Real Life

I know how hard it is to parent a child in heaven.  But sometimes I forget how hard it is to be a sibling to one.  Last night the kids were at the table doing their homework and Emma brought in a package that had arrived from gramma.  She opened the box and gave everyone their little goodies that gramma had sent.  There was something for everyone....mom, dad, the three of them, and the new baby.  And she was not happy.  After a lot of prying and a couple threats (which I am not proud of), she spilled her feelings to me.  She was upset that gramma had not sent anything for Chase.  She was afraid that Chase was being forgotten and I could see it in her eyes as her tears began to flow, that this terrified her.  She was happy that everyone including the baby had a present in the box, but nothing in there for Chase meant he was forgotten, to her.  I explained to her that I didn't like the idea of buying things all the time for Chase as we have a big collection of memories and keepsakes for him and adding more things to that collection, is not something I wanted to deal with anyway.  She insisted that it didn't have to be a lot, maybe a photo of him or a letter or note to him.  She just wanted recognition of her little brother.  That's all.  Acknowledgement that he is part of our family and always will be even though he isn't here in our presence.  I grabbed her and hugged her and told her that we were not forgetting about him.  I told her we talk about him all the time and we will talk about him to his little brother every time we hold him and play with him and that this was her job, too. She knows that we do that....she told me that whenever her friends at school ask how many there are in her family, she tells them "7: me, Karly, Reese, Chase, the new baby, mom and dad."  She said she doesn't explain what happened to Chase unless they ask.  But she wants to say and hear his name to know that he is remembered by all and is a part of all our lives.  It hurts not to feel this confirmation.  

Since we were having this conversation and I was including the other two in it as well, Reese got a real sad look on his face and said to me, "I really hope we get to bring this baby home, mom."  I told him that we most definitely will and then he said to me with raised up sad eyebrows, "Mom, do you have a different doctor this time?"  I said, "Yes, baby, I do and you are gonna love her.  She is very nice and is taking very good care of me."  To that, he replied, "Good."

Woah.  I looked at each of the kids and my heart felt so incredibly heavy.  I could see and feel their pain, their worry, their fears and I wanted nothing more than to make it all go away.  But I know I can't.  I know that, like me and Patric, through all their excitement for their newest little brother and their anticipation for taking care of him and loving on him, they are scared to the very core that this, too, will be taken away.  It's like we are all standing here, tightening our guts, just waiting for someone to punch us there again.  Because they, too, really just want Chase back.  And it's this sadness and longing that makes the rainbow very hard to see, at times, through the dark and heavy clouds in our sky above us.

Let this be done...

I am ready for this trauma of Karly's accident to be over with. We went back to the dr. on Friday because I was worried about the oozing from her wound. The doc put Karly on some very high dose antibiotics and she has been so bravely drinking the worst smelling medicine I have ever seen. Sunday she was not feeling well and though I was pretty sure it was the antibiotics making her sick, I was paranoid about her wound not being well so after she registered a fever of 102+ at home, I decided we would go back to the ER to have it checked out.

The good news was they liked the wound and said it looked great so they took the stitches out. The bad news was Karly had what looked to be strep. For the love. What else does this kid need to damper her summer? We've been nursing that with double-dose ibu/pain reliever meds when she needs it. Ugh.

Then, like clockwork, Reese comes to me this morning with, "my throat hurts, I don't feel well. I'm going to lay down." Of course. Why would I think no one else would get this?

I'm tired of worrying. When Karly fell and had such a bad cut, I was scared. I felt my kids' mortality so acutely. Once again. Every time they get sick, I have "the worst" looming in the back of my mind because I know what it is like to lose a child. I wish I didn't, but I do, so those thoughts seem to surface whenever someone is ailing. But Karly fell and it happened so quick and it looked so awful and I couldn't believe we were dealing with what we had at hand. And I've been so worried about her arm and it healing that to have another, unrelated infection on top of it....I just don't need this! When Karly got sick I just didn't know what to do. And I was tired of not knowing what to do. I know what that feels like and then losing Chase--I didn't want to feel that way again. I finally broke down that morning with an overload of emotions feeling like a mother who can't take care of her own children. Like a failure. Of the worst kind. I was just tired, mostly, because of lack of sleep, but the burden of worry was making me more fatigued.

And now that Karly is almost halfway through her antibiotics, has her stitches out, and seemingly getting better, I feel another low blow knowing that Reese is coming down with her throat infection now and we are starting to battle this. Same bug, different kid.

