No Such Thing as False Hope

Nov. 11. This day last year I was beside David's bed on the 11th floor of the Critical Care Tower of MCV in Richmond, in the Neuroscience ICU, while he lay in his coma. I had great hope that we would have a miracle given to us and have our beloved son, brother, lover, and friend returned to us. One of the young neurosurgeon residents came by that day and told me he didn't want me to have false hope. I was able to look him square in the eye and tell him without any doubt, that there is no such thing. I told him I hoped that on the day his first child is born, whenever that may be, he would think of me and realize that hope is the only option we have when we have a critically ill child. There is no other reasonable option. We can only have hope that our precious one will heal and live. Hope by definition can't be false; it is "a wish or desire accompanied by a confident expectation of fulfillment... even when there is little reason or justification(American Heritage College Dictionary,Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002). I told the doctor I believed that when the day came when he would hold his first child and looked into his or her eyes, he would know with certainty that if she was ever to be in David's place, where the doctors tell you there is less than a 1% chance of her survival, that he would hope the doctors would soon join him in celebrating a miracle. Period. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Would I do it again, given the same or worse prognosis? Yes, without question, though I shudder to think I could ever survive it again.

The past few months have been a time of growth. Many times I thought to write but couldn't even think of how to wrap words around what was going on inside me. Still there are waves of acceptance, pain, horror, panic, guilt, anger, and then releasing my disbelief and submitting to the finality of my boy's absence. The pain, though it is less intense most of the time, still has the disabling power to bring me to my knees. I cry mostly alone now; in the beginning months I needed my loved ones' embraces. I have more vision of a future without David in our family than I did a few months ago; for a long time I just couldn't consider imagining it. If the thought of a future holiday without David came to mind, I would toss it out just as quick. I have developed strategies for getting around falling apart at inconvenient times, like at school, without feeling like I am dishonoring the memory of my son. I have learned to listen to him more; if I pause and ask him what he'd have me do, or what he would do if he were here, I can usually "hear" him. This encourages me. It makes some decisions easier.

I finally had a dream of David a few weeks ago. In the dream he had been injured in the recent past, though he appeared unharmed and normal. We knew the injury would be fatal, in time, and that there was nothing to be done about it. There was no panic or extremem emotion at all in the dream, even though I was asking doctors and nurses if there couldn't maybe be one thing they hadn't thought of .... and then there was David, his old happy self, with a smile and a chuckle, with his hand on my back, saying, "It's okay Mom, it really is. Everything's as it supposed to be." Then we went about our family event, maybe it was Pizza Night, or some other time, like so many we have where all the kids are at my house, hanging out, eating, laughing and just enjoying each other's company. When I woke up I looked at the clock. It read 4:40. The exact time of David's death. I felt that entire day as though we'd had a visit, a real visit. I was able to hear his voice and laughter, see his handsome face, feel his loving touch and experience a peace and acceptance with him that everything is okay. It was a bittersweet feeling, but I've had more peace since.

I haven't dreamed of him since. I changed my morning alarm setting to 4:40; just to make another small way to stay connected, to keep the "silver cord" strong between us. I have also gone to drying my hair with his old t-shirts, for the same reason. Even if I never dream of David again, I will remember this visit we had, and know it was real, and that he wanted me to know I should be at peace, that he is, and that I can hope for the day when I will join him in the hereafter.

For this anniversary weekend coming up, I will focus on what David would want, set tingabout making Jonathan's birthday celebration on Saturday a big gig. Last year the 13th was the day we all said our goodbyes. Jonathan is sure it took the cake for the crappiest of all birthdays, ever. I know we will never forget that Jonathan's birthday and David's death were one day apart, but this year we will honor David's spirit by not being sad at all- we will celebrate our lives and how lucky we are to have today together, as he would have it. I think there will be a keg and wings involved.

xxoo

Eternity in a millisecond

I feel a sense of urgency more and more lately. Not a "hurry up before it's too late" panicky kind of urgency, but a "just do now!" perfectly calm, focused urgency. I want to learn how to be fully present in this moment. The next moment might change everything.

I thought things were going to change again last Friday. My Maxima and I took a glancing hit from a big truck. I came out with minor injuries. The Maxima was not so lucky. It was enough for me to experience how time can seem to slow down, though. It only took a millisecond for me to figure out if I was afraid to die.

It didn't pass before my eyes before the accident or anything, but I have spent some time reflecting on the last year of my life, with Jordan's first birthday this past weekend. There was the celebration of Jonathan's graduation last June, the pleasure of Italy with Grace, and the indescribable joy of Jordan's birth in July. During the summer I broke up with Danny, but in late October I saw him again just one week before David got sick. Then our world shook and cracked to its foundation with losing David. Jonathan's 19th birthday was not celebrated, as it fell on the day before David died, Nov. 13. After the memorial we immediately had to face the holidays. Thankfully, the snow storms came along in January with their gift of mercy: two weeks off from school. I caught my breath. With spring came Grace's birthday, then David's, Mark's, and Stephen's. Just before Mother's Day I ended it for good with Danny. Grace's graduation was in June, and finally Jordan's first birthday was this past week. The past 13 months have brought a wide spectrum of emotion to me, raw, vibrant, and unrelenting.

