Recharging the Battery

This week was about me trying of recharge, emotionally.  Before I tell you why I needed to recharge, in case you aren’t in the mood to read all of my words or to possibly ugly cry, I will cut to the chase and tell you it didn’t happen.  I’m still spent and I’m headed into more chaos this weekend, but I digress.  

Sean and I, and our poor (mostly cooperative) children have been on a non-stop ride this month.  The fact that we are in the homestretch of May already blows my mind, yet here we are.  

My cousin got married on Cinco de Mayo on Long Island and it was all of the things.  A day filled with incredible small moments (I want to remember my baby girl putting makeup on my grandma as we were getting her ready until I draw my last breath), an enormous amount of love (there is literally nothing better than watching the groom see his girl walking down the aisle), a tremendous act of generosity and more fun than my aching feet could stand.  Needless to say it was a long car ride back up state.

My sweet girl turned SIX on the tenth and, you want to talk ugly crying?!  After being up late, cutting up about 10lbs of fruit for a fruit salad because “Mama, I want fruit salad for my birthday treat in school but not the kind they make at the grocery store-just the stuff I like” and munchkins don’t cut it for my girl, Facebook mercilessly provided me with a video of her newly-two-year-old self singing, “happy birthday to me,” and I was done.  It is all going too fast; so fast it sometimes takes my breath away.  Her birthday was kind of a rush deal, birthday waffles before school, cupcakes and a few gifts after and then back to school to show off her year’s work to her adoring audience of three.  

The weekend brought us to my little brother’s college graduation. It really, truly was a celebration. This boy committed to earning his bachelors degree and taught us all what grit looks like.  Six years later, a man held his head high and walked across the stage to receive is diploma, and then the little boy peeked through for a moment as he raised both of his hands overhead in celebratory fashion.  I couldn’t have been more proud of him. There was an undeniable stress I could feel building beneath the surface but I tried to force it from my mind.  We went to a nearby casino for a nice dinner and some fun and we really did enjoy ourselves; so much so that I almost forgot what the next day was.  Almost.

I went to bed with a hope in my heart that this year would feel different but from the moment I opened my eyes I knew that it wasn’t so. My heart felt heavy, like I couldn’t get myself going.  I tried to force myself to finish the weekend on a positive note but Mother’s Day is just a tough day for me.  I didn’t want it to feel that way this year.  I have an amazing girl that, though she is challenging and fiery, is becoming such a wonderful little human. I have a beautiful baby boy to hold in my arms and he has made my life so bright, brought a smile back to my face and I don’t know what words to use in order to best explain how grateful I am for him. But all of that does not change the fact that it doesn’t feel like enough; and that makes me feel guilty and unappreciative and so incredibly sad.  One of my children is gone, and on Mother’s Day I feel that so much more acutely. All I wanted to do was go to the cemetery and be with my boy.  I just wanted to have all of my kids together.  And so we went and Kennedy talked to Jack and told him, “Uncle Dyl is done with college!” and Carter sat in the grass and this beautiful man I am so lucky to still have by my side, asked if I wanted a picture with the kids. And he said it so effortlessly that it didn’t feel strange, and it was everything I needed.  I wanted this year to be different, and it was, but what I really want to feel different, I suspect never will.  It will always hurt that Jack is gone, especially on Mother’s Day.

So this week has flown by and dragged on at the same time.  I started it emotionally drained and I am ending it feeling like I have nothing left in my tank.  Something I was really hoping for didn’t work out and it really hit me hard.  I am feeling like I am going to have to let some of this emotion out sooner rather than later but there just isn’t any time.  There is a momentum propelling me forward and it is really the only thing getting me through this weekend.  Next up on the docket is Kennedy’s carnival birthday party and a quick work trip to Boston.

It’ll be next week before I can blink. And so as I said about four thousand words ago, I need to recharge.  Maybe next week?

A quick side note:  I sat with Carter in bed last night and he was “talking” and playing and all of the sudden he looked quickly over at the pictures of Jack on the wall in my room and he smiled a great, big, gummy smile.  I had all of the feels and all of the goose bumps.  I don’t know if it means anything but I’d like to think it does.

The Things We Hold On To

Over these last two years I have learned there are certain times as a grieving mama that will knock the wind out of me and, regardless of the passage of time, take a good while for me to rebound from.  No matter how hard I try there are days my heart just holds on to.  Mother’s Day is one of those days.  No matter how hard I try to get myself into a good place, a prepared place, it is a day that I just come apart.  This year made it extra complicated and, maybe for that reason, it was extra tough to drag myself out of the funk. 

