Mixed emotions.

For William’s first birthday we have decided to make it a celebration and we have a new way to honor our son. Being as it’s the Christmas season and I’ll be darned if I’m going to let it pass us by, our new tradition will be to flip the switch on our Christmas lights on his birthday.
Today I am working on my invitations for his birthday. We are inviting only our family. The kids (My niece and nephew) will join us. We are going to release some balloons and then have pizza for dinner, what else would you serve kids?! Then, when it gets dark we’ll flip the switch on the Christmas lights and wish our son a happy birthday.
It’s going to be a rough week. I know this I’m not prepared! I don’t think you can be prepared for the flood of emotion that comes your way. This week started out in a rough manner. It’s the last couple of weeks that I will be able to say, “this time last year, I was happy. I knew not of the terror that was coming my way. Our son was still with us.” This time last year I was looking forward to the gifts we’d receive for William. Even though he wasn’t going to be here yet, I knew some people were getting us things for him. Christmas last year was hard. I tried, I tried to be upbeat, but I was still in shock that we’d lost William.
I broke down last night, I want to be happy, and I’m tired of being mired down in grief. Yet in the same respects, I am feeling a sense of peace. I know and feel that William is in heaven. He has a lot of friends and family to keep him safe and warm and I know he knows how much we love him and miss him. The peace I feel also comes from the fact that I am still here, almost a year after losing our beautiful boy, I am still here. I get up, I do things, and I even on occasion feel alive. I owe all of this to my family and friends.
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Yesterday, my friend S. called, she wanted me to write down a license plate number of a car that was scaring her as she was walking. I did, I stayed on the phone with her and she said, there’s a hawk that’s following us also. I just started giggling; I knew she’d be fine, the hawk, the hawk, was William, watching after my dear friend. I told her she’d be fine, I told her the hawk was William! She told me to tell him to stop scaring the s*** out of her. I laughed more, I have no control, he does what he pleases and he was looking out for her!
I shared this story with my Mom and as soon as I said hawk, her voice quivered and she said, “She was fine, William was there!” Yes, indeed he was!

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Tomorrow night is the candle lighting for my support group. My friend T., will be there with her new baby, Drew (a girl!). I will ask to hold her, she will be the first baby I will hold since holding my tiny perfect son in my arms just shy of a year ago. It will be hard for me, and for her, but she understands my anxiety and joy mixed together. I can't wait to meet Drew, to hold her and hear her and smell her. Wish me luck, please, I don't want to freak out!
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I am sorry I haven’t been responding to your posts, I’m in my own world this week and next, I hope to have some more energy to read and write to you all. I wish you all the best of holidays you can possibly have but most of all I wish you PEACE and LOVE!

Thanks for...

EVERYTHING, for being my family and my friends. Yes, family can be friends too! This is for my Mom and my Sis. We truly do enjoy each others company and it was well reinforced a couple of weekends ago.

My sister, had scheduled with us a weekend away from our homes to spend with her at hers and do some things but it was kept quiet. We knew not what we were going to be doing. Only that we had to be at her place at 7pm on Friday to start the weekend.

We arrived to a wonderful shrimp cocktail (fresh avacodos, fresh tomatoes, a sauce mixed with shrimp in a beautiful wine glass), a cream cheese dip and crackers, of which I ate much. Then dinner arrived. We had placed our orders and she had sandwhiches delivered for us. She then gave us gifts:

The most wonderful blanket, scarf, and slippers!

We watched a movie, "No Reservations," played "Outburst" and stayed up until 2:30 in the morning, talking and playing! It was like being a teenager all over again!

Saturday we woke up a little late but, we didn't have a schedule to follow so it was all good! We had gingerbread bagels, coffee, and juice for breakfast and then we got dressed. We went to the Kemper Museum of Art, then to Crown Center to the Holiday store for a bit of shopping. At this point it was nap time, remember we're not teenagers anymore and 2:30 am can wear on you! So we stopped by here, for some coffee and went home for a bit for a nap.