I hate it when my kids are sick. Everybody does. Just those of us who know loss, seem to hate it a little bit more, almost on a level of paranoia.

This day

What a day.  And I can't remember a bit of it before 8pm.  I had taken the kids to help with Patric's youth group at the church and we had a great time.  We got back to the church to drop off some kids and mine wanted to run across to the road to the playground.  We were there for no more than 5 minutes.  I saw the kids running around the church on the sidewalk.  And I saw Karly crash and burn, not an unusual site for her.  She immediately got up and all three kids ran toward me and as they got nearer, they were only about 30 yards away to begin with, I could tell Karly was crying.  Then it's all just a rush....They were all talking.  Apparently she fell on some rocks and landed on the metal border that goes around the flower beds.  Karly showed me her arm and where I expected to see a minor scrap was a laceration about 2 cm wide, 8 cm long and down to her....well, I saw raw muscle I know that much.  I didn't think at all I just got the kids in teh car, told the adults were were going to the ER and raced about 200 yards down the street to the hospital.  It looked awful.  I have never seen a wound like that before.  And it was on my kid.  

I was back and forth between hysterically crying and calmly talking to the kids telling them everything was going to be alright.  Emma took care of Reese like a champ and waited with him in the waiting room while KJ and I went into triage.  To make a long story a little bit shorter, she ended up getting 15 stitches and Patric made it to the hospital from work, about 30 miles away, before the stitching started.  After the numbing shots, which were the worst part, but we were there together.  And Chase was there, too.  I could feel it.  Karly and I talked about him the whole time.  She was as scared as I've ever seen her.  She didn't want stitches at all but obviously this cut was leaving her no choice.  She kept telling me she couldn't do this.  She couldn't believe this was happening and she couldn't do this and she wanted to leave.  

But she did it.  With amazing strength and bravery.  She did it because she is a tough little girl who has been through far worse than most kids her age.  She did it because she knew her baby brother was there helping her through it.  I felt him there, too.  She did it because we were there to hold her hand through it and suffer through the pain until she was numb and couldn't feel anything.  And when you face what life throws you, this is what you must do.  She knows this.  She can do anything.  Because when we can't be there to hold her hand, Chase always will be and he has given her more strength than she realizes.  He has for all of us.

This day I feel him.  I am so blessed he is here to help us when we can't physically see or hear him.  He gives us strength we never knew we had.  I love you Chase.  

Best Christmas Present Ever!

Wow--I wanted to blog about this because I have been waiting so long for this to happen. And when it would, I wanted it written down. Unfortunately, like most dreams, I don't have much to write about because I don't remember much of it....except what was most important.

Chase came to me last night. I remember having the dream and then waking up right afterwards and thinking what had just happened. I had such an incredibly warm feeling about the dream and knew it was Chase. I had dreamt about him before, but only his casket or his corpse---nothing that gave me warmth and happiness. But last night, I saw him. Like I said, I don't remember much about the dream but I remember holding him above my head looking up at him and he was just smiling away. His smile was so intriging to me in the dream, I don't know why. How sweet it was, though. I know there was more to the dream because when I woke up afterwards, I remember thinking about it and that it finally came. But then I went back to sleep and didn't think about it again until this morning when I was at the coffee shop with Karly.

We saw a baby come in and I told Karly that the baby was probably Chase's age--which was confirmed after I asked the dad. The baby was born just a couple weeks after Chase actually. So we talked about the baby and Karly asked me if that mom loved that baby as much as she should. Interesting question from a 7-year-old I thought. I asked her why and she said because the baby was crying in the car seat and the mom didn't take him out. I told her I thought the mom looked like a very good mom and sometimes babies cry but that is part of teaching them about patience--even when they are little babies. I laughed and told her that I don't think Chase would have cried very much because while I would have been too busy to pick him up for a moment, either she or Emma would have stepped in and picked him up until I could tend to his needs. I smiled at that thought but Karly cried. I held her hand and she told me how bad she wanted 2 things, well 3 things, she said. "I want to be able to fly (1), and (2) Chase to come back alive and (3), if Chase can't come back alive, I want another baby.

Ditto. All of that. Ditto for me, too, Karly Jo.

Thank you for the visit, sweet boy. You snuck in on me because I thought it would be a long time before I would see you. I love you so much, baby boy. I love you so so much.

