Three Years

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3 years, afterlife, angel, angelversary, anniversary, beautiful son, boy, brain death, broken, child, comfort, crazy person, cry, death, depressed, depression, drown, drowning, dying, family, Fourth of July, friends, grief, Independence Day

The years, months, weeks, days, hours…just keep piling up and our old friend / foe Time can sneak up and get you sometimes. Lately, it’s felt as if I am finally coming out of shock and I look at the calendar in disbelief. Though I say that every year now, it becomes harshly more true with each passing year. The pain of losing, and coming to terms with life without, Noah is too much to bear all at once. So it comes in cycles and waves; a little at a time. I cling to loved ones in alternating phases of hiding myself away.

Three years ago today, we were struggling to get and keep Noah on life support. Memories of those days in the hospital PICU are blurry and though I try not to dwell on them for too long, it’s more difficult this time of year. It’s difficult and painful to reflect on that time, but I feel like it’s a way of honoring that final phase of his life, much like taking care of Mom during the final weeks of hospice care. Each touch, interaction, spoken and unspoken word is a final and desperate attempt to convey your love for them as they reach the final milestone.

I remember the sterile smell of Noah’s hospital room. His limp hand in mine. Opening his closed eyes so I could see and remember how green they were. Trying to ignore the thick, red tube going from his heart to the ECMO machine that did the work of his organs while they struggled to heal. Laying next to him in the bed and wrapping his arm around me. Taking mental pictures of every tiny nuance of his body: the freckle on his left hand that was similar to mine, the one on his ankle, the swirl of his belly button, ears, head, hair, sweet but swollen face…

I remember giving him a sponge bath, the way I had seen done for Mom in her final weeks. I even had someone bring in his “itchy stuff”: ointment for his eczema. “Maybe he’s itchy,” I thought, “and he can’t tell us.” I went through the whole bath / ointment ritual with him one last time, imagining his predictable responses while carrying on our usual bath-time dialogue. I didn’t care what the nurses or other visitors must have thought: is she crazy? has she totally lost it? I didn’t care what anyone thought. Noah was what mattered and, loud and clear, I heard him in my heart.

I had to be re-assuring and positive when I thought he could hear me nearby. Breakdowns were for the waiting room or outside when I wanted to be alone.

I remember spending the 4th of July in his bed with him watching the fireworks outside his hospital window. Having had the first confirmation of brain death, I knew he probably couldn’t hear me describing them to him, but I couldn’t let go of being his mom just yet. I needed to experience one last special, exciting, fun moment with him and try not to think about all that had happened and what the next few days would bring. I just wanted to tell him about the beautiful pops of orange, purple, blue and all of the shimmering colors as they splashed across the sky, so that he wouldn’t miss them…pretend that there might be something normal about what was happening if only for a few seconds in time.

I know that I can’t re-live or change the past. It’s excruciatingly difficult to look forward when the goals and plans of the past have crumbled around you, taking some of the closest of your loved ones with them. What happened cannot be changed, as awful and unfair as that is. I have no choice but to do my best and try to go forward.

Most children strive towards their parents’ pride and approval: doing well in school, working hard, behaving and doing as they’re told. My goal is to hurry up and do what I’m meant to do in this life so I can finally be greeted by my son, running into my arms as he says, “Good job Mommy!” while my mother looks on with pride.

The little things.

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6 months, afterlife, angel, beautiful son, blessing, boy, broken, child, crazy person, crocodile tears, cry, dead, death, depressed, depression, drown, drowning, dying, grief, Noah

It’s so strange…those little things that trip me up. So little, I never even considered it to be a challenge. But there I was. This is what I wrote about it.

Grief rises in my throat

Creating a hard lump in the back of my mouth

My tongue swells and I can’t align my jaws or my teeth 

Happy families surround me in the waiting room while calm instrumentals play gently familiar songs: 

Every Breath You Take

Don’t Stop Believin’

And I don’t know whether to hear the message in “I’ll be watching you…”

or crushed at the breaths no longer taken.

I dread my admittance to the exam room but not for the reasons most women dread it.

Eventually it will have to be said. When the doctor finally recognizes me and I have to tell the horror story all over again.

Yet another person I have to bare my broken heart to when he asks about the baby he delivered almost ten years ago.