After our mini nap we went and had this done:


After our fabulous Pedi's and wearing our air-like slippers we were served the most spectacular cheese soup in bread bowl and salad...my sister is a fabulous hostess!

While we ate we watched "The Ultimate Gift," a tear jerker to say the least and the symbolism at the end, WOW! We played scrabble and talked some more but this time we went to bed at an earlier time!

Sunday, we awoke, had fruit and orange rolls for breakfast and then we went here

It was a fabulous weekend with those I love! Thank you a million times over! I love you both!

Words cannot express....

Thank you, names in the sand!

Tiny pieces of me

We do this volunteer thing once a year, Shan and I. It's usually a lot of fun. We cook hot dogs and serve chili and talk to kids who are all dressed up for Halloween. It's Ghost Story night in the Nature Sanctuary. The high school kids make the scary trail and you hear screams of terror as people walk through on their way to the cabin for stories and hot chocolate. It's generally full of laughter and fun. This time last year I was four and a half months pregnant.

This time last year, I had pain shooting through my legs I stood too long. I had been serving, standing, talking, and freezing in the misty rain. When I arrived home, I couldn't move my legs. I sat in bed and thought, "isn't this great, now, not only am I pregnant, happily mind you, but I can't walk to go pee!" I wondered what was wrong. I asked the doctors, their reply was to say, nothing, nothing was wrong. Now, I think maybe sciatic pain, pinched nerve, hell, I don't know. It could have been anything. Anyhow, all of these memories of last year rushed back in and then, as if falling from the sky, I received another piece of me...I received pictures. Yes pictures of me serving at Ghost stories.

You see, I only have or should I say, had, yes, I only had two pictures of me with William while pregnant. Now, I have some more, no, you cannot truly tell that I am pregnant as you cannot see my belly that well. Yet the same it's another memory that I am grateful someone caught on film. So, thank you to Mr. Smith for catching me with our son on film.


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I'm not sure why but lately, Lydia comes to mind. She was our nurse, or one of them that day, William's day. She had a heart of gold and tears to match. She will never know what a blessing she was to us that day, all the days to follow the rest of my life. .

My mind wanders, it thinks of the kindness of others. Lydia is kindness. That fateful day, the words she spoke, to William as she took him out of the room. The words she spoke. They resonate this day, "come on peanut, we'll be back." Yes, back they came but what she gave to me that day with those words was humanity. She truly had a compassion that I had never seen before. She treated William as though he were any baby she had helped to deliver. She never made me feel like a failure for not being able to keep him safe.

I haven't talked to her in a little over ten months time. I need to talk to her. To see how she is. I hope she remembers us, as we will always remember her.

Today, there is a tiny piece of me breaking away, that hardness that I once felt toward others. You know the happy ones, the ones that never had a problem. The planners in life that get to follow the plan. It's not their fault they have never been touched by this doom and gloom. Hell it's not our faults either. As Shan likes so much to remind me as I am crippled. Shit happens. Well, yes, my dear it sure does. Some of us, however, do not need this much shit in one lifetime.

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I sat outside the other day. The air was cold and crisp. The dates seemed familiar, yet not at the same time. At the end November of 2002, I was separated from my husband. I had moved out. I was preparing for a trip to NY to see a dear friend. Things were actually all right. I was going to NY and when I came back getting my own apartment. My very own apartment! December came and I went to NY, I came back and lived in my apartment for approximately one month.

January 13, 2003, I was working and I went outside with friends for a smoke break. We talked of the snow falling and how many fractures there would be that day. We walked back in and wouldn't you know it, I was the first fracture of the day. I slid in a puddle of water with shoe covers on. I went down like a ton of bricks. I broke my left wrist and dislocated my left patella that day. I was laid up for 2 months. I couldn't drive for almost 3 months.

