Giveaway Winners

Sorry it has taken me so long to post the winners this morning.  Thank you to everyone who entered and thank you for leaving sharing those things that are important to you.  Many gave me ideas for things I would like to have or create.  I also met many new BLM friends and read their stories that I had not come across yet.  For me, this is the one of the biggest reasons for participating in this project and though I am sad for all of us even being part of this community, it is always nice to meet someone new that you can relate to and who understands your feeling, thoughts, worries, etc.  Right?  Thank you again, sweet Tina for creating this opportunity for us all.  The network you have started and nurture is priceless to us!

Now for the winners.....

The random number generator chose the numbers and they are.......#18 &  #6.  Congratulations to Teresa Farmer and The Zoo!  My email is on my profile page.  Contact me and I will get you your coupon codes! Thanks to all, again, for entering and sharing your stories with me.

Don't forget to check out today's giveaway on Tina's blog!

Judging Grief

What I am about to say is not intended to touch everyone. It is not going to be understood by most. And by all means, I am not trying to change or fix anyone. I am purely and genuinely going to vent.

I don't understand the way people react to someone's grief. I have read about, been told it would happen and seen people react to me in very peculiar ways. Specifically, people have left my side and no longer fill the role of a friend.

I know someone who's son, years ago, was killed just days before his college graduation. My heart went out to her. She was not a close friend, but a friend indeed and I didn't know what to do for her. She was surrounded by so many who loved her and had so much support, or so it looked from the outside. I felt so bad for her and wanted badly to reach out to her. I had been told that a couple months after a tragedy is when people generally find themselves alone as their family goes back home and everyone goes on with their lives. So I wrote in my day planner on the day 2 months from her tragedy to send her a card and I did so. I saw her a few months later and asked her how she was doing and was surprised how much she shared with me. At the time, I did not know how to handle her grief. Now I do. Now I know and understand how much she wanted to talk about her son to me, a distant friend. But one thing I didn't do, was judge her.

Before Chase died, I could have never imagined the pain she went through and how it would guide her every day. How that pain would override every thought, every emotion, every feeling, every thing she did in her life. So I never judged her actions, her choices, her weight loss, her weight gain, her change in appearance, her behavior. After the loss she had endured, any of those things were destined to be affected or change and change again and my heart continued to ache for her. This was the outsider's point of view of grief that I had.

Now, having lost my own child, and having endured the pain of this and learning to live with it every day of my life, I don't understand why I am judged. "Chase died and then she just quit talking to me." In my head, I can just hear these comments. "She got mad at me because I'm still friends with her doctor's friend's sister's husband's cousin's neighbor's uncle. How insane is that? Like they had anything to do with it."

I can't explain my feelings. I can't tell you why I feel the way I do or why I do the things I do or why I say some of the things I say. I'm hurting. Inside. Always. And the anger side of grief will sometimes guide me to do things that I could not ever expect you to understand. Unless your child had died, too. Think of it this way, and then try to justify the way you feel. Try to explain it to someone why you can't stand to be around someone who is 6 degrees of separation away from the person who is responsible for your son's death. Sounds crazy, I know.

The "funeral home guy" told me that his very close friends lost a teenage son and because of the whole funeral and burial thing, his grieving friends quit talking to he and his wife. He acknowledged that they probably equated the death of their son to them but he didn't know why they quit talking to them--they had been such close friends. My reaction to that was, "Don't judge them". No, you didn't cause the death of their son, but you remind them so vividly of those particular moments following their tragedy that I don't blame them. I don't know why we act this way, but I completely understand. It's unfortunate and, sadly, I can totally relate. I, personally, wanted to jump in a hole--to hide from everyone, everything. All the while feeling like I was living in a glass house. Maybe it was my own insecurities, my shattered faith, my pain, but I didn't want to see anyone I knew....except for my closest friends.

To date, however, nearly all of those closest friends are gone. Most have left my side. Some made choices. Choices I could not accept. For reasons I cannot explain. So I remain misunderstood, misjudged. As if it matters. Because I am much better off than I was, all things considered. There are new friends in place. Some closer old friends. And I am starting over, the new me. I'm not going to say improved, but I will call myself real. I see things with people so much more clearly than I ever had. My family, though the most important thing in my life before Chase died, is the center of my universe. And I love them with every breath I take.

