First day of school...

Life has gotten quite busy. Traveling, working, raising a 2 year old, summer, weddings and general life. But sometimes life sneaks up on you when you least expect it. 

Today, most of the kids in the area started school. That means, All of Saoirse's friends started kindergarten. While this is heartbreaking in so many ways to me, I find myself wondering more about what it would have been like to have her here. 

What would she look like?
Would she be going to school with her friends or would we have home schooled her?
Would she have needed to have hearing aids to hear the teacher?
Would she make friends?
Would she have picked out a Frozen backpack?


There are so many questions. Questions that will never have answers. Questions that will never need answers. 

I hope that just maybe, some of the friends that knew her as a baby will remember her as they all make new friends at school. 

Two Years....

Two years ago my world stopped right in front of my eyes - you left us. I let out a scream and gasped for air. My breath tried to go with you.

Somehow the world around us keeps turning. It should have stopped turning with your last breath. 

I still wonder how it keeps going around. Maybe you are spinning it. 

Today

Today has proven to be a trying day. Emotions off the hook. Frustrations high. Anger manifesting. Tears flowing. Mind reeling. No peace at all. This time of year is trying as it is, but this year seems to be taking its toll earlier and more intensely than I remember from last year. Two days of bereavement events probably didn't make it easier. I feel like life has built up this wall of busyness; of things that have to be done; of not having time to deal with feelings and clutter and everyday life; of sleep deprivation. That wall is like a tower of wooden blocks - teetering every so precariously on one another, just waiting for a heavy step, a light wind, a shift in the rug, to topple it over into a mess on the floor. Anticipating when the wall will fall is impossible. The anticipation creates strain of its own. Maybe I need to rethink what needs my focus the most. Too bad the world doesn't seem to want to back me up on that. 

Missing....

I often find myself missing having two kids. It seems to be getting more and more frequent that I look down at my baby boy playing on the floor and miss that there is not a 3 year old entertaining him. It's been making it hard for me to play with him myself. I shouldn't be the one entertaining him - it should be Saoirse. She should be shaking the toy while I do the dishes. She should be showing him how to hammer the toys, while I do a load of diapers. She should be reading him a book, while I clean the dining room. He's missing it - all of it. 

We went to Russell Orchards to get cider doughnuts and take pictures with pumpkins. (We used to take Saoirse to Smolak's, but we just can't go back yet.) I wanted a picture of Lochlan in a bucket of pumpkins, just like we had done with Saoirse both halloween seasons. I brought her little hat that she had worn in the first one (I spared putting him in her same outfit). I went to put him in a nice big bucket - and promptly go yelled at. Apparently pumpkins roll - and I shouldn't be putting a baby where pumpkins might roll and crush him (like I was going to just leave him there for a while). I wanted to walk up to that man and ask him if he understood that my baby girl could never sit in another bucket of pumpkins. That she could never hold her brother in her lap and take a picture in the pumpkin patch. That the world is full of risk, and sitting in a bucket of pumpkins is the least of my worries for him. But I didn't. He didn't need that from me. I just took Lochlan to a different bucket and did it anyway. 

I will put him in her pea pod costume and parade him down the street on halloween. I will put the photos of him next to the photos of her and see if they look the same - even though she was almost 2 months older at halloween, and he is just huge. I will do the things that I would have done if she was still here with us. But I will do it all while utterly missing her actually being here. And knowing that I only have 18 months of comparisons before there are no more side by sides. And when that day arrives, there will just be one picture going forward. 

Born Grieving....

While walking through the Dallas airport last November, I saw a big poster that made me think. It was a poster advertising grief camp for kids who have lost a family member. Then it hit me. My children are going to be born grieving. Grieving an older sister whom they will never meet, they will never get to hug, they will never get to play with, they will never get to learn from. Saoirse's siblings will never have one day without grief. Not one day of innocent childhood joy, free from cares, and free from fear. What kind of childhood is that? A childhood of sadness. Of missing an older sister from day one. Of grief counseling and bereavement camps. Of "yes, I have a sister, but I never met her." Of an imaginary friend who they didn't make up. 

As I sit feeling a growing baby inside me, I wonder what kind of a person he will become. How Saoirse and her short life will shape his. How he will feel being born to grieving parents. How I, as a grieving mom, will be able to give him all he needs of me. I wonder what his childhood will be like. If he will resent being compared to Saoirse's "perfection" as a baby and toddler. If he will grow tired of hearing the same few stories about her life as he gets older. I want him to love his big sister, not resent her and her influence on our family's emotions. 

I want him to look up to Saoirse and her strength, and strive to live each day as it comes and enjoy every moment. But I know he will have to endure dealing with coming to terms with death and pediatric cancer earlier than most people. He will have to learn early that no one is "safe," and that nothing is guaranteed. He will be forced to learn that life is short and precious, and that not only old people die. How will this shape his life? Will it make him want to live each day to it's fullest, or will he be a crazy daredevil who risks life and limb because he knows "life is short"? 

I want Saoirse's short life to be a positive influence on her siblings' lives and characters. I want nothing more than for them to feel empowered to do something positive with their lives in her memory. I want them to feel that we, as their parents, are able to give them as much love as they deserve, and not hold them to impossible standards of achievement and perfection. We will have to work on this together; figuring it out as we go, learning from our mistakes. Maybe bereavement camps aren't such a bad idea after all. 

A little bit of Sunshine

This past weekend we attended bereavement week at Camp Sunshine on Sebago Lake in Maine. This was our first time attending camp there, and I wasn't sure what to expect. It was hard to go - I wasn't sure if it was going to be all sadness and talking about feelings and sitting in conversations about death and dying and suffering. Nothing is farther from the truth!

When we arrived, we were greeted by smiling faces, giant bears, and tons of energy. I wasn't sure what to make of it. I must have looked stunned and terrified at the same time. We went in to register and they gave us our info - we were the only family this weekend that had never been to camp before. Immediately I felt alone - and scared. Everyone would know each other, and we would be alone. that was my fear. We got checked in, found our room, got a ton of help moving all our stuff in (we had water, snacks, tons of pillows, sheets and towels - that's how it works - it's kind of like camping; you bring everything with you). Once we got settled, we headed up to dinner. The first night we had assigned seating and were put with a family that we didn't know (there were two families there that we knew locally - not from treatment, but from after). A wonderfully sweet volunteer sat with us. She told us about herself and about camp. It was good to have someone to start the conversation. After, there was a brief orientation, and some singing, we were off to try and settle in for the night - still not sure what the next day would bring. 

Friday was a new day for me. I was ready to try and make the best of everything and meet some more people. We had a short orientation, and the kids went off to their day camp activities. Then the adults had activities - games; crazy, silly, goofy games. We were broken up - no spouses together - and set into groups of strangers. But here was the funny part - these strangers didn't think I was crazy; they didn't think I was shy; they didn't look at me with fear in their eyes. We were all in the same boat - we had all watched as our children suffered and then died horrible deaths - we were all the same - there, we were all normal; no longer "different." 

And that's when it happened - I truly, completely relaxed. I didn't have to hide anything; I couldn't shock them with my stories, and they wouldn't run and hide in fear of it happening to them, because it already had. A weight lifted off my shoulders. I could be free and open - I could be me. 

Each day we had a parent group session, where we all shared our stories, an talked about our fears, concerns, questions, and sadness. But it wasn't all sad - it was support. We got to hear what others were doing, how others were doing, and that we weren't crazy. And we made so many new friends - friends that we will never ask us if we are "over it," or if we think she's in a "better place." Friends that get it and that will always get it. 

We will definitely be going back. 

oh yah... karaoke!