Slow down, you're moving too fast...

The other night I was getting Colin ready for bed time routine and I went to the kitchen to get his milk and I pulled down two cups and open both tops and started to pour the milk...I stopped half way, put the milk down and just felt the familiar nauseating sadness- an emptiness that makes me feel like a shell of myself and I can feel my shattered life around me physically-its indescribably almost.  He is here...he has to be.  He is upstairs, in his room, walking through the foyer pushing his toy lawn mower.  He is supposed to be anyway..

2 weeks ago I missed our counseling sesion to bring food to Charlotte and visit with Russ's dad who just had surgery.  It was amazing to me how missing one week of talking with him felt like I sunk a little deeper.  His gift is helping us through the most difficult time of our lives---I told him how this had happened and he said something to the effect of --our brains are wired to be Jacob's mom and dad--of course you got out two cups.  The heart and mind take time to catch up to such amazing loss. Will I ever? Will I ever feel true happiness again? Will I ever be able to look at a picture of Jacob and feel grateful, smile at his memory- sure with a hole in my heart that will never go away- but with some real and true joy again?

Slow down, you're moving too fast...

He said if he was a betting man, he would say yes.  Oh how I hope this is true.  Oh, how I wish I could move fast.  I am still falling fast though--some days just deeper and deeper into missing my little man and everything about him.  I can still feel his little body against me when I would pick him up to take him upstairs.  Scarily, I feel like there are a lot of memories that I no matter how hard I try, I can't remember.  But some moments are there..and are so vivid.   I look at pictures and think..he only had two months left to live.  I think about me, my life at the time, how easy it all was and yet how sometimes I felt like it wasn't juggling trying to be the best mom to them I could, my job and being a good wife, daughter and friend---I had no idea how easy it was.  So much is now hard and the hardest thing is imagining a life missing Jacob and his sweet voice and laugh and smile and beautiful blue eyes looking at me everyday. Imagining this pain for the next 50 years, the next 1 year, the next month and sometimes the next minute is more that I feel I can handle most moments of my days.  What happened...what happened? My buddy who was so sweet, so layed back...he loved life and lived everyday like it was his last....

                                          At Nana's Beach...



I heard a voicemail message from someone so dear to me and close to my heart...he lives far away now, but he is the one pediatrician, father and person I looked up to the most as my mentor through high school and all the way through residency and later... a friend.  He was calling to say he cared-- to say he wanted to talk-- to let us know he and his wife were praying and thinking of us..(these calls mean the very most to me--even if I can't always pick up because I feel so alone a lot)...I sobbed through the whole voicemail though because hearing his voice-- in an instant I realized he might know how it might feel as a doctor to imagine this kind of pain and this kind of wondering how your baby could die 25 feet from your room, and just never being able to know the medical cause or reason...how to wrap my head around this.  It just doesn't make sense and I hate it.  I miss him and his wife and children who I used to babysit for when I was in college and high school. Now their baby is going to college and I thought of them--  This man influenced me in so many ways..to become a pediatrician..his wife made me know what kind of mom I wanted to be and how to run a big family that I knew I wanted more than anything.  I was so innocent and wide-eyed...just like I think back to how I used to be when I had both my boys with such ease and happiness, I think back to that time with them and just wish I had that again.   This just wasn't ever what I expected and now my worst fear is living in pain without my baby.  

For now, I search for hope.  I search for hope that I will someday hold my sweet Jacob again and everyday that goes by, I need to hold onto Colin and Russ tight as we journey to that day.  God give me the grace and faith to get through my days and learn how to pray to you again...really pray in faith like I used to...and to live for my husband and Colin...for now.

In Charleston..our first trip without Jake

Butterflies

       We found out that our last hope of finding out what happened to our sweet boy is gone.  The genetic screening for heart rhythm problems came back negative.  Russ and I just felt like we were thrown backwards to that day and the familiar place of such despair.  How will we go on without our Jacob and without knowing why...or how?  He was healthy and perfect...and alive and sweet...and gone.  He wasn't healthy?  He was and his heart stopped?  That doesn't happen..he had a virus.  And so I spiral.
       At some point it has to end.  Our baby is gone and yet Colin is here and somehow so are we.  We talked in counseling yesterday how hard it is for me to hear people who really do mean well--I know they do---say--I am a better mom, better person, I love my children more now.  It hurts my heart so much because I didn't want Jacob to die and be the reason others are better parents-- I think how they have their children to love more and I don't..and it hurts.  I wish it didn't hurt so much.  Oh Jacob, I would give anything..give up anything..and I mean anything...to just kiss your chubby little cheek one more time.  That kind of longing and want is indescribable.
       So I beg and plead...maybe to God..when I am struggling with my faith and hurt, just out loud to no one...I plead to see him again...see him somehow in our lives still, or even in a dream.  I want to know that somehow, he is still with me. People relate butterflies to childhood death because they live for such a short time and are so beautiful.  My neighbor, who lost her sweet little girl when she was 3 years old, sent me a picture of two butterflies who were flying around our yards and how she thought of Jacob and Lillie.  I have seen them lately in our yard and I think of Jacob and Lillie. Maybe they are playing in heaven.  Then,  I got the call from the genetics doctor when I was at the pool with Colin and a dear friend (thankful for her presence because don't know what I would have done).  I saw the number on my pager and I immediately felt the weight of my grief crushing.  I sat down alone on the basketball court that Jacob loved and could see him running around as my already broken heart broke just a little more hearing her words cut like a knife.  No answer.  "We will never know- I don't know how one does this and lives not knowing but we just have no answer."  A butterfly appeared right then and as I sat listening to her words, I saw it dance around in front of my eyes- so beautiful and seemingly happy--just like my Jacob.  
       When your little boy dies who was seemingly so very perfect and healthy and very well may have been, and no one can tell you why--or how--you enter into a new struggle with mind and heart.  How will I protect Colin? Can I still have more children? How will I protect them?  I am a doctor and didn't see anything..how can I protect them? I can't so I won't have more...but that thought hurts so much.  I still feel like I am going to see Jacob in a few minutes.  He can't be gone..he has to be in his crib, with our sitter, at home.  It hurts so much.  I am scared for what it will feel like when I stop feeling that way too.  I am told by others who have gone through this nightmare that about 6 months after, that feeling subsides and it is another valley.  I am tired of the valleys...physically tired.
         This week in this new low, I have become withdrawn from my life--in the same way I did in the weeks after losing Jacob.  I faked it through work-I have become a master at a facade of "ok".  I feel really alone with a feeling of nowhere to turn.  But I do turn to Russ--he hurts so much too though.  Last night we layed in bed foreheads pressed against each others crying so hard I didn't know who's tears were on my cheek..mine or his...I felt my heart break a little more.
          I want this to change.  For now I am going to will my little family to make it through just tomorrow.  I will think of my little guy a thousand times and will continue to tell stories to Colin and love him with every part of what is left of me tomorrow and I hope I am able to see some signs that Jake is still with us. I miss you angel...