Dying from a broken heart?

Several months after losing our sweet boy, caring family members starting warning us that if we weren't careful we could actually die from a broken heart. At the time that didn't seem like such a horrible thing. but as the months half past and we've been able to heal, you begin to look at yourself from the outside and understand exactly what everyone's worried was and probably still is.

Let's face it, taking care of myself for the past almost 2 years has almost become non-existent. For a long time I considered getting up and getting dressed the biggest triumph of my day.  What the hell did the world want from me? Trendy hair and cute clothes? Who really gave a crap.

This past weekend we hosted a beautiful event for our two youngest daughters. it was time to celebrate quinceaneras,  sweet sixteens and too many things that have gone without a party recently. New dresses for me and my girls, a new suit for Dad, and tons of pictures with so many people that we love and cherish. I've spent the week sorting through hundreds of pictures and a few things have become blaringly obvious to me.

I've been dying of a broken heart.

So without getting into the specific details of my weight , my health   the stack of prescriptions by my bedside   or even my basic style I have been bitch slapped with reality. An enormous piece of me has been lost and tucked away, hidden really, as I've been learning that it's okay to live with a broken heart.

I'm feeling overwhelmed with the desire to live. Not just in a way that gets me from sunup to sundown, but in a way that allows me to feel and share more joy then I did before CJ came into our lives. What better legacy could I leave for my son?

So I am admitting so many people were right. You can die from a broken heart. I admit that much of me did. But maybe there is an even bigger part of me left to put out there in the world. maybe my story is just beginning. maybe.....

#doitforcj

Happy Easter!

CJ Bear

We have a new resident in our home.   A very sweet gift named "CJ Bear".

Our little bear has been stuffed to weigh CJ's exact birth weight.   It was made for us by another mom who lost a baby.  Her ministry for healing are these sweet little bears, dressed in onsies and included with a letter explaining her story.

I've avoided this.   Just a few days into our journey,  this was suggested to me and I honestly thought the idea was crazy.  Why would I want to put myself through feeling what I'm missing?  Would I be able to put it down,  or would I become the crazy woman stroller walking a stuffed bear around the neighborhood? But with time (well over a year ) the opprotunity presented itself again and I bit.

Thinking it would be weeks,  I emailed his weight. To my astonishment,  I received an email back thatmy bear was being made just a few blocks from CJ's cemetery!  I agreed to pick it up a few days later.

What a sweet woman.  I pictured a perfectly staged home with a lady who had plenty of time on her hands to sew these bears.  What I met was a sweet woman with one baby in a highchair,  another trying desperately to get both of our attention to share a favorite toy, and dogs wrangled through a scratched basement door to protect me from the excited behavior.  Her home was very lived in and her hands are very full.  Yet there sat my bear. She handed him to me, and I instinctively held it to my chest.  The weight was surprisingly heavier than I imagined.  It was quite comforting.

When I shared the bear with my family,  my husband and 2 kids shared my surprise at how heavy it felt, while my oldest nuzzled it and with a smile said "yep, that about right".  I was very surprised to see each open to holding and immediately snuggling our new friend.

He found a home on my bed for now.  And he definitely found a new home in our hearts.  I will remember that sweet gal who made it every time I look at it.   Tonight I'm giving in and sneaking some snuggles.  I'm sure CJ is watching and knows he's not replaced.  I'm just a hurting mom simply trying to make it through the day and #doitforcj.

Hurting moments. ..

The sun is setting. Despite the clear blue sky,  the chill in the air has me sitting in my car.   In the cemetery.  

I wanted to tell him I love him.   That yesterday I risked opening up fresh wounds to share his story.  I planned on singing him a lullaby and telling him sweet dreams.  Instead I sobbed.   I sobbed tears that have been kept hidden for a few weeks.  Tears screaming to be released in acknowledgment of so much pain.  Too much pain for anyone to survive, let alone smile after experiencing.
I don't understand this journey.   I simply don't understand why I'm sitting in a cemetery alone as the sun goes down and the world keeps turning. Doesn't everyone know CJ DIED?   His little body is buried a few yards away with the majority of who I used to be. 

This is my reality.  For everyone who thinks I'm so strong,  you are wrong.  I am broken in ways that you can't begin to understand.  After this meltdown,  I'll clean up the mascara smudges and drive thru for a diet coke fix and pick up a kid at church.   Eventually I'll go home to do the normal things we all tackle- laundry, dishes,  email...  Tomorrow I'll get up and do it all over again.  Maybe the day will be easier,  but possibly not.

But for tonight,  my tears hurt...

The waiting room...

A big part of my healing is speaking out.   I have told or story a few times in the medical community not out of malice for the beautiful souls that cared for us, but out of love for the next families to walk this unexpected journey.

Today I was invited to speak at a 2 day conference being hosted at our hospital.  When I realized the organizer was a nurse I have worked very close with to make a few changes happen. I eagerly volunteered my time to help out with  anything they needed.   I was here promptly at 2 as scheduled, and as quickly as I could take off my coat, I was lovingly escorted out.   It seems as soon as I quietly sat in back the radar of 2 nurses went off.   I was a potential emotional wreck in the making I guess.  I hadn't even had a chance to focus on the current presentation let alone get upset.

So I'm sitting in a waiting room in the hospital out of earshot.   Waiting until my time to share my story and knowing whatever presentation that is happening in there may be planting preconceived impressions of who I am and what I have to share.   Then again,  it may have also effected my words if I had listened in.  