I had to stay with friends for those three months. One of which is Shan! I don't remember those three months being as torturous as these two months have been. Maybe that would be due to the fact that I was loaded on hydro for two straight months! Maybe it was because I couldn't move, couldn't lift my left arm or move my left leg. I was truly crippled then.

What did I gain from this "flashback?" Well, let's see, I gained the knowledge that yes, I can and will get through this. It won't have a lasting impact that wears me down consistently for days or years to come. I will move forward from this. This is something I can get over! Sad as that is that is a nice feeling. Something, I will get over!
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I'm hoping that as I travel the road of grief, I gain more good pieces of myself, more memories, more love, more compassion. I know as my days pass and my friendships grow, I find more things I never knew I had in me. There are too many things to list but I find tiny pieces of me, starting to grow. There are the crumbled pieces of me starting to come together the old me moving ahead with the new me. I hope I can keep moving forward. I know I'll have my set backs, it's all right, I know now, I can get through them with a little help from my friends.

To our Vets,

THANK YOU!

Blah...

That’s kind of how I feel today. I have the onset of a cold, which I do believe I can thank Big Daddy Wayne for. Turns out he has pneumonia and is heading to the hospital as I write this. I would have gone but think I’m already getting the cold that spawned his pneumonia!

Yes, that’s right Wayne’s sick. I’m hoping he doesn’t have to spend too much time in the hospital as getting around is still a slow moving task for me. I do like to see him every day, especially when he’s in the hospital. I don’t like him to be alone. Of course, the nurses usually keep him company and make him laugh so that’s a good thing!

I’m heading out to my sixth PT session later today. Yeah for me! They want me to stand without my brace on my leg. Sure, that’s going to happen. This chic isn’t up for the task. I’m not truly too happy about the slow moving process this is. I’d like to get back out in the public eye.

It seems as though the more I sit at home the more resentment I acquire for certain persons. I will not mention names but truly find it disheartening to feel this way. I’m usually upbeat and happy-go-lucky. Not lately, not at all! I need to get out on my own…away from it all.

Do you all have any suggestions on how to relieve boredom? How to find happiness when sitting at home with a swollen knee? How to talk to others when all you want to do is yell at them? Help a woman out here…what do you think?

A little hope.

Today, I picked up the phone and called the hospital. T. had gone in on the 4th to be induced. 37 weeks was long enough and they scheduled the induction a long time ago. She answered in a tired voice and I asked, "So, are you all, all right?" "Yes,” she said and the dialogue began. We have a girl, born yesterday, I'm tired and she's under the lights. I was scared, it was scary, she said. Her heartbeat kept dropping, my water broke, they were pushing fluid back in. They thought maybe it was a cord issue and the cord needed fluid around it to move. I finally dilated and it was quick once that happened. I asked although I already knew, "what's her name?" "Drew," she said. Tears flowed freely down my face. I tried to keep the upbeat voice I knew she needed to hear. "Congratulations, T., I am really happy for you, really!" T. Has had the hard struggle we have. Her only full term child, Andrew, was born still last year. Now, his sister will carry his name, of sorts!

I told T., I knew she needed rest, I would be talking to her soon as I need a measurement so as to send her a gift. She doesn't read this so I can say; I ordered a sling, from Hip Melon. I ordered the Carry On My Wayward Son sling. I figure, this is a gift of many sorts, it is a reminder of Andrew, it's for Drew to be carried in as though her brother were carrying her and it's a gift for T. who knows what our path is like. Anyhow, I hung up the phone and sobbed uncontrollably for 3 minutes and then I sighed a sigh of relief. I didn't know how stressful it could be to wait for someone else’s child to come into the world.

Welcome, Drew to this new world, your siblings that are here with you will take good care of you along with of course your parents. Your brother in Heaven will walk you through life and help guide you. I am so happy you made it, so very happy, I cannot wait to meet you!