The Beautiful, Little House

It has been so long. There has been so much life that has been happening around here that if we haven’t been on the go, it would first off- be a miracle, and second probably only mean that we have fallen asleep.  

Once spring rolled in it has been nonstop, starting with an amazing trip to Disney World with my cousin and his family.  It was a rare, unicorn-like Disney trip where, honest-to-God, every single kid was happy each day, an the adults didn’t need a massive drink by ten in the morning. It was really wonderful; it has also been all systems go from the moment we returned. Miss Kennedy’s life has all but taken over, with the constant shuffle to and from the various fields she is playing on, pushing gymnastics to the back burner for the spring; but she is happy and immersed in the little life she is making for herself.  My baby no long resembles anything close to a baby, with the exception of his delicious chubby cheeks that are accentuated by his nearly ever-present smile.  He is all too happy to tag along on a jam-packed days and would literally follow is big sister to the end of the earth.  

And then the real reason it’s been so long:  We are moving.  We are doing what I swore up and down we’d never do; we are leaving our home and moving to a new one.  It’s exciting, it really, truly is.  We are moving to the kind of house I never imagined I’d live in at (almost) thirty-four. It’s gorgeous and will be an amazing house for my babies to grow up in and for Sean and I to grow old in.  So, yes, I am so excited.  But, as with everything else in my life the last four and a half years, my excitement and joy is very tightly intertwined with so many other feelings.  

Seven and a half years ago as we sat in a room, signed our names what seemed to be a billion times, and ended with keys in our hands, I really did think they were the keys to our forever home. 

 I was pregnant with Kennedy and couldn’t wrap my head around all that came with that, let alone think there would be more kids.  Our beautiful little house was perfect for a little family of three. 

We spread out, laughing as our girl’s stuff started to take over.  It was the three of us-we had plenty of room-even a guest room!  We loved it; we’d cram people in the backyard for parties and inside when we were feeling bold, shifting all of furniture around to make it work.  And then we decided to expand our family.  We dragged our feet getting the house in order to shift Kennedy over to he extra bedroom and change her, pretty, tiny nursery into a room fit for a little boy.  But we never got a round to it.  Our sweet Jack came too early, and he left too soon and so the door was shut and left untouched for two more years.

In a desperate attempt to change a home that had seemed to me then to be so damaged by the hurt and loss I covered up all of the beautiful warm, dark paint that had drawn us in in the first place.  I painted all of the walls a light gray, I covered the red bricks of the fireplace white; literally trying to cover the darkness that had settled within the walls of the home I had loved for almost three years. And it worked, my little house adapted and felt like home again.  It graciously accepted the roots of the little tree we planted in our boy’s name, nourishing it and allowing it to take hold and grow.  I swore we would never leave it.  

And then a new light came to our little home.  A little boy we needed and wanted so badly came home to our house and the rooms were now as full as our hearts.  And it was perfect.  

But the difference between beautiful little houses and beautiful little children is the beautiful little children grow.  They grow and they grow and they grow.  They run through the halls of a home no matter how small they are.  They fill the rooms with their things, no matter how small the rooms are or how small their things seem.  

And so Sean and I talked about it.  We talked, we argued, we agreed and disagreed.  We looked into making our little house bigger; trying to change it to be what we needed it to be.  It just wouldn’t work.  It just wouldn’t make sense to try and make our beautiful little home anything more than what it was always meant to be for us, even if I would never allow myself to call it such: a starter home.  A home to start our life in.  And we did just that.  

There has been so much life in this house.  There has been so much love, and so much loss that happened within the walls of this home.  

This is the home that my sweet baby was supposed to come home with us to; this is the only house he was ever supposed to be in and my broken heart can’t help but ache knowing we are moving to a place he was never meant to go to.  This home will be the home Sean’s dad visited us, staying in our little makeshift bedroom under the basement stairs, buying Sean the silly little push mower it took hours to mow the lawn with because that was good enough to get the job done; it hearts my heart to leave here.  

And then there is the tree. How am I supposed to leave the tree? I have been asked so many times, by so many people that love us and know how much we love the tree, “You can’t leave the tree!”  As with most things in my life, I have had to stop and have conversations with myself about guilt and not allowing it to consume me.  I will miss my gorgeous little tree; the beautiful little tree that grows in place of and in honor of my son.  The tree that seems to, appropriately, bloom a little later than the others like it around the neighborhood.  The tree that love grew.  But I can not allow myself to forget that the tree is not my son.  Jack is gone, even if I dug the tree up, and it by chance survived the transplanting and took root in a new spot, he is not here. But he lives in my heart, he goes where I go.  And so we will leave the tree here to continue to bloom and grow.

We will leave the little tree with the beautiful house that grew a beautiful family.  We will leave the beautiful little house to a new little family to grow into and likely grow out of down the road as well.  And if that is meant to be the legacy of this little home, to grow families and send them out into the world bigger and stronger and full of love, than I am so honored to have been a part of its story. 

Until next time, which is hopefully sooner rather than later and from within the walls of the new home that the Doyles will fill with memories and love...

The Ones that Made the Choice

For the ones that made the choice to let go:

To lose a child is a horrifying experience.  It is something you can never really get over; you will eventually move forward but never past it.  It is something that will walk parallel to you for your entire life.  While, thankfully, many people will never have to walk this awful path, the ones that do could tell you how tough it can be.  But there is a smaller sub-sect of loss parents; the ones that have had to make the earth shattering decision to let their children go.  To have to say that you will allow your child to leave this world, withdraw care?  This is an entirely separate burden that makes the path forward feel, at times, too difficult to travel.