In a few weeks Grace will leave for school and I'll have my empty house. It's a good thing too, because there's a new me I need to get to know. The woman I was is gone, along with five brief childhoods, now all just wisps of smoke.

I went to the North Anna today with BB and J.Napier. The harsh July sun glared from high up in the blue, between the trees standing tall along the banks. The water drops about ten or twelve feet over a few hundred yards, creating a glittery, gurgling world, with its ancient, persistent music, spilling over rocks.

In a millisecond on Route 1 last week I settled two things for good. One: I believe I will be with my mom and David after I die and I am not afraid. Two: I love living.

xxoo

The Work of Doing Nothing

Summer started for me on June 25th this year, almost two weeks ago. I've tried to stay busy; with tutoring, and taking Grace to her college orientation (Thank God, she's not going to California; she'll be staying right here in Virginia, only an hour or so up the road), and family get-togethers. We've had a 4th of July cookout here and then saw fireworks at Kings Dominion. I've kept the baby here a few nights. We've also kept up with our Monday pizza nights. There have also been a couple of days in which I had to do, and did, nothing. Like today.

It's hard for me to tell if my lack of motivation is depression or just needing to rest. It seems perfectly natural to need a few do-nothing days, complete with naps, especially being a middle school teacher. During the school year I fantasized about having days to sleep in, days when I could lie around listening to the quiet. Now that I've got one of those days, I wonder if there's something wrong with me for letting the entire day go by and not accomplishing a single thing other than taking the dog out. I took a two-hour nap. When I woke up, I thought about making a to-do list, but didn't. Maybe I will later.

It's miserably hot outside. The thermometer attached to the outside of the kitchen window reads 101 - and it's in the shade. With the humidity, it feels like a sauna out there, so I've stayed inside, pacing around, looking at all the jobs that need doing. I'm not doing any of them today.

It seems my grief work is entering a different phase lately. Maybe it's just because I have more time to think about it, but I've been more absorbed with accepting that this loss, this abiding pain, this separation, must be incorporated into who I am, into my very being. Different from the first days and months when I just focused on getting through the day, or the hour, there's an awareness sinking down into my bones now, that I must carry this loss on with me; that it will be part of me through whatever lies ahead, through all the future beginnings and endings, in every meeting and parting, and in every tear and every smile. My heart will forever be different, always partly defined as that of a mother who lost her first child. And although it sounds almost crazy to even say it, as obvious as it is to normal people, it's a heart that finally believes that my sweet, beautiful, loving David is not coming back.

My mind wanders wildly on a do-nothing day like this. I relive hospital events, from the emergency room to signing the organ donation papers. I think about what David should be doing this summer and in the future. I think about how he should be going to the river and to the music festivals with his siblings. I worry about how they are each dealing with his absence. I remember him as a toddler or a trying teen. I think about all the ways his dad and I tried to keep him on the right track. I relive our last, brief conversation on October 30th.

I think about what I should do with myself now, how to live out what David has whispered from the other side, "Take care of yourself, Mom." I think the future could be wonderful for me if I pursue it; as a middle-aged woman with an empty nest, I could almost start over if I want; I could go back to school, plan and carry out an adventure, drive across country, or even take a lover!

Then my mind swings down again. I've been a bit angry, resentful and irritable lately. I don't know who or what I'm angry with, at least not clearly so. I know I feel a little angry with David for not taking his health more seriously. I understand that young men believe they are invincible, and that a headache wouldn't normally indicate something terrible in such a young and healthy guy, but he had it for two weeks! It was a bad headache! I think David was smart enough to know something was wrong. But just about the time I think that, I know that David would have certainly gone for help if he knew what was wrong. But still, when I'm crying, I sometimes fuss at him in my mind, and if alone, I've even yelled out loud between my sobs, "Damn it, David! Why didn't you go to the hospital sooner!!??" Then I imagine him saying, "I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to hurt you. I love you. I'm okay and you will be too." I imagine him coming and holding me until my sobbing stops, as I know he would if he could. Then I feel guilty for shouting at him.

Sometimes I feel angry at God for not protecting and saving David and our family from from this nightmare, for taking my boy, for giving me a life that seems harder than other people's. But I don't get very far down that road either, because I don't really think God actually "took" David. I do believe David is with God, but as for the reason he left us, I accept the obvious: there was a weak artery wall in David's brain since birth. As the doctor said, "his brain was a ticking time bomb." When I'm tempted to be angry with God for this, for not giving me a perfectly formed child, I can't even formulate a decent argument against Him; suffering has always been part of the human experience and people have always questioned why. As for the magnitude of my suffering, I'm not so blind that I can't see that my suffering is nowhere near what many other people suffer. I didn't lose my boy to suicide or murder, I didn't watch him die a slow, agonizing death, I didn't know when he was born that he would die in his twenties, he didn't die alone on another continent in the horror of war, I didn't lose him to a psychopathic abductor, and I didn't lose my only child.

