Yep, I'm back.

CJ,

Mom just can't seem to stay away from you today. Something was just screaming for me to come back.

So here I am. Laying in the grass right next to you sweet boy. And for the first time today, I am almost exhaling.

I wish I could explain to the rest of the world how insanely irrelevant my daily life really feels.  Some days your absence is like a screaming buzzer in my ear all day long.  I can't exhale until I stop and just miss you.   

So I'm exhaling.   

And I'm crying. 

I can't believe you would have been 2 on earth this month.   You should be driving me nuts. I shouldn't be crying alone in a cemetery...

I love you.   Help me #doitforcj.

As long as it's healthy...

A friend recently posted an ultra sound picture of a sweet little 8 week blob.   Her comment?  The typical.

Wedontcarewhatitisaslongasitshealthy....

Ignorance is truly bliss.

I would give my own life for CJ to have taken a breath.  My daydreams now involve having the chance to raise my downs syndrome baby.   I wish his little heart could have kept beating for 2 more weeks and given us the chance to get him help.   If I had only known...

I fantasize about what it would feel like to kiss his warm forehead as he is wheeled into surgery, or to have the opprotunity to make choices for him that would effect his life.  Any physical scars would have been proof he lived.   Instead,  I'm left with a wounded soul.

His life may have been riddled with medical and social obstacles, but all I wanted was the chance the spend time loving him through it and showing him how much I loved him.

I just want my sick baby better on earth with me.   Even if it was to be a short time.   No time at all is purely torture.  He didn't need to simply be healthy.   He just needed to be alive.

I wish I was still blissfully ignorant....

I opened the damn envelope....

Most angel parents have one.  It's the envelope that has the hardest things to look at.

For me,  it's from the funeral home.   A picture of my sweet little boy dressed in a beautiful ivory knit outfit with a matching bonnet.  His little feet tucked into teddy bear slippers his grandma picked out from his nursery while I laid in a hospital bed in exhausted hysterics.  My sweet little boy is in his casket.

We don't care for this picture.   His lips are forced shut and his face puffy and starting to discolor.  But it's the only picture I have that his hands are showing.   Beneath his sweet outfit,  I can imagine his perfect little baby shape.  A tiny bit of his hairline can be seen reminding me of the brief moment I pulled back his hospital hat to catch a glimpse of his dark hair.    It's painfully blunt.   The blanket overhanging the box edges that I pray were snugly tucked around him.

What a gift.   Our funeral director snapped the picture with his cell phone at the last moment knowing I would not be released from the hospital to see him in his last little bed.  He dressed,  cleaned,  and tucked my son in for me. That stranger got to spend more time with my son than the few brief minutes that the nurses allowed me.  I could be jealous,  but in reality I'm so very thankful.  I'm thankful such a caring individual was brought to us when we needed to be taken care of.

The funeral home also provided a baby book for us to fill out specifically for an angel.  Again,  a crazy blessing no average person would think of.  

I don't know why I dug that up today.  The toddler I adore who I babysit was being a horrific monster,  I found fleas on the kitten, my wallet is empty from one domestic disaster after another lately, and I had been battling a headache for a solid 10 hours. It was an absolutely crappy day. 

Yet I needed to see him.  That pain brought a bit of comfort.   He was here.   It wasn't just a dream. 

Tonight's sad ramblings have left me wiped out.   Maybe in a few hours when I get up,  my headache will have faded and my puffy eyes calmed down.   A girl can hope,  right?   Tonight it hurts to #doitforcj

I screwed up...

Every little things that was in his nursery was packed when we moved last year.  We were in no way ready to thin things out,  so I simply packed it.   Every little things was placed in a box or bin by me.   Help was offered, but at the time I was completely in momma bear mode and nobody (including my husband) could make me feel at ease and get me to accept help.

Fast forward a year.  A mountain of boxes and bins sat ominously stacked in the corner of the basement.   This may be the saddest way too memorialize our sweet boy.   Almost 2 years since we said goodbye to CJ,  a few medical hurdles and attempts,  and still no "rainbow" baby.   That stack doesn't just represent past loss,  but broken dreams for the future. 

3 nights ago I decided enough was enough.   I can't explain why,  but it was time to sort through,  condense, donate, and repack.  My first action was to donate the 3 cases of diapers collecting dust. 

I found a young mom in my community struggling and pregnant.   She showed up walking the 3 blocks with her small children and a stroller,  refusing to allow me to drive the 3 large boxes over for her.  We emptied the boxes and stacked as many packs as we could into the stroller, then bagged up the rest for them to carry.  I watched them walk away and I felt one burden lifted from her shoulders.  But my pain over letting go of a stack of diapers was shattering.

Night #2 tackling the stack was spent opening everything to see what I had. I could remember where every single item had been in the nursery.  It was like ripping the stitches out of a wound before it was healed.  The stack was left as an even bigger mess.

Night #3 I decided to finish what I started.   Last night I touched every single item.   Some hand me downs were pulled aside to be donated.  Everything was sorted,  cried over,  and repacked.   For the first time it not only felt like CJ's things,  but that of any other baby we have not been blessed to conceive.   It was a horribly painful reality.

My husband walked in exhausted from work just past midnight to find me finishing up and a mascara smeared mess.   And that's when I realize it...

I screwed up.

He hugged me.   That hug that only he can give me while holding me up as I crumble into his arms.   He didn't let go when I started to resist and pull away.  He just let me lose it.

Then he told me he never expected me to do it alone. He thought we would go through it all together.  The look on his face told me he was disappointed.  It never occurred to me that refolding onsies was just as important to him.