To the ones that had to choose:  I remember barely being able to choke out the consent too.  When Sean and I had to make the impossible decision to go the palliative route for Jack, having the doctors and nurses just keep him comfortable until he passed, I couldn't even believe the words were leaving my mouth.  Every fiber of my mother-being wanted to scream ‘No, save him, do whatever it takes! Just, please, don’t let him die!’ But, rationally, I knew that it was inevitable and we had to let him go, that it was what was best for his little life; that no amount of love could save him and no medical intervention to make up for that.

To the ones that made the choice, I too beat myself up more than anybody could probably even imagine.  Asking myself what kind of mother gives the okay for her child to die?  For a long time, I hated myself.  I sometimes hated Sean for having agreed with the decision and not fighting me to fight for him harder.  I should have believed my sweet boy could have fought.  These are the lies I told myself; the lies I allowed to almost break me.  These are the lies that, more often than I’d like to admit, steep into my subconscious when I think of Jack and sometimes they damn near destroy me.  I have to remind myself that I loved that boy in that moment, that we loved him so deeply in that moment, that we could not allow him to suffer any more; yet it is still a choice that weighs heavy on my heart each day.  

To the ones that had to choose to let go, our road feels longer than the others. Not that either l path is one any of us wanted to take but when choice is taken out of the mix, I wonder if it feels less treacherous?  If the responsibility does not sit on your shoulders, does it make it any easier to breathe? Unfortunately, I suspect not.

To the ones that had to make the choice: I am with you.  I walk this road with you. My shoulders sag with the same weight yours do and I second-guess my decision almost every day.  But we mustn’t lie to ourselves.  We loved those children in a way that most will never have to experience. And because of that love, we had to let them go.

From a Different Perspective

To say my life has been moving at a break-neck pace is putting it mildly.  Since my last post in January (which kills me that it has been this long), I have been non-stop moving with my little pack in tow.  We have been firing on all cylinders from Kennedy’s social life and extracurriculars (my little girl got her ears pierced!), social commitments Sean and I have made, family visits and quick trips to visit friends, all the while planning for our Jack’s Herd annual fundraiser and trying to make sure we slow down enough from time to time to let my beautiful last baby actually be a baby.  I’m exhausted just from remembering it all, let alone actually having gone through it.

It all came together in the end and the months of planning paid off.  We had another incredibly successful year for Jack’s Herd; the turnout was amazing and the generosity was overwhelming.  This year we had a family present that were Jack’s Herd recipients after losing their precious little one recently.  To talk with them and listen to them say how appreciative they are of all they were able to receive made all of the stress and hard work that goes into the night worth it.  I felt, so deeply, in that moment that Jack’s Herd is doing some real good.  Though I say often that Jack and I are forever tied, always on that night I feel it so acutely.  Our sweet baby is leaving a gorgeous footprint on this world.  

There was another reason why it all felt a little more deeply this year.  A good friend of mine had reached out to tell me that he and his wife were expecting but that they did not get good news.  Their situation felt so eerily familiar to me; I have had a sick feeling in my belly and heaviness on my heart knowing what path they were likely to embark on.  Then just a week or so before I received a text I have been dreading from him for weeks.  It came first as just a picture.  The moment I saw it my heart dropped and my throat felt like it was closing.  It was a picture of the beautiful memory boxes Jack’s Herd donates.  He shared with me their loss; he told me how they were so appreciative of what Jack’s Herd helped do for them and he told me that he has never dreamed that when he donated to us that he would one day be a recipient.  And my heart broke.  Never in my worst dreams did I envision these things going to a friend; a friend that was there for me in so many ways after we’d lost Jack. 

Instantly, I felt on the other side.  My perspective shifted.  I was now the friend of someone who was experiencing the unimaginable loss no one wants to know about.  I was the one fumbling to say something that would bring comfort in a situation where comfort does not truly exist.  I was the one standing in the aisle of Hallmark searching for the right card, with the right words in the devastatingly small section for ‘Loss of a Child’.  I was the one arranging a MealTrain for the family, knowing that no amount of food in the world would ease the empty feeling inside but praying it could anyway.  And it had been pretty awful. 

In these moments I have felt what I can only imagine all of the friends and family that rallied around Sean and I during our darkest moments felt.  The desperation, the devastation, and the awful feeling that nothing would ever be the same again.  And my heart broke for all of them too because I don’t think I have ever been able to truly appreciate what that experience had and has been like for all of them.  What it has been like to be the people that stand by the grieving parents.  The shift in perspective has been eye opening and heart wrenching and ultimately very needed.  Grief has this way of wrapping you up and causing blind spots; blocking your vision so that all you can see is what is happening to you or right in front of you.  The periphery just doesn’t exist.  

I can only hope that my experience and journey can give my friend and his wife, the recipient families of Jack’s Herd, the friends and families of grieving parents and shift in their perspective too; they can survive this awful loss.  They can put the pieces together again and make them into something resembling a happy life again.  It will take time.  It may be ugly from time to time.  Some pieces will never quite fit again.  But, if you shift your perspective, even just a bit, it can still be something beautiful and whole in its own way again.