Sometimes, when I'm out amongst the "normal" people, I resent them, too. I imagine that their lives are free from the agony I am experiencing. I imagine that all the other women around me are carefree, have no significant losses and lead lives of comfort and happiness and fun. I resent them for their easy lives. Then I will actually meet one of them. Like Saturday at the farmer's market. I saw another friend who lost a son, and she introduced me to woman who just happened to be at the market too, another mom who lost a beloved child many years ago. She looked just like a woman I would have resented. She had been talking and laughing and shopping happily as if she hadn't a care in the world. So, clearly resentment is a path that turns in on itself. It goes nowhere. It stifles progress.

The days of sadness still come and go with regularity, but there are more days between them now. The pain of realization, of the permanence of this loss, is still just as sharp; it still hits like me like a crashing wave, it's still like "being hit by a Mac truck", as my friend Heather describes it, but I notice that I recover more quickly, and although I know it will come time and time again, I'm more resigned to it, and more accepting of it as part of my life from now on. I have hope that this change in life will make me a stronger, more useful person. Dan McC. said yesterday that I was already strong and useful before this happened. Well, maybe so, but if I have the chance to grow into someone who is even stronger and more useful, I should try, I should keep moving in that direction, because the alternative, the option of giving in to despair, of finding reasons to give up and slide into a dark hole, well that just isn't really an option at all, is it?

If anyone is still out there reading, please continue to pray for me. I know it must be a drag to see that I'm still sad, that I haven't put this loss behind me and moved on, but the truth is it will never be behind me. I must find a way to live with this loss and live joyfully. I must hope and pray for a different miracle.

Perhaps this is the prayer that God has been wanting to hear all along.

xxoo

nine to one

I read somewhere that losing a child is nine parts unspeakable and one part gift. I guess the gift is the part of the parent that grows as it couldn't in any other way. Then there are the nine parts that are too awful for words, when you have only screams and tears and panic and isolation.

Watching the Sky

What is it that makes me run outside to see a big storm coming? Why do I crave to see it? I search for the darkest clouds and see the trees all around, flowing like river grasses, submitted to the wind. It's not the risk of it, because I'm not looking at that. Maybe it's the rarity of it. It's not too often, relatively speaking, that we get to see trees sway like that or see dark, heavy clouds clipping by on a low ceiling. Today I was thinking tornado.

It's all quiet now; it was just a few long bursts of wind, unusual though, no lightning and only a few spatters of rain. But the wind! The sound of it in the trees with a great deep gust; the rise and fall- how do you describe it? Up to a swell, a wave, and then settling to quiet. Who knows which storm will be my last? Who knows? Why would I want to miss a spectacle so easily seen from the front row?

Maybe it's the sheer power of it, the energy of it that pulls me in. Maybe it's the way my senses are all swept up in it. I stood out in the driveway a little while ago, looking up and turning around in all directions, breathing deeply. I thought I could smell some far away place blowing in on the wind. I closed my eyes. Then it occurred to me that I must look like a total nut case to my neighbor across the street. I came back in.

Maybe the enormity of what has happened in my life is like the spectacle of a storm; Sometimes I can stand outside myself with a curiosity and watch the way grief happens. It's strange how the brain rewires around loss. I have bizarre lapses of recent memory and also return of long-lost memories. I have days of fatigue and days of renewed energy. Days of pessimism and days of vision. There is constant heartache and then laughter too, at times. I feel like I am taking more of the everyday memory pangs in stride. There are longer stretches of time when losing David is not foremost in my mind. I am working through it.

There's a re-centering coming over me on a much deeper level than I had hoped for.
I ask for prayer in this: that I practice a consciousness of my motivations, and also that I will be gentle and patient with myself.

xxoo

Breaking to heal

You know how sometimes we break bones or tear skin and for whatever reason we don't heal properly and the doctor has to re-break the bone or cut the skin again to set things right? I'm starting to feel like this - my heart is broken clean-through, I am cut deeply; old hidden wounds are raw and exposed. I'm ready to be set right again and heal, stronger than before.

xxoo

Phantoms

Well, I hadn't been angry for a while. It had been building up, I guess. I became more annoyed as today went on. Being tired didn't help; the last two nights have been short.

I was pretty ticked before leaving school, then at home I quickly got pissed with Ray, the IRS, and the US Postal Service- all in less than 15 minutes. I started thinking "Wow, what's wrong with me? Why am I so grouchy? Why do I feel so angry?" I was feeling guilt on top of my anger, pacing in my bedroom. Then I thought, "Wait one damn minute! Anyone could get pissed talking with the ex about money, dealing with any agency of the federal government let alone two, or working in a public school bureaucracy!" I let myself off the hook.

