to our table not noticing or caring at the people giggling around her.  The only thing I can equate her dance moves to is Seinfeld’s Elaine.  It’s just that majestic and a quality she shares with daddy.   She didn’t stop all night, except to get some air outside and wipe her sweaty brow with her skinny little arm.  She just kept giggling and saying, “I love a wedding, Mommy!”

If there is one thing I can say about this Doyle pair it’s that they are comfortable in their own skin.  While that is something I used to feel like was true for me as well, as of late it’s not always the case so I am so glad she seems to be absorbing this easiness Sean has always had about him.  The way she always looks to make other kids feel comfortable is something I’ve always loved about Sean.  The way she could talk a total stranger’s ear off about something they know nothing about is something I giggle internally about Sean.  People love them.  This weekend, watching them, it was obvious why. 

 The next morning at the hotel the two of them put on their bathing suits, told me I was no fun more than once, and swam the little one to the point of hopeful exhaustion for our 4 ½ car ride that was ahead of us.  They both took enjoyment in scaring Kennedy’s poor Baba as she went under the water and made her way around the pool in water that was well above her head.  They made faces when I asked them to smile and would both look away when I was attempting to capture a good shot.  Partner’s in crime.

And so, once more this family that I’m so aware I am fortunate to have, kept me going another day.  I sometimes look at pictures of the 3 of us taken since Jack died and feel sad because I focus on who is missing from it, or that I look sad.  I have decided that going forward, I will look at pictures of our family and see a love that has endured a great loss; I will see fighters, survivors.  I always hope that Kennedy has gotten all of the best parts of both of us, inside and out, but lets hope it’s a 51%-49% split, in her father’s favor.

Pretty, weekend side note: my peonies bloomed!