Christmas Eve

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blessing, boy, child, child loss, Christmas, comfort, death, Gratitude, grief, grieving

Today is Christmas Eve and I’ve had trouble sleeping lately. My brain just doesn’t seem to want to shut off and I know that, although this is the third Christmas without Noah and life has again achieved some level of normalcy, there will probably always be at least a tingle of some emotional pain around the holiday season.

So last night as I lay in bed trying to quiet my mind, a stubborn concept formed in my head and I could not sleep until I wrote it down. If you will excuse the cooking analogy, I would like to share it here.

We are like a flavorful herb: sage, thyme or a pinch of parsley in this stew of life. Complex flavors intermingling and complementing one another. Just because the actual ingredient may dissolve doesn’t mean that it ceases to exist. Just because you can’t pick out and recognize each herb once it’s been added to the stew doesn’t mean it isn’t there. It is the same for us.

Once we add our flavor to this physical manifestation here on earth, we become a part of the whole, larger organism that is life. This is why our souls incarnate. Because being a perfect spice, pure and unique in flavor but confined to the cupboard, does not allow any expression of potential. Life’s recipe calls us forth. Our flavor is needed, lest the soup be bland.

We do not cease to exist when we add our flavor. We create harmony with all other aspects of the recipe. We work together with other ingredients and our environment, flavoring our surroundings with ourselves, changing our world, our lives, the lives around us – even our very chemical composition – to create something rich and beautiful and forever different, had our flavor not been added.

We do not lose ourselves; that would be impossible. By adding our unique flavor, we work in harmony with others to bring about something beautiful, useful, nourishing. Something that may have been entirely different had we not been included in the recipe.

No one is ever really gone. If you keep your senses truly open, you will find that what you think you’ve lost is always and will always be – with you.

looking at two years

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beautiful son, boy, broken, child, cry, depressed, depression, Distraction, grief, grieving, heartbreak, little boy, loss, Mental Health, Noah, pain, quotes, sad, sadness, serenity, son, son noah, suffering, swimming pool, tragedy

The calendar is only one of a legion of things that feels like assault. Life goes on. Things change. People come and go in each others’ lives just as surely as the earth’s ancient cycles.

Yet, in many ways, I feel stuck in this strange altered life where I perpetually feel as if I’ve lost a limb. I know that I have to find a way to adapt but sometimes I still feel so angry at, and tortured by this loss that it’s all I can do to put one foot in front of the other. Most of my free time is spent in solitude because of the fear that outside my safe places I can’t control the risk that someone or something might send me into a tailspin.

At the same time, my triggers are so engrained in me that I don’t even think about them much anymore except to avoid them: swimming pools, the smell of chlorine, the boys section at department stores and the 6 block radius surrounding the Accident Site are the big ones. I often wonder when and if these aversions will ever be less intense. If I will ever be able to face another swimming pool or go anywhere near THAT particular swimming pool again. What I will do with all of Noah’s toys and belongings, still boxed and undisturbed in the garage.

But mainly, what I ponder lately is how I am to live this life now. How I want to live it. It always kind of bothers me when I talk about Noah with someone I’ve just met and they say something like “I don’t know how you go on.” Whoa man! That’s a tough one to which I’m never quite sure how to respond. What do I say to that? Do I offer up reasons, as if they were excuses, about why I DO “go on?” The truth is I don’t know how I go on either. But I do, like it or not; with lots of help from Denial, Distraction and Displacement. Living in 3D the only way I know how.

As the two-year mark approaches, I can say that in some ways my life has been better than last year:

• I know how to do today and I try to be gentle with expectations of myself for tomorrow.
• I don’t cry every day anymore but at night I still hold tight to the quilts made from Noah’s clothes.
• I still prefer the safety of my home; though I do appreciate and love my friends and family for pulling me out from time to time whether I want to or not.
• The shrine that was my living room has normalized somewhat, with some of my treasured relics now packed away.
• I’m working on facing and dealing with my tendency to engage in or overdo things that aren’t really good for me.
• I’m trying to practice being grateful: I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.  – Ann Frank

So. The truth is that I still feel broken. I can debunk the old saying now and say that time heals nothing. I still feel bewildered and overwhelmed. Progress and growth come slowly and only after a lot of difficult and exhaustive work. Every day is still a battle and almost every night is too. My brain has given me some pretty amazing dreams but the nightmares are agony. The battle is always there. But I’m trying to have “the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” I know I cannot change what happened, but accepting that Noah left this existence and in the way that he did…is still a daily struggle.

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.

Losing Mom, Losing Noah, Letter to Santa

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childloss, grief, grieving, loss, lossofchild, mom, mother, Noah, parent, sad, sadness, Santa, son

Just sharing one of my journals…

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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angel, battle, beautiful son, blessing, boy, broken, Buddhism, change, child, comfort, consciousness, crazy person, crocodile tears, cry, dead, death, dying, faith, family, friends, gift, gifts, god, grief, grieving, heartbreak, heaven, home, honor, insight, kidney, little boy, loss, love, memories, memory, Mental Health, mommy, mother, Noah, organ donation, pain, Parenting, purpose, recipient, sad, sadness, son, son noah, spirit, stranger, suffering, tragedy, transplant, universal, universe, war, writing

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…?”