This was not common. Normally anxiety keeps me stuck in a mental loop once I've gotten upset. But this time I purposely let go of the guilt and I immediately I felt the anger dissipate, too. It was quite stunning, really. All it took was to intentionally walk away from that invisible judge who haunts me. It's like always being in the room with someone who's watching me perform my ordinary tasks, and I can feel his disapproval. Of course I recognize my judge is a creation of my imagination, or perhaps I inherited him. All I know is that I don't remember him ever not being there, and when I'm quiet I can hear the defense my mind offers up for my existence. I wonder how many other people silently tote around their predisposed judge who whispers incessantly, "guilty, guilty, guilty!"

I think it was important that I walked away from my phantom accuser today. It kinda feels like I called his bluff. Maybe if I do that enough he'll fade away.

I just reread this post and edited. 6/3/10

Six Months Out

What if you can't quite get your bearings, even after the dust settles? What if part of the landscape is too different to recognize? I think about the way it used to be and I think about the way it was going to be. I look around and they are both gone.

I think about David dropping by on a day like today- a beautiful, clear, spring day. He was adorable sauntering up the driveway; sometimes he'd bring Rudy, my grandpuppy, and both of them would be smiling. My heart aches. I ache for the future that I won't have with David. I ache for the old woman who will still be missing her beautiful firstborn, after thirty-some years. I ache for my other kids, for Mark, handsome Mark, who has glided deftly into the oldest son role and has been a source of strength and comfort for Mom.

Maybe this is a good time for a Mark story.

Mark was always the tenderest of our kids. He was the only one as a baby you would call "fussy". His feelings were easily hurt and he always wanted to help whomever was needing it- usually Stephen. As a little boy, Mark often had a worried look on his face. Who could blame him? He was next in line after David, who wasn't timid about anything and was downright entertained by pushing other people's buttons. Ray and I always said that it was David who made Mark grow up to be strong and steady.

If anyone had a reason to give David an ass-whoopin' as a teen though, it was Mark; he'd taken and seen Stephen take plenty of abuse from David over the years. It's a story as old as big and little brothers. One day, while we were still living in Glen Allen, David picked a fight with Mark. I don't remember what the deal was, but what David hadn't factored in was Mark's recent training with the wrestling team. Mark only did one season as a wrestler, but this was the season. All of a sudden they were both on the kitchen floor, and after a few seconds of grunting and spinning, Mark had David in a hold and David was paralyzed, snorting to breathe. Mark had his chance. I just knew David had it coming, and I was afraid it was going to get ugly. I was looking for a broom handle to break them up. By now they were way to big to get in amongst. But nothing happened. Nothing physical, anyway. Mark just held David there, for a long time. Long enough for it to sink in that Mark could easily, but was choosing not to, punch David's face in. I think the other three kids had run into the kitchen at this point. After it got real quiet and Mark had calmed down he just released the hold and stood up. I've always been glad I didn't step in. I think it was a turning point for the two of them. Just like that, in the flash of an eye, boys become men.

It's six months out now. Although I still ache to my very bones with every wave of acceptance, there are longer stretches of time now when I'm not sad. I still have to purposely set my grief aside during the school day, and I'm not always successful, but there are fewer big waves of pain. They are still fairly regular though, as if dispensed by the Great Physician, in barely manageable doses. I feel like I've aged ten years.

The good news is that I am sleeping through the night again and at times feel a peace and hopefulness about the future, the brightest I've ever felt. David gets the credit. Someone asked recently if David is talking to me. So far, he only says, "Take care of yourself, Mom". So I've been trying. It's the first time in my life I've been allowing myself to put myself first and not feel guilty about it. A shrink once told me I needed to spend some serious time being a child. Well, it was hard to catch up on being a child while raising five of my own.

Now the empty nest is within sight. Grace will be going off to school in August and I will have the house to myself. The only other time I have ever lived by myself were the months I rented a room in a big Victorian on Monument Avenue in the Fan. That was a cool existence for a 21-year-old. Broke, but cool. So I'm kind of looking forward to being on my own again. These days Grace is so independent and busy with her own life, I'm already starting to indulge my "inner child", to have things my way. I am taking baby steps toward healing. Perhaps I will also heal from older wounds along the way.

I will always ache for David but I can also make a fresh start. Pain is part of the scenery for now, but life is dynamic if it's anything. It will change. I can choose to walk toward a happy day.

xxoo

Paradigm Shift

Its funny how we can identify with seemingly random events that are completely disassociated with our regular lives. The recent reports of earthquakes in the news have resonated with me; I think of mothers who have lost something or everything dear to them. Their lives have been shaken, literally and figuratively, to the very bedrock of existence.

Suddenly everything I see now is through this new lens of loss. Even the whole idea of the earth shaking seems familiar. The landscape is not the same as it was. There's been a shifting, a permanent change that was unplanned, devastating, and in certain ways, debilitating. But it's not going back to the way it was. Period. I imagine those women in Haiti and Chile and China; do they still wake up with a faint whisper of a crazy idea that lasts a millisecond? Do they still hope we can go back and fix it all?