 

Mother’s day weekend brought us to Long Island for my cousin’s little girl’s First Communion.  So, after crying my way through Kennedy’s fifth birthday, simply unable to fathom how we got this far already, we made our way down.  Communion’s are big on Long Island, little mini weddings for some people, and while my cousin didn’t go quite that far, it was a great time-especially if you are a newly five-year-old, thoroughly impressed by the big fancy dresses, and a party with a DJ, magician, candy-bar, and make your own sundae station.  It was a good break, getting to see my family laughing in a way you can only laugh with people that knew you when you were young.  It always gives me a chuckle to see their faces as they watch Kennedy and then turn to me so say- always the same thing- “I could swear I’m looking at you at that age when I see her.”  

Regardless of the fun we had, I could feel a nervous energy brewing inside of me; unable to sit anywhere too long-just trying to stay busy and keep my mind off of everything.  Wanting so badly to hold my cousin’s baby girl, yet knowing the ache in my heart it would cause.  As I rocked her to sleep and felt her warm little body, there was a different kind of aching though; the kind that reminded me that while I will be there again soon enough with our new little one, there is a still a little baby boy that I would have given my last dying breath to rock to sleep just once-and I will never be able to let go of that.  Just like that, my nerves were unleashed and I felt a tiredness settle on my heart that made itself at home for a few days.

I wanted to get back home.  I wanted to go “see” my boy at his spot.  I wanted to be with my children together.  So after a long ride back home, and unfortunately in the rain, I made my way with Kennedy, and the little boy growing beneath my heart to go visit their brother.  And it struck me as I stood there:  I am a mother in every facet of life you can be one; mother to a little girl, mother to a child that has passed before me, and a mother-to-be.  I was overcome by the emotion that all three of my babies fill me with and by the time I had Kennedy back in the car, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.  I sobbed.  I didn’t want to; I try not to have her see me in that state when I can help it-she’s old enough to remember it all now and I don’t want her to remember me this way.  But as I looked back at her and saw her little, empathetic face, she just said, “I know Mommy, you just want all your babies to be together, right?”  I tried to say yes but nothing came out, so I just nodded my head and made our way home.  

When I got home though, Kennedy wanted to give me the presents she had made for me at school so I tried to collect myself and look as excited as I could.  I’ll tell you though the second she handed me the big envelope that she had written on and decorated, and she pulled out, with pride, each of the things I could feel the tears starting up again.  She gave me the silhouette with its bejeweled frame, and the card she had written in.  But it was the last thing that did me in; “I Love My Mom Because….” I held my breath, praying when I found her name it wouldn’t say something like, “I love my mom because even though she is a mess most of the time she feeds me donuts for breakfast!”  As I read through some of the others I knew my fate was sealed; and then I came to her name.  It said: I love my mom because…she sings me a song when she tucks me into bed.  And the tears came; hard.  I thought with relief, maybe she wouldn’t remember the crying, or at least not only that; I was making it count in other places.  When I sing Bob Dylan’s Forever Young to her every night, that’s what is sticking; that's what she is holding on to.  Growing exasperated with my emotional displays she said, “Why are you crying now?”  And when I told her she said, “Ok Daddy, Mommy is having happy tears because she loves my present.”  This girl, I tell you, she soothes my broken heart in ways she might never understand.

I made it through the day but it was long and I was beat and so when Monday rolled around I was dragging.  The week was filled with visiting my friend and her new baby boy, pediatrician appointments where we were told to lay off the donuts for a bit, softball games, ninety-eight degree weather, where I got a glimpse of what this summer would feel like-which is not pretty and to top it all off an emergency OB check-up after a scare I had at work.  Everything is fine, but I realized that I am so bone tired.  Not the “your-six-months-pregnant-what-do-you-expect” kind of tired, but the kind of bone tired you get from being scared all of the time.  I just want to stop feeling like the bad news is coming; stop feeling like being told Carter is healthy, and I am healthy, and everything looks and sounds good is too-good-to-be-true.  But there you have it.  This is what a “rainbow pregnancy” looks and feels like.

And so after a lot of sleepless nights we were brought to our next family function for Sean’s cousin, graduating with her doctorate in Physical Therapy down in Pennsylvania.  And though there was a lot of uncomfortable car time during this quick down and back trip it was broken up with time with his family, a group of people that love hard and laugh hard.

Kennedy slept twelve straight hours last night and I was envious as I tossed and turned, getting just under half of that.  But when I peeked in on her one of four times I was up to go to the bathroom, and saw her little face- the peacefulness of it- I took a breath and tried to exhale some of the chaos my heart seems to hold onto so tightly, and went to sleep knowing that it is okay for things to be okay.

And if things get particularly rough, there's always fairy gardens.