Weak Moments

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angel, beautiful son, blessing, child, comfort, cry, dead, death, dying, grief, grieving, grieving parent, heartbreak, heaven, insight, little boy, loss, loss of a child, love, memories, memory, Mental Health, missing my son, Noah, pain, sad, sadness, son, suffering, tragedy, writing

It’s funny how the mind works. In the early morning hours when the fog of sleep lifts ever so slightly and before the alarm reminds me of the tasks of the day…

Maybe it was Zoe’s short hair that set it off. Maybe it was the shooting at the Jewish Community Center where Noah went to preschool. Maybe it was just completely random. It’s hard to say.

This morning I was only half-awake as I was thinking. I thought of my children and how much I missed seeing Noah. It has been so long since I’ve seen Noah and I couldn’t, for the life of me, figure out why. Where was Noah? I have seen lots of Zoe lately, thank goodness, and always on schedule. But why hadn’t I seen Noah?

Jason must be keeping him, I thought. Why would he do that, though? Why would he share Zoe as planned but not Noah? As I thought harder to solve this mystery, I tried even harder to recall the last time I had seen them together and then something in my brain clicked on like a light switch.

Oh, I realized.

Noah is dead.

Dead. It’s such a harsh word that I have always made it a point of utmost importance to not let myself utter or even THINK that word. The self-protecting reflex on which I had grown so dependent was called upon once again. I tried so hard to collect myself and find an acceptable synonym. But it was too late.

Dead.

There it was. That word. That WORD describing my SON! It suffocated my heart.

With the cloud of sleep still weighing heavy on my body and mind, I could not seem to find a way to appropriately censor and filter my own thoughts, as I do when I am fully awake. Heartbroken and frustrated with myself, I tried to push it all from my head. A trip of conscience while the part of me that knows how to self-soothe was still sleeping. And the harsh truth of everyday language crept in on me like the sun creeping slowly from behind the curtains.

Luckily, I have other tools to fall back on. Tools like denial: making me able to force myself asleep (only sometimes) where I can pretend none of it happened. Just go back to sleep, I told myself. And somehow, my practiced intuition was able to forget the fact that almost two years later, there are still times that I believe Noah is alive. Out there somewhere but being kept from me; just out of reach.

When I realize the harsh truth, it’s as if I’m back in that hospital room again, saying goodbye to my only son as my heart, future, LIFE shatters right before my eyes.

My coping tools have grown strong, but these slip-ups still come. Even though, enduring and strong (strongER?), they live in me and haunt me for days. My head knows that my son is gone. My heart is still learning.

The Things I Cannot Do

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angel, beautiful son, blessing, boy, broken, child, crazy person, cry, dead, death, dying, faith, grief, grieving, heartbreak, insight, little boy, loss, love, memories, memory, Mental Health, Noah, pain, sad, sadness, son, son noah, suffering, tragedy, writing

Almost two years.

TWO.

Two years later. And there are still so many things I cannot do. I still cannot see or be near a swimming pool. I’m a renter now. And sometimes I look at homes for sale. But I somehow cannot bring myself to leave this place where I have landed.

I know that I need a new mattress. But the one that I sleep on now is the same one that I used to “throw” Noah onto and tickle him like crazy. The couch and chair are worn and tattered. But somehow, I cannot replace them. They are the same pieces of furniture on which I held my sweet son! I covered them with old, worn blankets when he was sick…just in case he threw up on them. My washer and dryer served their duties when he was sick or had accidents. So there is no “upgrading” for those items.

I recently invested in new pillows for my own bed and somehow, even that was difficult. The memories of HIM, snuggled up with me in the morning light, watching Sponge Bob Squarepants, still haunts me somehow. The old pillows are in Zoe’s room now…in the hopes that she might want them. Keep them, somehow, as I have for this past year or so. And I think of the brand NEW pillows that I got for him when I got his new big-boy loft bed. The one with the drawers hidden in the staircase leading to the bed, only 16 inches from the ceiling; the bookshelves and desk tucked in underneath like a secret clubhouse. And how I never saw that clubhouse, those drawers…ever again. Not after… I had removed the flower shaped drawer pulls; replaced them with regular knobs. Painted the pink cork board gray. And Noah said…nonchalantly…which was HIS way…how he preferred this color over the bright pink that it used to be. And my mind wanders, trips on the fact that this comment was a mere 2 days before he died. Before his accident. Before I never really saw HIM again.