She's the Tough One

She's stubborn but she's brave, she's conniving but she's compassionate and she knows more than any 2nd grader should ever have to know. And today, she had the toughest lesson of her life.

Karly was picked for Student of the Week in her class and she had to fill out a poster with things about her to share with her classmates. We took pictures of her pets, our house, she drew her favorite food, wrote her favorite colors, listed her friends, and pasted photos of her aspired jobs. We also had to include a photo of our family. This was our first obstacle with this project and it is one I had not yet been faced with. I had already thought about it, what our family pictures would be--for the rest of our lives. Family pictures would always be difficult for me because no matter what kind of family picture, cousins on my side, cousins on Patric's side, pictures of the kids or a picture of our family, there would always be someone missing. This is a painful reminder that I don't ever see going away. I have a family picture of us in the living room taken just before I got pregnant with Chase and I remember thinking how "full" our lives seemed in that picture and how on earth were we going to handle one more Pearson. Now, when I look at that picture, all I see is what is missing. Our beautiful son, their handsome baby brother. I decided one of the first times looking at that photo after Chase died that I would always be holding him for every family picture from here on out. I would hold his blanket or something physical, something significant that would represent Chase in the photograph. We took a snapshot family photo for Karly's poster yesterday and I wanted Chase in it somehow, whether or not Karly wanted to explain it to her class. I needed Chase in it. So Karly held her Chase blanket in the photo and we left it at that.

Later that night, it was time to get her show-and-tell item(s) that she would be sharing with her classmates as part of the Student of the Week priveleges. She asked what we thought she should take and after a few suggestions of her American Girl doll or a stuffed animal, she disappeared to her bedroom. She returned with her photograph of her holding Chase in the NICU, moments before he died. And she had a smile on her face.

This is the same girl that I warned her teacher the first day of school was not comfortable talking about her baby brother and to please "protect" her for me from any kids that might try to ask her about him. I did not know what to think. On one hand, I was extremely comforted in the fact that she wanted to share him with her classmates. On the other hand, I was so deeply petrified that she would get asked a heartless question about the picture in all it's uneducated eye's gory and she would get hurt. All I want to do is protect her from hurt. And I think at 7 years old, I should be able to do that as her mom. How was I to know how this might unfold? The potential for invited catastrophe was terrifying. I told her to show her dad what she picked. She did and I could Patric was touched. He was proud. I was too. So very proud of her for even thinking about doing this. But I just couldn't bare her getting hurt. The hurt that you just can't take away no matter what because you can't bring back her baby brother to make it all better. After seeing Patric's approving nod to her when he saw the picture, I felt better. I asked her if she was sure she felt comfortable with this and she said, without hesitation, "yes". Where is the rule book on grief and how to handle situations like this with your 7-year-old? Why can't someone just tell me what to do? I feel like I am making decisions that will affect her for life. The way she deals with this now, will affect what she takes with her as a memory of her baby brother forever. Of course all of our decisions have the potential to affect our children's lives but this, this is something parents shouldn't HAVE to deal with.

I walked her to her classroom and had a brief talk with her teacher about what was going on. I also talked to the school counselor and asked for her help, too. Between the both of them, my apprehensive willingness to allow this and Karly's undying strength, the day was a success. She told her class all about herself, her family, her pets and her favorite things. She shared with her entire class her baby brother by showing her picture and talking about him. And, unbeknownst to her at the time, she has a classmate who lost a baby sister and when she shared her story of Chase, he spoke up and shared his baby sister with the class.

I can't tell you how this makes me feel. I can't tell you how proud I am of my little girl. She has always been my tough little girl. But this gives a whole new meaning to the word. She has always been strong, physically. But now, I know she is strong emotionally, too. She has compassion like not very many 2nd graders could ever have, and thankfully so. She sacrificed exposing herself in a way even adults struggle to do, to be able to share her baby brother with the world. And maybe, just maybe, this 7-year-old made another 7-year-old feel comfort in his journey of such undeserving pain and grief. Maybe he knows if Karly can talk about her loss, it might be something he decides he wants to do, too. If not, though, I am so glad that he spoke up. Because I know his mama is just as proud of him as I am Karly.

I am comforted in a way that will last forever. Chase, you are missed little buddy. And you would have been proud of the way your sister showed you off today. Because you are not here, but you are with us. And you always will be. We love you, Maverick. We love you so much.