Here I sit, coming up on what I hope will be the half-way point in my life and my greatest awareness is that tomorrow is an illusion. All we really have is this moment, this brief flash in the light. The only question I need ask myself is how do I live now.

Planning for the future, picturing events, people, and things in years to come is all fine, but I should hold on loosely to that vision. Just as the more fluid architecture in Chile prevented great suffering, I think if I'd had a more fluid attachment to David I wouldn't be as ripped apart right now. If I'd been more aware of the temporary nature of life and the eternal nature of love I would have been able to absorb the shock of his going and not feel as separated from him.

For now, I just need to sit down, be quiet, catch my breath, and let the dust settle. Then, after the shock has worn off, I'll be able to get my bearings.

xxoo

Spring Broke

There's a release in brokenness. There's a relief, a giving over, a shifting of weight. We can then seek healing.

Today I met the young man who is now the proud owner of David's heart. He is adorable and I am at peace, but weary from it all. I've had a lavender salt bath, compliments of Brenda, and I'm going to bed. More later.

xxoo

Spring Break and Healing

I haven't cried since Friday before last. I wasn't even home from work that day before I started feeling anxious and jumpy. I totally overreacted when I couldn't track Grace down by early evening. I was clearly off-kilter, and felt my own wild-eyed-ness. I cried with panic, then sobbed angry about the ridiculous panic, then I cried with shame for crying so long. My eyes were still messed up on Monday; the old skin doesn't spring back like it used to.

But that day passed, and two more weeks since. In the meantime I've been communicating with the recipient of David's heart. We've texted and emailed and talked on the phone once. Next Sunday we are planning to meet at In Celebration and Remembrance at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. I'm trying to hold my expectations for that day with an open, yielded hand.

I've made it through the school year to Spring Break. For the first time in my life, I've planned a trip to visit a slew of family and friends. I will visit with six first cousins, at least six second cousins, and many other kinda-like-cousins, some of whom were among the hundreds at David's memorial service. Some drove hundreds of miles just to give me a hug and remind me that they were my family. I hadn't seem some of them in decades.

One woman I hope to see is my "Aunt" Lynne. She's married to "Uncle" Fats and they have four kids, none too far from me in age. I will be staying with Susan, which is a little ironic, because it was her brothers I knew better growing up. Susan has three older brothers; I was closest in age to the middle brother. He was in my grade at school from the sixth grade until the eleventh grade and we lived a few blocks down the street from each other. Uncle Fats was a close friend of my father's, like a brother.

This family lived a life that seemed idyllic to me as a child. I'm sure they had their family problems, but I don't think I ever heard Uncle Fats say a harsh word. I'm sure I've never heard Aunt Lynne speak with anything but pride about her family. In fact, I remember hearing my dad ask her to please take a night off from talking about her kids. They were like a white Huckstable family (The Cosby Show), with a little dash of Family Guy thrown in - just to keep it interesting. Aunt Lynne has a Boston accent, though she hasn't lived there for more than fifty years.

About four years ago Susan's husband died suddenly at work from a massive heart attack. He left her with four young sons. When Susan looked me in the eye after David's memorial, I instantly remembered. I had bought a sympathy card for her but couldn't mail it. I remember thinking it seemed so shallow to send words in a clean white envelope, as if that could help. I never sent the card and I've felt guilty ever since.When I confessed my regret to her, Susan told me she's never been able to open the first card, so never knew. Why do I still spend time and energy worrying about insignificant crap?

Oh well, one foot in front of the other. Now it's time for bed.

xxoo

Mercy Enough

The urns were delivered Wednesday night and they are beautiful. Solid cherry, with hand carved celtic letters and knots. Each has two compartments: one for the remains and one for keepsakes. Many thanks to Wood Creations for their lovely gifts of time and talent, helping us to honor David and his remains.

Mark, Catharine, and Stephen came over late last night to see them and we talked into the wee hours. The boys told stories I'd never heard before and we cried and talked about how lucky we are to have each other and to know that David had a good relationship with each of his family members when he died. None of us has regrets or has to say, "I wish we'd made up after that fight," or "I sure hope he knew how much I loved him", or anything like that. We were all at peace with David. What a blessing. So many people suffer regrets that make bereavement more difficult and tormented when a sudden loss of a loved one is accompanied by unfinished business in their relationships. Mark was the one last night to remind me of this and it really was comfort for the day. He said, "Mom, do you realize how lucky we are?" He's right. We also talked about how David is now free from his demons. God gave David the miraculous healing he needed most. It's going to be a long time before we are with David again, but now he is free.

And he can see everything clearly that we can't, and he's in a place where he can look out for us. Stephen was talking the other day about how he often feels David close to him. Sometimes he is sure David is trying to let him know he's close- little things that David would know would be meaningful to Stephen, things that happen in just such a way...

So today I took the urns to the crematory and they transferred D's remains for me. I was able to do that with surprisingly little emotion.

Then this evening I got an email from the man who received David's heart. It was a sweet, to the point message, and he wants to meet our family. I had asked God for this.