And there is still so. SO. So. much that I cannot seem to let go of. SO much that I still cannot get past. Maybe someday I will. Maybe Santa Claus and the tooth fairy and the easter bunny and magic really does exist and I will magically find a way. And maybe not. Either way…I am ok with it. Because whatever it all turns out to be or mean…I will always love him. I felt HIM, inside me, the first stirrings of life. And I was there as his last few breaths escaped his little body. He was always – WILL ALWAYS – be a blessing in my life. Regardless of what a mother / son relationship should be, my little boy and my Zoe will always be the light of my life. My gift to the future:

http://www.katsandogz.com/onchildren.html

Love. Just Love. It’s ALL that Matters.

And my love is strong and transcends ALL. Even death.

Choices, Gratitude

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angel, beautiful son, blessing, boy, child, choices, comfort, cry, dead, death, dying, family, friends, grief, grieving, heartbreak, Holiday, hope, insight, little boy, living, living life, loss, love, memories, memory, move on, Noah, smile, son, son noah, suffering, tragedy

The complexity of my internal struggles these past few months has been too tiring to understand, let alone to try to put into words. So, this Christmas I managed to put up a tree, hang stockings and do a little baking. Though I feel less volatile and panicked, I don’t know that I will ever be able to say that I have healed. Which I suppose is to be expected.

Although sometimes it feels like people around me expect me to just “get over it” and “move on,” I try to be kinder than that to myself as I go forward in the best and only way I know how. I manage to get through most days remembering the joy that Noah brought, but there are still times when it all just kind of hits me. And people around me either understand or they don’t. I try to remember that the reactions and actions of others are more about them than they are about me. I have to take care of myself and not worry too much about what others think or say. Noah would want that. He would want me to take good care of myself.

Of course there are several things that are still difficult. I can’t come within a mile or so of the apartment complex where Noah lost his life. I can’t look at swimming pools or anything to do with swimming. I can’t walk past the little boys’ section at department stores. I can’t quite look at all the videos of Noah and Zoe playing together. And Christmas is worse. I still can’t watch Frosty the Snowman or Rudolph. I can’t stand Christmas carols. When I bake, I am still hyper-aware and meticulous about cleaning up any spilled flour, knowing how sick it would make Noah when he “got gluten-ed.”

The memories of Noah are bittersweet as I struggle to come to terms with the fact that this is my life now. He existed. He brought so much love and joy. But there isn’t a single thing I can do to change the past. I will never know why he had to die. I will never stop hurting.

But what I can do is honor him with my life. I can tell his stories. I can look around me and see all the people whose lives are forever changed because of this one little boy. I can laugh when I remember him, just as well as I can cry. I can choose to let go of the anger and anguish and I can choose to remember what he taught me. I can choose to be eternally grateful that I did not lose Zoe – that she is still here, growing, learning and loving.

I can choose gratitude because – after three major losses in my life in only six months’ time – if there is one thing I know, it is that everything can change in the blink of an eye. Nothing lasts and sometimes what you think you have a firm hold of can slip through your fingers before you know what happened. Savor every day. Let the furniture be dusty so that you can play that board game with your kids for the millionth time. Because time is precious.

This may not be the life I had planned. There are always going to be things that I CANNOT choose. All I can do – all any of us can do – is make the right choice right now in this moment. And I choose love. Because that’s one of the things I learned from Noah: if I can live the rest of this life with love as the foundation from which my choices and my life spills forth, I will have managed to truly live.

Noah’s treasures

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I am meeting Noah’s kidney recipient on Saturday and have so much hope and fear around this. Part of my son, the life that formed inside me, the life I nurtured for 7 years, is in this woman. Literally. Stop and think about that for just a minute. Part of Noah is literally living and working inside someone else. I am excited to meet her because I hate that she is a stranger. I need to know who she is – her family, her story. Perhaps I am looking for a reason somewhere: a reason why Noah had to leave this earth. And I know I will not find it in just one place, but I look for the big pieces to give me strength. I know that the moment his consciousness left his body, the focus of energy that made up his potential in this life was dispersed into the far-flung corners of all reality. I wonder if the legacy, the ripples he has created by touching the lives of so many others, is bigger now because his body is gone. Had he lived, would he just be another kid in his class? Another citizen of the world and the universe of billions of beings? Another schmo just trying to make his way in this life?

