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. 

Where I'm Supposed to Be

photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

I’m learning that, in life, everyone will have these moments where they realize that they are exactly where they need to be.  I think it hits us at different times; some really huge moments and then at times where, if you aren't paying close attention, you could miss it altogether.

Two weeks ago was one of those moments for me.  Sean and I, with a lot of help from our wonderful family and friends, saw Jack’s Herd, Inc. host its Second Annual Cocktail Party and Silent Auction.  The build up for this is tremendous, months of planning and phone calls, asking for donation after donation, being shocked and overwhelmed when even more donations than we expected came in; it’s really an amazing process.  But the stress- oh the stress- it builds and I found myself wishing it would just hurry up and get here, not so I could rush it away, but so that I could slow down for a minute and take in everything that has happened since last year for the organization we started to honor the sweet boy that we couldn’t keep.

Putting it all together this year was hard for a lot of reasons.  The main one is a big-eyed, chubby cheeked little man that, though is as un-fussy as they come, makes it hard to do anything else; hard to want to do anything else.   You see, he’s six months already and time is going way too fast and, of this, I am constantly aware.  I already feel like my attention is pulled in so many different directions and I struggle to feel like I am giving enough to any of it, but when it comes to him and his sister, I feel that struggle so much more intensely.  And then I feel guilty, because this is all that Jack gets of us, a party thrown in his name once a year, and so it deserves my full attention.  So what does this all mean for me?  A lot of sleepless nights, a lot of nerve-induced tears, a lot of bickering with Sean and the rest of our board members about what would be best for Jack’s Herd and the event, but it’s this overwhelming sense of love that drove it all forward.  And then it was here. 

So when every single, solitary person you know will be at the same place as you and you’ve planned an adults-only party, what’s a mom to do with her kids?  You ask a friend to drive up from Long Island to help you out!  And what, you may ask, happens when said friend comes down with a big’ole stomach bug?  You beg your baby brother to watch your kids for you.  And what do you do, when said perpetual baby, states, “sure, but I can’t change diapers so…”?  You dress the baby up in his Easter outfit and bring him to a cocktail party. 

After a day of working, and setting up and putting on a pretty awesome rental dress, we were finally on our way, nervously chatting about what we thought the night would bring and be announcing that I scrapped my planned speech and would just wing it.  Needless to say, my stomach hurt and I was regretting the Taco Bell I’d caved and ate out of stress hours earlier.

The venue was beautiful, the auction was amazing and everyone looked great.   And so we stood around and waited.  And once it started it was absolutely incredible.  The turnout was everything I’d hoped for; the smiles on every face made it all worth it.  Sean and I walked to the front of the room to speak and I looked out to tell them what their support this last year did; that they’d helped over sixty grieving families in their worst moments and when I looked up to speak those words, I knew.  I knew I was right where I was supposed to be.  That somehow, these last three years and all of the heartache and healing that went with it had brought me to what I was supposed to do.  And so I opened my heart, wider than I had before in front of everyone, and told them what it all meant for these families, what it meant for mine.  I can’t tell you exactly what I said, though a friend of mine tells me I used the term “shitty consolation prize” which reminds me public speaking is not in my future, but I know my heart felt lighter when it was over.

photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

 

photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

 photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

photo credit: Jessica Merrill Photography

And, my God, the support and generosity that was shown that night told me these beautiful people got it.  They understood why what we are trying to do is so important. We surpassed our fundraising goal and expectations.  I spoke with families who had been through something similar and heard about us and decided to be part of it.  I was where I was supposed to be. 

The rest of the days have been filled with thank you letters, and material orders, and attempting to get ourselves organized in our day-to-day life again.  It has been filled with family, and birthday parties for little people we love, and trying solids, and a special night out with my little girl; it has been filled with St. Patty’s Day celebrations-that look much different than they used to, and bridal showers and paint and sips.  It has been busy, and exhausting, and beautiful and it all brought me to where I found myself this morning.

I had the gym waiting for me, and a mound of dishes in the sink, and a pile of thank you notes to handwrite.  But I also had a little girl that came out into the living room after waking up asking to cuddle me, and a husband that was craving pancakes for breakfast, and a baby boy that lets me hold him close and touches my face and kisses his big sister full on the mouth that needed some loving.  And so, again, I stopped for a minute and realized that the rest of it could wait; that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.