A quote worth reading

My baby sister (she's not a baby anymore, trust me) sent me an email with a quote in it that I couldn't post to my blog quick enough. I have written about (here) and certainly read a lot about the friendships that quickly or eventually end of those of us who have suffered the losses we have. And what ends the friendships that we had before our losses are the changes that we have gone through and how completely different we become once we begin this journey and the fact that our "old" friends just don't get it, let alone, know how to act around us. When I read this quote, I said, "exACTly" to myself. Because it's those who want and try to fix it for us, or who want so badly to have us go on with our lives and move past the tragedy, who end up leaving us. Let me know what you think:

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
~Henri Nouwen

A good day

I have to write about this because I can't believe how good it made me feel...

Reese had a birthday party to go to so with Patric off on a day hunting trip, the rest of us piled into the car, Karly willing, Emma not-so. I won a very rare dressing fight with Reese when he pulled out from the depths of his dresser a pair of red polyester gym pants (for play) that were about 3 inches too short and a blue Old Navy rash guard (to wear with swim trunks) size 18-24 months. Sorry dude, not this time. After finally getting dressed, he was excited to go.

Anyway, most of the moms at the party are fairly close friends of mine so it was nice to spend the time visiting while the kids all played together. One of the other moms is pregnant, due in four weeks. I know her and have seen her since I had Chase so though I was not expecting to see her today, she is a really sweet person and it was nice to see her and talk preggo with her. I love talking about babies and pregnancies but these days, it has to be in the right or I usually don't open up. Typical pregancy topics came up and we were talking about being pregnant with girls versus being pregnant with boys. She doesn't know the sex (which I love) and so we were giving our "expert advice" on ways we could all tell the sex of our kids in hindsight. In one single statement I made in the group, I felt a warmth and comfort come over me that I haven't felt in a long time. I had made several comments about my pregnancies each time, with my living kids, carefully choosing my words. Then I blurted out something about being pregnant with the girls and then said, "and when I was pregnant with the boys...."

It rolled off my tongue and I absolutely loved saying it. It sounds so silly but it made me feel so good to say that....and be heard....and have it fit in with a normal conversation with everyone else....and pretend. For a split second. That I do have boys.

It's hard. So incredibly hard. To parent an angel baby. And I think where I was coming from with my last post was that I am feeling inadequate in loving my child. I can love him with all my heart until my dying day, which I do. I love him to the ends of this earth, to the moon and back, to all the stars and back. But I can't love him with my kisses. I can't love him with my hugs. I can't love him with my famous mommy touches....a look, a touch, a whisper, an all ecompassing band-aid that fixes every hurt or sadness that ever comes his way. And that is hard. I can't physically love him and I need to so incredibly bad. This is where the mind and the heart absolutely cannot make up for what the body can do. But I'm so glad I got to talk about you today to my friends. I'm so glad I got to share a bit about you and feel like a normal person for a moment. Because you deserve it. And so do I.

I love you Chase.

It is what it is

I have read several blog posts from other baby loss mamas who have lost several friends, friends of many years, and I have thought how crazy and ironic it was that this would happen. But it just takes a tragedy, more specifically a loss, and even more specifically than that, the loss of a child to quickly separate you from the rest. And this weekend, I joined my fellow baby loss family as my circle of IRL "friends" narrowed considerably.

My situation, though, is severly complicated. And I must also add that I use the term "circle" and "friends" lightly because I am not big into "the" social scene or any social scene, for that matter. I wasn't even before Chase died. But the by the nature of what happened to me and my family, my perspective on a lot of things changed. When my perspective changed, so did my friendships and my definition of friendships. And when my definition of friendship changed, so did the number. It got smaller, like many other baby loss mamas who are on my journey.

The complications come from several aspects. A.) I live in a small town. B.) I am pursuing some relentless litigation against my doctor for several things that happened under his care. C.) That doctor was, at one time, one of my closer friends in this town; so much that he is my kids' godparent. and D.) We are in the same "social circle" and have many common friends.

I am blessed for the friends that are not in the same social circle but the friends that made a choice this weekend certainly hurt. I have specifically explained the sordid details of this doctor's actions and behavior that have led me to taking action and I was under the false impression that this was enough "evidence" to lead these friends away, on their own accord, from any socialization with him. I didn't feel it necessary to verbally request this of them because remember.....my son is dead. My healthy, beautiful baby boy is gone and I will never get to see him play with his brother, read me a book, play a soccer game....nothing. His precious life was taken.