Of course, I would have rather had him grow up, struggle like the rest of us, be just another face you might see on the street. But that’s just my selfishness asserting itself, because I’m thinking of my own pain. If Noah had the choice, which I believe that on some level he did, he would have wanted to be bigger; to create the biggest possible positive change at whatever the cost. Even if it made Mommy sad, the payoff would be so much bigger. And Mommy would eventually see that.

So, the rest of my life, or at least a part of it, is a kind of treasure hunt. It’s a bunny that sits in the backyard staring at me as I watch him from across the lawn for an hour. It’s a mother, daughter, sister and friend who is now healthy because a part of my son has replenished her very existence. It is all the nurses who so lovingly cared for Noah, then went home to hug and spoil their own children. It is all the tears, the sadness of everyone: Noah’s family, teachers, friends, parents of friends, doctors, nurses, specialists, surgeons, fellow officers, readers / listeners of the story of his life and the transformation that that continually manifests in those people.

It is every time I say his name: Noah Michael Davis. I honor him.

The knowledge that my little boy has created so much positive change in the world in such a small amount of time is so powerful that it’s overwhelming sometimes. I don’t know where to put all of it. The emotions and reactions surrounding this knowledge ebb and flow and fight each other inside of me at all times. I’m proud that he found a way to be such a positive force in so many lives, but I’m angry and miserable that I had to say goodbye to “my baby.” I’m jealous that he has done all of this when, after 36 years on this earth, I am still just trying to begin to understand how I might create what he has so easily accomplished. My humanity and motherhood just wants to hold him again. Watch him grow. But my soul, my heart, knows that he is working and fulfilling his purpose. He’s not gone. Just gone from my sight and my arms. This is another battle that is constantly underway within me. I know the sides that I WANT to win in these little constant wars within but when the guilt starts to bubble up, I hold fast to my Mothers’ Heart and I cannot let him go.

These little battles are what make it so hard to get out of bed some days. To care about paying bills, making dinner, going to work or even just going on with any kind of life can be so difficult. So I try to remember that his soul is still doing it’s work and mine needs to continue in my work, whatever that is or means. And maybe he’s given me the gift of a purpose within all of this. Maybe not. But I cannot ignore the possibility, so I continue searching for Noah’s treasures in the world and within me.

a year in review

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4th of July, angel, anniversary, beautiful son, blessing, boy, broken, child, comfort, crazy person, crocodile tears, cry, daughter, dead, death, family, Fourth of July, friends, grief, grieving, heartbreak, heaven, heaven date, hope, hospital, July 5, Kansas, little boy, loss, love, memories, memory, Mental Health, mom, mother, Noah, one year, Overland Park, pain, pool regulations, regret, remember, remembering, sad, sadness, safety, semi-private pools, Shawnee, Shawnee PD, Shawnee Police Department, smile, son, son noah, suffering, swimming, swimming pool, swimming pool safety, tragedy, writing

I have had trouble writing lately. There just seems to be so much: feelings battling with other feelings, thoughts confronting and shaping beliefs, depression clouds moving in and coloring all of it at times. It’s hard to get any of it into words and these last few months have been more about distraction as a coping tool.

Tomorrow, July 5, will be what some refer to as Noah’s “Heaven Date.” The anniversary of the day he was officially pronounced to have died. But for me, it isn’t really about that specific day, but the process spanning several days that culminated in the finality of my son’s existence. I find myself obsessively reviewing the journal from Noah’s caringbridge website (http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/noahdavis), comparing the dates and times of the updates with the times now. I don’t really know why. Maybe a part of me wants to honor his process; remember with a clearer head what was so traumatic and shocking at the time, that it has become this nightmarish blur; the details of which I strain to recall.

Over this year, this painful alternate reality, I have tried my very best to cope. Desperate for comfort, I have leaned on friends, family and sometimes complete strangers to see me through.

