Playin' in the Mud

This was a 5k last weekend I did with my sisters and we ran around a cornfield and trudged through mid and jumped or climbed over obstacles. It was so much fun! I did everything but total submersion in the mud puddles--like a kid. Made me miss my kids actually--like they ever woulda thought their mom would do something like this. They just rolled their eyes at the pictures. I think they were jealous.

Perfect

With Taylor's new song I have stumbled upon this blog and am at a loss for words.  Maya lost her little one just days before his fourth birthday to a terrible cancer, neuroblastoma.  I can't imagine the pain she is going through. I can try, and I have a strong base of how she is hurting, but not exactly.  As time keeps passing, I find myself struggling to picture Chase, what he looks like.  I can see him running around, but I can never get an exact picture of his face and I find myself wishing I had this.  Yet when we lost Chase, there was a part of me that told myself the pain would have been so much greater if we had had to let him go later.  Now I feel robbed.  Cheated.  I never got to see what my baby would look like as a toddler and that's what I miss right now.  I yearn for his features.  I can see his body amidst us...but I can't detail in my mind his cheeks and nose and hairline and those things that make him similar to and different from his siblings.  And I really miss that right now.

Maya is over a year in her journey and is now expecting another little one whom they weren't originally planning on until they lost Ronan.  And she is very busy with the foundation they have created in Ronan's name to honor him and to help other children with this disease.  In one of her posts, she mentioned her perfect world before Ronan's cancer was diagnosed and of course she got a comment from someone criticizing her for having a vision of a "perfect" because this person claimed there was no such thing.  So Maya has the most perfect response to that and it resonated with me because it is the way that I felt when we were pregnant with Chase.  Financially we were far from perfect but life, as we knew it, was perfect.  This is how Maya explains it and I couldn't agree more.

 "Perfection is real, perfection can have many different meanings. Perfection to me means not taking a thing for granted and living with the most love in your heart that you are capable of. It means stopping at nothing to get it until your heart is fulfilled ..."

Maya Thompson, Ronan's mom

Thank you, Maya, for sharing this and for sharing your most beautiful little boy with us, too.  My heart goes out to you and your family.

Emotions

It's a big day for us.  Patric and I are working--busiest weekend of the year for us.  We left the three older ones behind and brought Owen and I know Chase is here with us, too.  And it's tough.  Every year we have had done this, by Wednesday of this week, our family is tired.  Tired of being apart.  It's taxing on us, every year.  And only the last two years have actually been so much apart that we've been in different states.  Before that, we were apart being us at work and them at the house just minutes away.  Didn't matter.  It was still apart and they were ready, as were we, for this week to be over and get back to our normal regimen.  So being in different states makes it especially hard.   Three more days and we get a little bit of it back...then another day and we've got it.  But I miss 'em.  So bad.  I have had the extreme blessing of always being home with my kids, just as they have been extremely blessed to stay home with me so we've been lucky.  I know that.

But it doesn't mean the emotions are not running high.  And then sister drama on top of it.  Not the time to get into it.  I just want my kids back.  I want them in my arms.  I feel like a mama bear who can't get to her cubs and I want to cry out.  I don't need to fight.  I just want 'em back.  I just wish I could get my sweet boy back that easy, too.

Things I love...

The sound of pitter-patter feet running through the house....one of my favorite sounds in the whole wide word. Of.All.Time.

Telling my 18-month-old rainbow "No" and he says, "peeeeze".  Oh my god.  One of the cutest things EVer.

The sound of blaring music from my teen and pre-teen daughters' rooms and them singing into the mic with all their heart.  Affirms my decision to let them sing at Chase's funeral.  I'll never regret that.

Popping in on my 10-year-old daughter before bed and sittting on her bed while she tells me a story or something about school or just whatever is on her mind.  I love that.

Lying on the floor...on our tummies...looking at a book, or playing a game.  Together.

Smelling a new fragrance and my kids giving their opinions.  Especially in Bath & Body Works or the fabric softener isle of the grocery store.

Maple almond butter.

Sassy looks and surprise faces and eye-rolling.

Picking up my 12-year-old from school and hearing her talk about her day....before her brother and sister join in on the madness when we pick them up.

Owen coming over for me to kiss his boo-boos.

Looking down at his little arms reaching up to me to pick him up.

...That I'm the most important girl in my 7-year-old boy's world right now.

Staying home.

Listening and watching my kids play with each other.

Seeing or hearing or smelling something for the first time with Owen.

...That I am Chase's mommy, too.  And that I can see him running around with these guys, in the middle of our chaos.  Some days I really can.

These are all now.  This is what life is for me right now.  And there are some days that I catch myself and time stops.  Just for a moment.  And I realize that these things won't be my life forever.  And right before I'm ready to yell, "no more running in the house!" I stop and listen and really listen to the sound. Because it's loud and it's obnoxious and I could certainly use some peace and quiet but I know that one day, I'll miss this.  I don't have time for it and there are things I need to get done, but it'll be over soon and I'll wish I had these reasons for not accomplishing simple tasks.  Distractions...I love these distractions and I live in them.  And are they distractions or merely what I am really supposed to be doing.  Because these are way more important than an empty dishwasher or a clean kitchen or folded laundry.

I am very very blessed.  And I love these things...and miss my little boy with eternal heartache as much as I love this life I am living.

I can't imagine....

As anyone who has lost a baby knows, not a day goes by that I don't think of my little one flying above us.  I think of him hundreds of times a day.  Some thoughts are triggered by things I see, a little boy his age or a rainbow.   Some thoughts just pop into my head randomly, sometimes about the trauma that occurred during his birth, sometimes the image that is burned into my brain of him when I saw him in the NICU the first time, sometimes what I would imagine him looking like now or his personalities.  And then there are the thoughts that are melded together with Owen that I think of each and every day. Each time I change a diaper, each time I snuggle with him in bed, each time I lay him down or pick him up or read a book or go on a bike ride, the list goes on.  Just simply holding him in my arms.....I think of how I longed to do this with Chase so badly.  I used to hate changing poopy diapers or cleaning up spit up.  Then I lost Chase and I wished so dearly the privilege to do even these dirty jobs, but things I would never do with Chase.  I snuggled in with Owen this morning when he woke up and the feel of his arms around my neck, his hand on my cheek, his fingers in my hair.....I just breathe it in.  I am so thankful for this and to be able to do this with Owen.  I can't imagine my life if we hadn't had our rainbow baby.  I can't imagine having this taken away with Chase and then on top of that never having the chance to do it again with another child.   There is an astounding sadness in this thought for me....even though I thought I had gotten to a point before I became pregnant with Owen that if we didn't have any more kids, I was fine with it.  I just can't imagine that anymore...

Having Owen has helped me heal in so many ways.  It does not, nor will it ever, take away the pain of losing Chase and not being able to enjoy these moments with him because in reality, when I'm holding Owen, I'm thinking how Chase would be laying here with us, not that I'm doing this with Owen instead of Chase.  But it does certainly numb the pain a great deal of the time.  The scar is still there.  A scar from a wound that shattered my soul.  A wound that changed who I am.  Having Owen to love and hug and kiss and hold, has helped in so many ways continue to shape this part of me.  I am so lucky to have this.  I can feel this in the depths of my soul, as well.  I am so incredibly lucky to be able to pick up my son and carry him around on my hip and kiss him and play with him and do all the things that I do with him.  I am so incredibly blessed.  And I am grateful.  And thankful.  And fortunate.  There are not enough words in the dictionary to describe this feeling I have when I hold my rainbow.  And I could not imagine my life without him.