I've made it through another week. There have been tears and smiles, reasons to be grateful, and to give thanks. There's been enough mercy.

One Winter Down

I was glad to have the record-breaking snowfalls. It gave me the much-needed excuse to stay cloistered. I wanted the world to just stop and it seemed to for a while. We were blanketed in a clean, quiet whiteness that said, "Hush, just hush and heal." I don't know how much healing happened in two weeks, when I'm fairly sure this is a wound that will cripple me for the rest of my life, but at least I had time to be quiet and not have to go out amongst the "normal".

But now we are headed back toward the equinox. It's less than two weeks away. The warmth of the sun is therapeutic- I even cleared a new plot for a garden. It's about 15' by 25', maybe a little larger. Added to what I had last year, in little plots here and there, I should have enough room for corn and beans this year, in addition to the tomatoes, peppers, and squash I put in last year. Grace is saying she wants watermelon, but she's forgetting she'll be gone when the watermelon would come in- late July or August. Yes, I should definitely put in lots (especially tomatoes) to keep me busy freezing in late summer when I'm dealing with another "loss"- my GracieBoo leaving me. She'll be going to basic training after graduation, then DLI in Monterey, CA. I'll see her twice in two years, unless I fly out to her.

I had a counselor once who told me that the world is made up of two kinds of folk: ones who can change and ones who can't. I guess I've always thought I was the former, but I think anyone would be changed by a blow like losing a child, regardless of who or what kind of folk you were before. It's like I'm a lump of clay and the potter didn't really like the first shape I took, and now I've been "thrown" again. Picked up, squashed, and slammed back down on the wheel. I'm spinning, still without shape, aching with the forces being applied. I'd just like to go back to the way it was before. I just want my old shape, my old life, my boy back.

For the first time in my life I am knowingly selfish without apology. It's not as if I am being selfish and could be otherwise, as if I knew better and could change my mood after sufficient guilt. No, I'm selfish because it's a base, gut-level feeling that is undeniable and pure. I just want my boy back. I don't care about anything else. I don't care about the spiritual growth that I may have as a result of this experience. I don't care about the sovereignty of God. I don't care that many other mothers have lost their beloved boys- in war, in accidents, to suicide, to disease. I just want MY boy back. I don't care that David's organs have already been accepted in four other men and that they are going on with their lives and families, that they are healing and going on with their dreams and plans and loves. I just want my boy back.

They say that floods of memories, solicited and not, will come for years, and will be triggers for tears and smiles. The ones I am hit with most often are like bludgeoning tools. I'm in the hospital, beside his bed, the paralytic has been taken off and it's my only chance to "wake" him. They've already told us it's time to let him go and we've acquiesced. It's God's last chance to give us the miracle. I'm slapping David's cheeks, yelling at him, "David, wake up! Can you hear me, Son? Sweetheart, if you can hear me move your eyes. David, squeeze my hand, Son. Look at me Darlin'. Can you hear me, Sweetie? David! David! Look at me, Son! Darlin'! Are you in there? Son!? Oh, God, am I doing the right thing to let you go? Oh, God!" It was the most agonizing, time-warped experience of my life. And I revisit it many times a day.

I wonder if David could hear me. Did he want to respond? Did he try to but was paralyzed? Was he in agony with the pressure in his brain? Was he terrified? Did he feel abandoned by his mom? Did he feel alone? Was he in the dark? Was he trying to scream? Did he hear me when I said soflty, through my weeping, "Okay Son, I'm going to let you go." Did he try to say, "No Mom! Please don't leave me! Don't give up on me!"

When will these questions have answers? Will I be reduced to nothing more than a shell from the energy spent wondering? In the end, will I become the butterfly or the empty chrysalis?

Cocoon

I don't have words for how I'm changing. Hopefully I will emerge with wings.

A Real Winter

A foot of snow, at least! And it's still coming down. Yay. Hot cocoa, the wood stove, and finally, a long, hard cry. But not before a good breakfast and a game of RISK. After my cry a hot shower helped me get composed again, but I'm still feeling the after-shock of it, I'm wanting to shout out, "Tell everyone that you love them, damn it! Don't you realize we could drop dead any minute?!?"

It's cold out there. We don't often get blizzards, but I think today's conditions in central Virginia might have met the definition. Everything has that cold, bluish brightness; it snowed for a couple of hours with tiny little flakes whirling in the air so thick I could barely see the houses across the street. I shiver just to look out the window, but I stare at it; it's so unusual and at the same time utterly common, water falling from the sky.

I'm enjoying the stories and jokes and the encouragement from ya'll. Thanks.
xxoo

I mailed the letters to the recipients of David's organs today. LifeNet health will get them, read them for appropriateness, then forward them to the men who are living with David's organs. I hope they will find my letters interesting; I was able to give a littel information about David and our family. I hope they will want to meet us. I hope to give them each a hug and hear about how David's gifts have helped them.