So I thought these friends realized this. I thought they understood the magnitude of my loss, or at least a fraction of it. These were not friends that I saw or even talked to every week. But they were friends that I could see and pickup where we left off without skipping a beat. My favorite kind of friend. Some of them have been friends of Patric for over 3 decades. And then I received a text from one saying that since we were planning on coming over, she wanted us to know that my doctor and his family might very well be there. That she didn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable or awkward.

Uncomfortable? Really? Why, because my son is dead and the doctor, your friend is, in my well-stated opinion, responsible for it? Why? Because he knows that we feel this way and our presense would be unsettling? Because our baby, his patient, died and it would make things awkward for him to be in the same social setting? Or is it because we are accusing him of something so absurd and the doctor that they all know and trust (for a total of 4 years now) would never do something like that or act that way; therefore, we must be crazy, looking for someone to blame for our grief?

I have to share a short story to help me understand all this so please bare with me. Patric & I had a very good friend years ago in Florida who is now in the state pen with over 30 counts of convicted rape. When Patric & I knew him, he was a cool guy, a great friend, fun to be around, someone I would have entrusted our kids, had we had any. We received a phone call about 3 years after moving to Ruidoso that our old roommate had been caught on an attempted rape and is being investigated for several rapes throughout the 10 years leading up to that. We were shocked. Not Dave. No way, no how. He would never have hurt anyone. I couldn't believe it. We were in denial. I kept telling myself, at least he didn't kill anyone. But I also thought at the time that if I knew any of victims, I would be forced into reality and I would have more empathy for them because without knowing any of those girls personally, I could not relate and moreover, I could not believe that our very good friend would be capable of something so awful and violent, while we were living with him. How could he lead a double life and we live so close to him and not know it?

So, back to my post..... I can understand, having trusted someone so dearly, how hard it is to believe that something bad has happened. I am not relating the viciousness or the violence of that story to this, but I am trying to understand why some people can go on like nothing ever happened. Where is the accountability? What about the consequences....you know....that which we talk to our kids about practically every day? Just because mistakes happen, doesn't mean you don't have to be accountable for them. Or that you don't have to own up to them. Even if you're a doctor.

And besides, the difference is that they know me. They know us. And yet their friendship with the doctor has not changed, apparently. Where is the empathy for us? All I can sense is them protecting him. This didn't happen to him. It happened to US. In fact, He. Is. What. Happened. I wouldn't normally say I know what I would do in someone else's shoes, but I know in my heart that if this happened to anyone of them, I would have no problem telling this doctor to go take a hike--that he was not invited to my parties, that I will not be coming over to his house, that I would have nothing to do with him because of what happened. That is the kind of support we need. Not tiptoeing around the subject like we are fighting over something trivial. This is about the death of my son. The support I need is that of the undying kind. The I-got-your-back kind of support that we are on your side. Because when people that we have known for years and years and years have to text me with a message that we might not want to come over because so-and-so is going to be there and they wouldn't want things to be uncomfortable for anyone, that tells me that they have completely dismissed Chase. That tells me that they have disregarded the trauma that I went through and they have forgotten and moved on. And so should I. Seriuosly, do you realize you are talking about the death of my son? I know if you really wanted us to come, and you were supporting us, you would have no problem calling the doctor up and telling him that he better not show up. You would warn him that we are going to be there. Not the other way around.

But no, it didn't happen that way. In fact, it all happened via text messages. That's the funny part. And I am guilty. But I wished I woulda twittered instead of texted because the message I sent could have gone to a broader audience. More should have experienced the "fit" I threw. But it's my son who died. Not theirs. And my nightmare continues on. I keep hoping I wake up some day. It is all so unreal.

So my circle is now quite small. It consists of five people and one angel baby (...and a few real friends) And that's all I really need.

August Secret Garden Meeting

The Secret Garden is "...our garden, our secret place to come to. A place to remember our children with those who understand us. It is a place to just be, without worry or fear of not being accepted. " The last Friday of each month questions are posted on the site for those of us who have suffered such grief to think about, write about, read the thoughts of others and post on our own blogs.

If you created a bedroom for your baby tell us what it was like.Did you have it ready for them before they were born?If so how did you cope coming home to it without your baby?Did you pack it all away?What is your baby's room now?If you lost your baby after they had come home what is it like going into there room now?If you are trying to conceive again, or are pregnant again how do you feel about setting up another room before your baby is born?