Even without his actual presence tangible beside me, his Spirit, now one with the Universe, reaches across all boundaries:

• The parents I know watch their children like hawks when they go swimming now.
• They would never let their child swim in a pool where it is too dirty to see the bottom.
• When I am missing him most, Noah leaves me little signs like a wild rose on the ground where there are no rose bushes or wild rabbits making a home under my best friend’s porch across the street from me.
• While searching for something else on the day after Mother’s day, I came across a recordable Hallmark card from last Mother’s Day. Opening it, I was delighted and crushed to hear Noah’s bright voice “Happy Mudders Day!”
• I was invited to create a Dia de los Muertos altar in honor of Noah last fall, where I got the opportunity to share Noah’s story with countless others who visited The Mattie Rhodes Center during First Fridays, local school field trips and a beautiful celebration honoring the Day of the Dead.
• I have cultivated a relationship with one of Noah’s kidney recipients and look forward to exchanging information and hopefully meeting her someday. She is a lovely, very grateful woman who needed a very specific match for a successful transplant. Noah’s kidney was her perfect match.
• Chief of Police Larry Larimore, upon learning of Noah’s fondest wish to be a police officer when he grew up, was a catalyst for making Noah’s dream a reality. On August 27, 2012, what would have been Noah’s 7^th birthday, Noah was sworn in as an honorary member of the Shawnee Police Department and awarded the Medal of Valor for the lives he saved through organ donation. (P.S. Watch the full ceremony here but fast forward to about 20:00 to get to the actual ceremony)
• Noah’s story, especially his swearing-in as an honorary Police Officer and awarding of the Medal of Valor, was shared through countless local news stations and newspapers.
• Officer Amanda Pandolfi of the York Regional Police in Ontario, Canada has a photo of Noah posted on the inside of her locker. She says, “I see him every morning when I report for duty and every night before I go home to my own kids.”
• My dear friend Alyson, who happened to be going through a rough patch in her own life, somehow managed to take all the clothes that Noah had at my house and create three beautiful quilts; each one a work of art and loving testament to Noah. Zoe and I cried when we saw them, remembering his favorite shirts, the ones he always tried to wear backwards and the little pockets where he would stash his matchbox cars.
• While in the hospital last year, Zoe made a friendship bracelet for Noah and tied it around his ankle. She made matching bracelets for all the family and friends who visited us and for anyone who wanted one. Noah was cremated wearing it.
• While Zoe and I were in Italy, we were in awe of the beauty and love around us and were accepted immediately as part of Isabella’s family. It wasn’t until my bracelet broke – the one Zoe made to match Noah’s – that I cried. I realized later that it was the longest amount of time that I had gone without crying in over a year and a half.
• Zoe promised to make me another one. 🙂
• After Noah’s accident at the apartment swimming pool, the City of Overland Park, Kansas required them to have a certified Pool Maintenance Technician on staff. (Shouldn’t they all? From what I understand, semi-private swimming pools – apartment pools, hotel pools and the like – are not required to have a swimming pool maintenance specialist on staff.)

I’ve had some changing to do this year also. When I first moved into my new place, it took a long time to come to terms with the fact that this is my life now. Sometimes I still struggle with that.

I had lots of help from co-workers and close friends who moved me from the apartment across from that horrifying swimming pool (which I never had to go back to) to my new home and helped me organize my things. It’s an enormous understatement to say that I had too many loving caretakers around me to count.

Still, I feel like I have yet to “settle in” completely, which I suppose is an expected metaphor for my life. Noah’s toys and books still sit in unopened boxes, too painful to approach for now. Someday when I need him, I will open and savor each little item; slowly, one by one.

For a long time, my new home was more like a shrine. Photos, toys and memorabilia everyplace I looked. It was comforting and I felt like it kept him close to me. But over the last month or so, as this week has crept closer and closer, I’ve had to tuck some things away. It’s just become too sad. I still display his photos here and there along with Zoe’s, his ashes on the bookshelf with his Suzy bunny and the shadowbox with his police badges. I know that no matter how hard it is to accept sometimes, Noah’s Mom is not the only role I have to play in life. I’m Zoe’s Mom too. Ben’s Sister. Dan’s Daughter. Employee. Friend. Confidante. Noah would want me to be the best I can be in these roles and I work to make him proud.