I guess my rawest thought right now is so what if I got emotional?   So what if the information hurt to hear? Isn't it SUPPOSED to?   We are talking about the death of my child.   Talk to any loss mom and I promise you pure astonishment in the medical terminology she has acquired in her journey. Most of us can not only follow, but contribute to the most medically driven conversation on the topic.  Most of us are better informed than the very medical community charged with caring for us.

In a few minutes I'll head back towards the floor.   Let them see me pacing eagerly to share my son.   I'm ok with that.   If I cry,  that ok.  There were tissue boxes everywhere in that room of about 50 healthcare professions.  We may even laugh.   All that matters is that I'm heard.   Get ready folks...  I'm about to#doitforcj !

Living with loss...

I'm feeling a bit side swept by an overwhelming feeling of loss tonight.   Of course for my son,  but for so many other things also.

Dreams that turned into reality mostly.  How often do we dream so lofty and be blessed with it's fruition?  13 years of waiting and praying to add to our family materialized for no rhyme or reason.   I had not taken fertility treatments. My faith had been steady.  Why at that time? One of those questions I'll never really understand.

We lost CJ.  A week later we lost or 15 yr old dog.  2 weeks later we got a puppy,  who passed away as soon as we all became attached.   It was a never ended onslaught of loss.   We were like refugees,  stumbling through life.  The kids were in a new school district.   We were in a new community where nobody knew us.  We were lost.

The funny thing is,  being lost doesn't always mean you need to return to the same starting place.  We tried that and what was waiting there had lost it's luster.  What we realized wad while we had such a beautiful community of supporters living us through our hell,  a few people that we had banked too much of our lives on completely flaked.

With love,  we survived.  We recognized those who stepped forward to be there on the ugly nights.  Extended family that started dropping in to check on us and listened when we didn't have a clue how to put to words our pain.  Relationships were strengthened, renewed, and even forged.   A few we let go of.  A few let go of us.  We have changed our physical surroundings as well as emotional.  And slowly,  we have redefined home.

This feeling of loss tonight is hopefully short lived.  New pets have helped us direct a bit of our broken hearts to something to nurture.  Future plans to get out of Chicago winters for good have us excited for the future.  Something is missing.  Something will ALWAYS be missing.   But even with loss, there's life.

#doitforcj

Enjoying the sarcasm...

For me,  the death of my child stripped me of so many personality characteristics while I emotionally shut down for awhile.   My heart was so shattered, that the pain really overshadowed any other piece of me for quite some time.

I've watched friend after friend conceive thier "rainbow baby" (the cliche name for a live baby born after a loss. The beauty after the storm...) and feel conflicted with the new joy of expecting while still grieving.  I'm choking back a bit of sarcasm as I write this. It's hard to feel sorry for those that are gifted with the only thing your heart screams for. 

But that sarcasm resurfacing is my lifeline. As more and more of my spirit returns to me,  everyone around me seems to have a comment.  Some notice spunk, while others see it as bitchiness.  Or I've heard my crazy is showing again, as well as I've become jaded or pessimistic. 

But for those who take the time to ask me vs telling me how I'm feeling,  they learn that I'm learning to cope with my new reality.   If they listen long enough for me to finish a sentence, they hear in my voice the joy that still exists and the pain I will always carry.

But back to that sarcasm.   In our household we juggle 3 adults and 2 cars.  This leave me playing taxi service very, very often.  If it's my husband who is being dropped off at work,  almost everytime one of us will say "I'll buy you coffee" as we walk out the door.  It's a crazy ritual that turns our commute into a coffee date.

Those rides are never silent.  We talk the entire ride- often over each other. Sparing teasingly back and forth with a sarcasm that could easily be misread.

It wasn't always like that.  For many months the ride went silent.  I would be lost in thought,  usually crying.  It was often my first chance to put down the mask I wore at home. We held hands in silence,  spoke just enough to acknowledge the other's existence, and struggled to hold it together.  I would talk about CJ and he would listen. 

Eventually some giggles started to return through the tears.  We started daydreaming and even planning for the future again.  And eventually,  the sarcasm returned.  Him commenting on my driving or me on his vocabulary.   Silly little things that have become private jokes between us over the past 18 years. There's an intimacy in that dialog.  It rolls of off our tongues as if we had our own language. There's a rhythm. 
Comment, comment, giggle. 
Comment,  eyeroll, comment, comment
Comment,  giggle comment. ..

It bounces quicker between us as my heart allows my brain to function more and more each day.  That 22 min ride often does more for my soul that an hour in therapy.

I'm not the same.  I never will be.  And that is completely ok with me.   I wish I had never been forced to survived losing a child,  but CJ is completely worth the scar.   I hope he giggles along as he sees his parents laughing over his mom retelling the story of being trapped in a thigh high snow drift at the cemetery because her stubborn heart needed to walk back to his stone,  not see it from afar.  Or dad describing a project at work that has him frustrated with coworkers. 

In the end, all that matters is that the hearts that share my home recognize the return of the sarcasm, the laughter,  and a desire to enjoy life.   Everyone else making observations without listening,  you are missing out. 

Take some time for a coffee date with someone you care about this week.  Let them finish a sentence.  You may be the step in thier day that helps them find a bit of themselves deep down.  #doitforcj