The man at LifeNet Health said that most often recipients choose not to meet, for many reasons, chiefly a thing called survivor guilt. I hope this is not what happens with our recipients. I hope they feel fortunate, yes, but not guilty, I hope they understand that knowing David's organs have helped them makes it easier for us to bear losing him. We want to know that David's life mattered in a way that will go on and on. With his big heart beating inside a man who works with needy children, I know he is still making a difference. This helps me.

I still haven't cried since Sunday. I feel like there's something rising in my throat and chest area- like a tightness building up, warning me that this calm isn't going to last forever. I was talking to Heather and she said that when she lost her husband so young and suddenly she would also experience the sudden, seemingly unsolicited waves of shocking grief. She calls it the "Mack truck effect" because it feels like you've been hit by one. I know it's coming; I can hear the rumbling of it, but for now, I'm able to focus on grades, the new semester coming, the snow we're going to get this weekend, chores, and other regular every-day stuff.

Someone asked if I feel guilty, like I've dishonored David's memory and loss, in the moments I am happy or laugh with my friends. The answer is no. I feel guilty when I'm not happy and enjoying laughter. I'm sure David wants me to know that he is still looking after us and wants us to carry on, tough as it is, with a resilient spirit. If I can still laugh with friends, this will be the best way for me to honor David's memory.

So dear Friends, if ya'll want to help me laugh, have at it. Email me some jokes or funny true stories from your life (kfetty@comcast.net), call me and come over for a beer; please don't be afraid to help me have fun. I need it! That's what David would want me to do... with all my spare time...hahaha.

xxoo

Okay, so I just wrote the letter to the recipients. We'll see what happens with that. It was harder to do than I thought, though not emotionally, just practically. It was hard to make it a letter to "anyman"

In the meantime I'm getting a little reprieve from the heaviness of the past two weeks. Maybe it's the hope for snow, I don't know, but I haven't cried since Sunday. I'm thankful to be able to smile at my colleagues for a change.

Grace is busy these days with admissions offices, scholarship interviews, and even recruiters! I don't even want to think about the empty nest. Yikes. Not going there.

I think I'll go to bed.

xxoo

This One Point

I am aware of repeating waves of emotional extremes. Often I feel panicked. I want to run and hide, to another country maybe; I even checked the expiration date on my passport- almost as if this reality might be escaped if I could just do something- quick enough. Then other times I feel a quiet peace, almost hopefulness, in an awareness that since I must create a new construct for the future, I might as well create a cool positive one.

What an outrageous set of extreme emotions in one day. From stumbling and crying and snotting through wood-hauling, in my now-familiar stunned state (it's the way I am when a dose of the reality prescription hits me), crying great streams of tears and wailing embarrassingly, bent over in the back yard, to the breathtakingly sweet moments I spent watching Stephen tenderly care for and play with his little girl at his house (while the Saints won the NFC championship in overtime.)

I have lost a treasure and I will not be comforted this loss. But I also still have treasures. I have friends and family who give and pray and share and work and who are bright and generous and creative and loving and fun. I have a job that allows me to hang out with eleven and twelve year-olds and teach them science all day. How cool is that?

I have a warm house and the ground under it doesn't shake. There are no bombs falling in my town. I am not hungry. Of all the women in the world, I am one of the fortunate ones.

Dear God, please remind me of my blessings when my eyes open in a few hours, on a Monday dawn, and my heart's ache begs to stay in bed with a box of tissues.

xxoo

Dear Friends,

If you are still out there, please continue to pray for me. Most of the time now I just want to run away and hide. Perhaps it is a natural phase of grief or my imagination, but I get the feeling that people think I should be "over it" by now and are annoyed by my continuing sadness. Some people won't look me in the eye anymore, like they've lost respect for me. I know I'm never going to get over this, so everyone will be disgusted by me eventually, I guess. I wish I could disappear. I wish I could stop waking up. Morning is just a time to figure out how to cope with a walking nightmare for another day, to figure out how to pretend there's not a knife in my heart, so I won't make everyone else uncomfortable.

The other challenges of life: paying bills, keeping up with home-improvements, dealing with the boss, etc., are just too much. It seems like the universe is trying to snuff me out. The IRS is coming after me unjustly, the mortgage company is threatening to foreclose justly, Grace is applying to college and I can't even give her the application fees (it's somehow wrong that TEACHERS can't send their own kids to college, isn't it?) I feel guilty that I'm not more help to my other kids now. It even seems like they are avoiding me. Do they think I don't love them as much as I love David, since I'm so preoccupied with losing him? I should be able to help them cope right now, but I'm too sad and they seem to wish I would just stay away from them. They don't even want to talk to me lately.