I was about 27 weeks along when we prepared for our little one. Our master bedroom is pretty big and I had the crib in there when Reese was born and until he turned 3. We moved him into his own room where he finally slept in his own bed (he slept with us most of the time anyway) and when we did this, we put the crib away, figuring we'd get it back out when we needed it again. Only about 8 months passed and, yey!, it was time to get it out again. I had ordered bedding a couple weeks before so I was getting anxious to get it set up. We set up the dresser and crib and actually cleaned our entire bedroom. The kids were excited, I was excited, dad was excited. I had a few onesies and sleepers that I had kept from Reese that I had in the drawers. The kids and I painted canvases that matched the colors from the crib bedding and hung them above the crib. I looked at a glider/rocker but could not make the leap to actually buy it. About a month before I was due, I had started buying and receiving a few outfits and things here and there but I was always insistent upon not over-buying. I had done that in the past and did not want to have an over abundance of things in the drawer. I had even told my friends who threw me a baby shower that I only wanted diapers--I did not need other stuff because if it was a boy, I had it packed away from Reese's things and if it was a girl, I'd want to buy pink things anyway. There was something inside me that did not want to celebrate too early, either. Just because I had 2 (early) miscarriages and I just wasn't sure everything was going to be okay. I just wish I had understood the depth of what I was feeling. I was worried something might go wrong, but I had never considered death and what that was and what it would feel like and what it would mean. It was really strange and this is not the post to bring that up in!

Anyway, yes the room was completely ready. Down to the baby bath and baby lotion. Did I pack it all away.......No.

When I was transfered to Albuquerque (on Wednesday), the community reached out to us like we never expected. So many people were there to do whatever we needed whenever we needed it. To help with our kids, the house, anything. The kids stayed at my MIL's but Thursday we woke up and checked on Chase in teh NICU and I knew only ONE thing for certain: I wanted my kids, my living kids, in my presence, in my arms. I couldn't hold Chase, I needed them to hold to get me through this. I knew not what would happen with Chase, but I knew I needed the kids. Patric agreed and friends arranged to get them to us. The community continued to reach out....flowers, prayers, phone messages, hundreds of texts, even a messenger with money they collected for our expenses. Chase lived until Friday afternoon. News traveled fast and I don't remember exactly when, but Patric's mom told him that some friends had come into our house, stocked the fridge and freezer with food and removed the crib and all baby things. I was speechless. I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what to say. I didn't know anything at this point. I couldn't even grasp what I did know: my baby boy was gone. It took me all of about 10 minutes (really, I have absolutely no concept of time on that Friday afternoon) to decide that having the crib gone was most definitely NOT what I wanted. In fact, I wanted it back and I wanted it back now. To this day, I don't know what was done in my house, but when I walked in Saturday evening, my baby room-slash-master bedroom was exactly as I had left it. I was shocked. I was shocked that my friends would do that, that they would think that was what I wanted. But what impressed me more about my friends, was that they put it back. All of it. Just the way I had it and they did that for me. Out of love, out of friendship, out of compassion. No one knows how they will react when something like this happens to them. And no one knows how they will react when someone dear to them has this happen to them...whether it's a sister, a daughter, a cousin,, a friend. I am not mad that they did what they did. It was something that I don't think I would have done, but I've never been in their shoes. I've never wanted so badly to take away pain and hurt from someone's life that I will do anything to try to help. I am so blessed to have friends that care so much about me and my family. This is something I will never forget.

As for the future, I am planning on leaving the baby stuff out....for a while....I am not ready to put it away. I am not ready to say that I am ready to live without it. I hope and pray that it will be used again one day soon. And that in it will be another one of our little miracles.

Last day of Christmas break

It's movie night at the Pearson household. Kid movie, then parent movie (without kids). That's how it works around here. First things first. We choose our battles around here and some things are not worth the fight. That's okay, though. This time it's Narnia. A movie that's not a cartoon. We can usually handle that.

We have Christmas behind us know and it's time to welcome the new year wholeheartedly. I'm getting the buzz for baby things. Figuring out what I have and don't have to prepare for. Of course, as usual, I'm bothered by a huge archive of pictures for 2008 virtually untouched. Photos are taking a back seat these days, however. Then, as though without remorse, school is upon us Monday. For the kids, I must say homeschool has to be a relief. To know they only have 3 1/2 hours of school work and they're done has got to be a good thing. I'm feeling a cloud over my head, but it's not all bad as at least I get to be with them. If they were in school, I probably wouldn't get much done anyway! This forces me to have a schedule. Maybe not my optimal schedule, but one nonetheless. I truly do cherish every day I spend with them. Even at our worst, I wouldn't trade it. They are all my best friends.