I also feel compelled, on mornings like this one when I feel strong, to create positive change in the world from my loss. Perhaps that means advocating for stricter, more enforceable regulations for semi-private swimming pools, education on pool safety or perhaps matchbox cars for pediatric patients. Maybe all of the above. When I am stronger and the grief-bursts subside a little I will know.

No doubt my grief is raw again now as I look at the calendar disbelieving that it has been a year since I’ve seen Noah, heard his laugh or held his hand. Over the last year, I have struggled to comprehend the traumatic events that I witnessed in rapid succession: his limp body jolted by CPR compressions, his cold blue fingers, toes and lips, the way the oscillator blew up his little body like a balloon because his lungs were too damaged to contain the air pumping into them, watching the team of doctors and surgeons try to revive him during the three times that his heart stopped, the last sponge bath I gave him one year ago today, talking to him and then finally kissing him goodbye that next day.

I have tried very hard to replace these horrific memories with good ones: Christmas mornings, knock-knock jokes, snuggle time, bedtime stories and songs. But recalling the events of “one year ago at this time…” is hard to escape.

I will always struggle. I will always miss Noah. I will always love Noah. Although I can no longer say that I have no regrets in life (the what-if’s can be awful), I can move forward. I can experience joy, laughter and love. I can remember him with a smile. I’m not always strong and I still break down. But I know that it is possible to move forward knowing that his little hand is always on my shoulder.

so it has been a while…

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angel, beautiful son, blessing, boy, broken, Buddhism, buddhist faith, child, comfort, crazy person, crocodile tears, cry, cuky choquette, dead, death, dying, faith, family, friends, god, Gratitude, grief, grieving, heartbreak, heaven, honor, hope, insight, little boy, lomi lomi, loss, love, memore, memories, memory, Mental Health, mom, mother, nichirem, nichiren, Noah, pain, profound grief, religion, sad, sadness, smile, son, son noah, spiritual cleansing, spirituality, suffering, tragedy, writing

…and I really can’t say why. it’s just been a roller coaster.

some days i am my normal self. some days not so much. but lately i have done a lot better than usual. i really have to thank Cuky Choquette-Harvey for the major steps in my recovery from this profound grief. Yes, my Buddhist faith has been a major source of strength. And, no doubt, I have been nothing short of DESPERATE for ANYTHING that might ease the pain or lessen the grief that has become a part of me. But nothing has come close to the relief that has been afforded me through the comfort of Lomi Lomi and through Cuky.

I know. It seems a bit strange: aligning chakras, hot stones, spiritual cleansing and what may seem like voodoo crazy new-age weirdness. But I have to say: it has been the most healing, profound experience of my life. And I have only had two sessions with Cuky. Cuky is not only a Lomi healer; she is an empath. Every visit with her is like a visit with not only my true spirit and self, but a visit with my mother and with my son. She knows things and unlocks things deep inside me that no one but me would know or realize.

So I have been a bit reticent about posting about it here, but that is the truth. I practice Nichiren Buddhism. I believe that my mother and my son are well taken care of in a spiritual realm that I can only dream of. And somehow, some way…this connects me with the absolute that are the loved ones that I so dearly miss. Noah dances in my peripheral vision, my sweet mother whispers in my ear as I go about my daily life. And I realize, yet have always known, their voices whispering in my ear. What they would say, do or think. Those of you who came to visit Noah in the hospital with me know what I mean. A mother knows what her child would say, do or think in any given situation. Just because his body is no longer something we can sense doesn’t mean that intuition is lost.

My cord and my ties to him transcend earthy, tangible metaphors. I live for him; through him. He, and all of those who have transcended their earthly bodies, do not cease to exist. Not really. They continue with us. Through us. And even if Noah was 6 and my mother wasn’t event 60, they continue with us and through us. Not just in our memories and hearts, but for real. Their love; their connection with us is real. Never doubt that. They are always at our sides: loving, laughing, growing with us. It is this that sustains me and keeps me alive in this incarnation at this time. It is this truth – not belief but actual truth and proof – that brings a real comfort to me.

XOXO

not writing

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angel, beautiful son, blessing, boy, cancer, cancer sucks, child, crocodile tears, cry, daughter, dead, death, dreaming, dying, family, grandmother, grief, grieving, heartbreak, heaven, home, little boy, little poem, loss, love, memories, mom, mother, Noah, pain, poem, poetry, sad, sadness, sleep, son, suffering, tragedy, writing

I’ve not been writing at all lately. Mainly because I’m afraid of it. Sometimes it just makes me feel worse to write.