People say God will never give you more than you can handle. I used to believe that. I used to believe it was my guarantee that I'd never lose a child. Obviously, I was wrong. Maybe I don't understand anything about God. Maybe what I thought I understood was all a fabrication of my own ego and imagination. Maybe God willingly gives some people more than they can handle. Lot's of people lose their minds with pain and anguish, don't they? Maybe He's made it so that I will "handle it", as in, it won't physically kill me, even though it would be easier for me if it did. Maybe He just makes some of His children suffer so others will be grateful it's not them and praise Him. Whatever. I just know that I don't really know anything and was a fool to think I ever did. Maybe God's just showing me how ignorant I am and is punishing me for ever thinking I knew Him at all.

Dead of Winter

The solstice may be the shortest day of the year, but it's not the darkest day of winter. For me, winter's at its bleakest sometime around the middle of January. The holidays are spent and spring is still too far away. The maples aren't even thinking pink yet.

We've gotten off light here in Virginia the last couple of years, but this year we got an arctic blast, after all the storminess of November and December. It seems the very atmosphere is upset, right along with me.

The ground was saturated when the freeze came, so now the top few inches of earth have been crunched up with the expansion of the water. Geologists have a name for it (it escapes me at the moment) but when spring comes with her heavy rains, there will be a fresh load of sediment in the streams; ancient bits of rock and organic matter will be loosed and finally get to travel again. I expect it will be easy to put the garden in. But for now, I'll dream of tomatoes and peppers and expanding the garden with new vegies for Jordan, and I'll stack fire wood.

I've been avoiding this journal and Facebook and even personal email for a couple of weeks. I've tried to focus on school and the long-neglected chores of home. David's absence follows me around, no matter what I'm doing or where I am. It's funny; when he was alive, we'd often go for a couple of weeks without talking to or seeing each other and I wouldn't be bothered or miss him too terribly much. But now, knowing I won't see him again until my own death, I can't stop thinking about him.

My ADD doesn't help. I'm in the middle of class explaining how the sun makes Pacific Ocean water into Virginia snow, and without warning I see David playing in the snow. Like moving with a broken bone, I'm suddenly caught by the pain. I tell myself to save the memory for later, I swallow, breathe, and go on with the lesson.

I remember the picture I took of the three oldest boys - still little- about two, three, and four years old, the three of them piled up on a sled, with David on the bottom, then Mark, and Stephen on top, all bundled up, red faces and bright eyes shining out from under their caps, tolerating Mom staging the shot, deliriously happy with the new joy of snow and sledding. I'm sure this was a day the wood stove was kept stoked, play clothes tumbled continously in the dryer, and cocoa steamed in little cups, making little brown mustaches stretch wide above all-day smiles. I remember Papa had come outside to play with us, explaining the how-to's of winter fun the old-fashioned way; he pulled the boys on the sled behind the tractor. I can still hear them all laughing. It was Utopia.

So, by God's grace this kind of joy is ahead for Stephen and Jessica, and my other children as well. The deposit they will pay - that any parent pays, is the certainty that days of sledding with little ones will fade into memory, a definition of bittersweet, an image and a scent in the vapor of life. No matter how brightly an event is burned into a mind, it will be only there, trapped, if one is lucky, in electrically triggered brain cells, until the body is left behind. I wonder; may we take our memories with us when we go? I hope so. I hope David can revisit these happy days of his childhood. If I close my eyes, I can be there with him.

xxoo

New Year

So we have a new year and a new decade, a new direction for our economy too- or so the analysts predict. There's a new reality for our family and for us, as individuals. I think of resolutions.

My grief has been often accompanied by a constantly heavy heart, an emotionally weighty thing that must be toted from place to place, with no escaping it. Well, truth be told, that weight isn't just emotional. It's chemical. It's more potential energy waiting to be burned, waiting right there between my chin and my knees. Meanwhile, my jeans don't fit and I won't buy new ones because I don't think I deserve them.

So if anyone needs a resolution, it's me. I need to set a fresh course, line up my sight with points ahead, ones of my own choosing. I need a strategy for living through the next two years and making it a time of growth instead of decay. What would David have me do? If David has an enhanced perspective now (I believe he does) what would he advise me to do with my new year?

One piece of grieving advice that is consistent is that we should continue to talk to the one who has died. So while we were all at the beach, and David seemed so close, I asked him, "What should I do with myself now, Son? How am I going to get through living all these years ahead with this huge whole in my life and heart? " Then I just opened my mind for what David would say. He said, "Take care of yourself, Mom. Do what's best for you. Don't let sadness pull you down. Keep living and enjoying life and don't worry, I'll be around. I'll check on you from time to time, like always. We'll be together again before you know it."

"Okay, Son. I will. Love you."

"Love you too, Mom."

While we were all together at the beach house I would sit on the sofa and close my eyes and listen to a game at the table, a conversation, or the sweet, high-pitched squeals and coos of the baby. I watched Mark and Stephen working in the kitchen, preparing a feast of fresh calamari, rockfish, and trout. It was great.

This morning I walked with my friend Jan. She's another one whom I can be away from for many months, and then when we talk again it is as if we were never apart.

I am so fortunate.

Dear God, thank you for so many blessings. Help me to better care for myself. Help me to not be too sad, but to enjoy life to its fullest, one moment at a time. Amen xxoo