My head was pounding from all the crying.  My exhausted husband didn't hesitate to run back out for a soda for me.   Then we stayed up until after 2 watching watching meaningless reality tv and mindless chatter.  When my headaches had eased off, we crawled into bed.  His arms protectively around me as he spooned his traumatized wife. 

Why do I insist on doing it all myself?  I think I'm trying to protect everyone around me from experiencing the debilitating pain I attempt to function with every single day.

Every.  single. day.

It's not working.  They are already right there with me sorting through feelings none of us will ever be able to pack away.  While most days are better, many are still spent attempting to internally sort and reposition the enormous emotions of losing a child.  Every action is an attempt to lesson the pain.   But in reality,  it's just moving it around.   And often,  I screw it up.  

Today I'm exhausted.   It's like having an emotional hangover.  So now that my little buddy is softly snoring on the couch next to me, I'm going to let go and join him.   We can deal with life on a toddler's schedule today.  No big life changing epiphanies today.  Just a crap full of reality.

#doitforcj

#doitforcj

I wonder...

I wonder if they had just brought my son back to me after I was cleaned up and stable if the time I could have had would have left a less traumatic wound on my heart.

I wonder how it would have felt to hold his sweet body against mine.  To unwrap him and feel him skin to skin against my chest.

I wonder if my heart would be more at peace of I had been given the chance to bath him and dress him.   Let's face it... he was already dead. What harm could it have done?

I wonder if my sweet husband would have been given some privacy from the staff while he held his son for only those few minutes if he would have allowed himself to grieve.  If we could have had a few moments the 3 of us to cuddle and be his parents together. His wife sobbing in a hospital bed while he sat in a chair helplessly holding his dead son must haunt him. Physically,  we were seperated.  Those few inches felt like a brick wall.

I wonder if anyone would have suggested we take or own pictures if I could let the lazy photographer who didn't even make an attempt off the hook. 

I wonder why any of the staff could not recognize the horror of that silent room.  The comfort of some soft music could have changed our memories forever.

But most of all,  I wonder what his beautiful eyes must have looked like. I dream of his gaze meeting mine.   I pray that is the first thing I see when I join him in heaven.

But for now, I'm left to wonder...

Strawberry milk...

Summer break is in full swing at our house!  Kids come and go at all hours of the day. Some we get to claim on our taxes, others are sweet little extras to fill our days.

Quiet moments with just one daughter are rare. I hope one day when they look back, they remember that I really tried when an impromptu moment arose. Today it came in the form of strawberry milk.

I had been outside weeding after dinner until the bugs were attacking. I came inside frustrated that my time has been cut short in the garden. at the same time, our youngest daughter had just come out of the shower and joined me in the family room for some mindless TV. I honestly am not sure which one of us thought of it, but instantly we both had to have strawberry milk. This is quite the random idea if you know me and how hard I try to keep something so full of sugar out of my pantry.

We jumped up together and comically hurried into the kitchen. She managed to find some strawberry milk mix in the pantry and we begin to jokingly argue over shaker bottles. I don't know if she realized how hard I had been struggling all day. I don't know if she saw the pain in my eyes, or the tears I snuck off to wipe a few times. Maybe she caught me looking at his picture for a few extra seconds. Or maybe he was weighing heavy on her own heart. But for that few silly moments in the kitchen, I was able to put down some of the burden. To simply allow myself the few moments of laughter and let the pain rest.

We took our strawberry milk back into the family room. I sat on the couch with my sweet kid watching a reality show about a tattoo shop, and bouncing ideas off of her of what I would like to get in memory of her brother.

Most days my life is busy, chaotic, comical, overwhelming, blessed, painful, loud, and completely unpredictable. But today over a shaker bottle of strawberry milk on ice,  everything just felt calm.

Wishing you all a beautiful calm moment every single day.  For those of you hurting for whatever reason, allow yourself that moment of indulgence.   Put down your burdens long enough to exhale.  #doitforcj with me!

Emotional hail damage...

Sitting in my car in a parking lot as hail pounded the roof was enough to push me over the edge today.

These moment come less frequently now.   They start as a situation completely rational for some anxiety,  and blossom into me in hysterics in what feels like a millisecond.  

I was soaked and freezing from unloading my grocery cart.  Soaked to the point of shivering and trying to focus through burning contacts.   I thought I just needed to get home.   But as soon as I pulled out the hail sounded like gunshots.  I actually screamed as if  someone had jumped out and scared me.

I found refuge parked against a large brick building to block the majority of the hail. Once the car was in park, I collapsed into sobs.

My sweet CJ.....

He was alone.

Was the ground flooding?  Were the trees over him protecting him or falling on top of him?    My thought got much darker.   I'll spare myself the heartache of repeating them.  And I cried with tears that felt like acid.  (That new mascara will be tossed immediately!  Ouch!!) 

I eventually made it home and my sweet daughter came out with an umbrella to unload groceries.  I laughed watching her juggle in the downpour.  I laughed harder as I realized she stacked groceries safely under the covered porch, but blocking her own access to the door.  Just moments after feeling pain no mother should ever feel,  I was laughing.

Tomorrow I'll swing by the cemetery.  Branches with probably need to be cleared and my horrific day terror thoughts will be put to rest seeing his ground intact.   And somehow,  I pray that will bring me some peace.

Sipping my coffee to warm up,  watching our Blackhawks dominate Tampa,  and praying for God's grace to help me keep on with the quest to #doitforcj.