I did, however, pen this little poem after seeing a photo of my lovely daughter, taken when it was all still fresh:

I wake up…

her forehead pressed to my chin

a comfort fleeting

as it all comes rushing back.

I gently break contact

so I can see my features

in her dreaming face.

Her calm breathing

tells me she’s still in that place

still, safe and warm.

Contentedly dreaming

of thick green meadows…

love, laughter, joy.

Where grandmothers bake cookies

and give warm, soft hugs

Instead of losing hair,

strength, legs, mind…

Where little brothers

giggle and play

Instead of silently dying

before her innocent eyes.

And the mother bird in me

realizes the lie

of my own protective powers.

And as her eyelids flutter

like a sparrow’s wings,

it’s time to be strong again…

(another lost cause)

I wrap my arms around her

“Five more minutes, ok…?”

Bunny Rabbits

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The bunny / rabbit significance to me is complex. When I was little and would sit and draw, I always wanted my mother to draw bunnies for me. Later in life, she confessed that she really couldn’t draw, but she did her best when I asked her. She would always try to draw little Beatrix Potter-esque bunnies for me. A couple of years ago when I took her for her chemotherapy, an art therapist came around and invited us to make some art. I was all for it but Mom wasn’t really into it. I begged her to, once again, draw a bunny for me. She obliged me once more…I think my dad has this drawing tucked away someplace.

Noah always loved bunnies. His favorite books, when he was old enough to pick them out, were Pat the Bunny, Runaway Bunny, The Velveteen Rabbit, Guess How Much I Love You and Goodnight Moon; all featuring bunnies. When he was three, we went camping and when Noah and I went on a little nature walk, Noah discovered a nest of baby bunnies. The mother rabbit was close by and I was amazed when she allowed him to get a closer look. Of course I insisted that we keep a good enough distance for him to not touch. Later, Zoe and I went looking for the bunnies again…but we soon discovered that they could only be found when Noah was around.

A little over a year later, during a particularly bitter Missouri winter, I pulled into our driveway after picking up the kids from school, per usual. When I got out of the car, I noticed something scamper into the bushes in front of our house. After looking around a bit, Noah saw that it was a white rabbit! That rabbit greeted us almost every evening when we got home and Noah would leave carrots out on the front porch for him.

Noah also loved Zoe’s Webkinz stuffed animals and “borrowed” them from her, often giving them new names! So when I was out shopping one day and saw one that was a white bunny, I had to get it for him. Suzy the bunny quickly became Noah’s “lovey” and he slept with her every night from then on. Once, he commented to me that he thought she seemed “naked” and asked me to make a little shirt for her. So he picked out the fabric and I made a funky little shirt with a ribbon and button closure for Suzy. He was thrilled. 24 hours before Noah’s accident, as I was reading Curious George to him and tucking him into bed, he said that he thought Suzy might like a different shirt to wear. I promised him that we would look at fabric that weekend, which of course, we never had the chance to do.

 

Wherever we went, if Noah was there, so were “his” bunny rabbits. He was always the first to see them and they always seemed to let him get closer than I thought they would. We would often comment that the bunny was definitely Noah’s “spirit animal.” He loved them and they seemed to really love him back.

Since his passing, I have seen several bunnies at moments when I have felt the worst. They peek out at me or dart across my path. My closest friend, while out walking with her Great Dane, came face to face with a bunny just feet away from her giant dog. Instead of scampering away, the bunny just looked at Duke and rather than try to give chase, Duke just stood there looking. They stared at each other for a long time, neither of them moving, and Isabella said it was as if Noah was visiting them once more. Noah LOVED playing with Duke when we would go visit Izzy and he helped me dogsit Duke a few times also.

So for these reasons, I need a bunny tattoo. I knew it right away and said so to many people in the hospital while first facing the prospect of letting Noah go. I would have liked to design it myself, but I just lack so much motivation in all aspects of my life right now I haven’t been able to sit down and actually do it. I did do a little oil painting in the weeks after the funeral, but cannot seem to find / think of a suitable tattoo design.