My Daughter Is Home And Praying For The Eternal Salvation of Her Mother's Soul

A not so widely known fact about me is that I was baptized as a Lutheran. I was raised by a Catholic and an atheist.

What I am is not important to this story. Because what I am is the mother of a dead child who struggles most days to understand what His purpose is with that little nugget of fantastic pain that I was dealt.

Tonight what I was though, was a haggard and tired woman in a Buddha t-shirt and scrub pants, standing in the middle of her kitchen, fighting with her toddler on whether or not she was loading dirty dishes into the dishwasher. He was mostly unloading. As he screamed "no mama!" my tween approached.

"Here mom this is for you."

"Oh, thanks Boo, this is very nice. Did you do this at church camp?" I only saw the glimpse of the cross and was mostly expecting handmade birthday wishes as doomsday is fast approaching. I looked at my daughter who just got home less than 24 hours ago from a summer with my ex-in-laws.

"Yes, mom. They told me to give it to someone who doesn't go to church."

As my youngest stood clinging to my leg and screaming bloody murder, I peered down at the religious propaganda I held in my hand. Beautifully decorated by my daughter, with the word Mom carefully written on the front, I looked back into her blue eyes.

"Oh gee, thanks kid."

And that's when she stood there and proselytized in the middle of her brother's tantrum.

"Hey babe, let me stop you right there, I don't go to church because I'm 32 years old and I don't have to anymore, okay?"

"Yeah, but do you believe?"

"Seriously, are we standing on the street corner in NYC right now? Take this dollar and go on, Boo. I get where you are coming from and would love to have a religious discussion with you, but you should know, people are not cool with random questions about their religious affiliations. You know, just between you and me."

And I could tell, she was already praying in her head.

She already believed I was burning in Hell, but the question was, could she, as the daughter of such a heathen, be saved?

My standard answer to the question of "do you believe" is "suck it, none of your business, bub." But today,I had to be more delicate.

As she walked off to her room, as my kid stood still clinging and screaming, as I realized I was still holding the primary colored religious materials, as I looked down at the Buddha on my chest, I sighed and I looked up. "You are up there, aren't you? Some kind of sense of humor you've got, huh?"

Baby Stepping Through The Muck

I sort of feel like I don't own this space anymore and it pisses me off. It used to be that I would rush to the computer every day to sit down and write. My blog was my very favorite thing and I couldn't wait to get to it every day.

Now? It's a struggle. Worse? I'm writing about blogging and that is like one of the Seven Deadly Sins of blogging. You don't write about blogging. You blog about everything else going on in your life. And maybe that's what I should do, but you know what? I just don't want to. It feels forced. I feel like a stranger in my own world right now.

Furthermore, I should recognize what this is and I haven't even bothered to do so yet. I have Summer depression. I always have, since I was a kid. I feel listless and useless. The gears in my head that normally crank out the words are just chugging along, working harder to perform basic daily functions.

Getting up out of bed? Well that takes more effort than it did just two months ago. Every year I go through this and every single year it sneaks up on me. I work harder to smile, I work harder to not grump about and tell everyone in my eyeline to eat shit and die. I wouldn't mean it if I said it, but still the temptation is there and it would be a delicious moment when I did say it. Well, until the guilt set in. I'm not big on hurting feelings.

The good news is that I'm going on vacation soon and hopefully it'll knock this shit right out of me. This never lasts too long, it's more of a nuisance than anything. I just have to work a little bit harder to push my spirit out and project something other than blech. I fake it 'til I make it.

Little reminders:

Am I smiling?
Am I responding in a pleasant manner?
Wait, did I just tell that person to suck it?

Fuck.

I made it through what would have been my son's fourth birthday. Now I just have to push through until the anniversary of his death. It falls 3 days after my birthday every single year.

It's time to buck up.

It's not going to change.

My Neighbor Kid Is An Asshole

And, just wasting my energy on this little tweentard mental ninja of Jedi, fuck with my daughter's mind tricks is pissing me off.

Here's the thing. The kid made my kid cry and now she's going to pay.

She's run a steady show of bitchiness that we have tolerated up to this point. My soft spoken, kindhearted daughter typically shrugs it off and goes on her way. But, she's fucked with her brother and now Monkey is not happy.

Monkey takes very good care of her brother, because as she said, "He's the only one I have now and I want to protect him." So when the neighbor kid got pissed at Monkey for paying attention to her brother and not to her she blurted out, "He's only your HALF brother anyway." She just tossed that in her non-stop stream of snotty, bitch face comments.

I just realized I'm too mad to even do this right now.

My kid sat, curled up against my side, sobbing last night.

Jason and I tagged team the kid at the bus stop this morning. First, he pulled up next to her and said, "Before you come over and play again, I'm having a talk with your mother." Without knowing this, I pulled up next to her:

Me: You know, you really hurt Monk's feelings last night?

It: How?

Me: By telling her that her brother was only her half brother...

It: I didn't mean...

Me: I don't care what you meant. Are you aware that her brother died?

It: Yes I am.

Me: Well then have a little consideration for her feelings about her brother. He is the only one she has and she loves him. You need be a little bit nicer to my daughter, young lady.


Yeah, I busted out a young lady.

Whatever.

This is stupid.

That kid sucks.

Hurry Up And Calm Down

For right now, the buzzing has stopped.

The part of me, inside, that seemingly vibrates and buzzes until I can't stand it anymore. I don't know if it's in my brain or in my body and I don't really know it's there until it's gone.

The sadness is quiet again.

The ache that makes me burst into tears. The longing that makes me explain away my watery eyes, all day long.

The veil of calm has been pulled back down. My stomach doesn't tell me to eat all day long. To eat and eat, because something, anything has to fill that hole. The void, the dark, buzzy nothing that is just always behind it all.

It's like a heavy, weighted blanket has been thrown over me. Snuggle down into it, allow it to comfort you.

And, I will.

I am.

I am comfortable again... for now. Snuggling in it before it gets ripped off me again. Yanked back from my sleepy, dopey head, ruffling my already ruffled hair.

I'm tossing and turning in it. Trying to get every inch of the cool before it becomes warm and itchy again.

Because it will.

Itch.

Radio, Transmission: She's Lost Control Again

I met him when he was just 19. He was skinny and hungry. He'd been mugged for his winter coat just a week earlier.

His dwelling was a basement studio apartment. It wasn't even the size of our basement room at this moment.

It was small, dark and dingy. You had to walk through the mildewey basement and the laundry room to get to his front door.

He seemed hungry. Hungry for food. Hungry for love.

I loved him instantly. The second I saw his ashey, pale blonde hair. His cold, blue eyes. So longing, so hungry.

I was touched. I was touched by his poverty.

Only later would I learn that his mother was in prison, his father? Later his father would be homeless.

Nights were spent holding his skinny frame. I taught him my comfort. My comfort. He held me, I taught him that when we didn't have each other, you simply put one pillow under your knees and you hugged the other.

Pillows were the mothers that didn't want us. My nights were spent thinking of the highest building I knew that I could jump off of. Instead? I waited for his call. The call that would inevitably end with me rushing to his door.

Tonight I watched Control. A film by Anton Corbijn. Ian Curtis. A lost soul. Had no one to guide him. No one to hold him... truly.

He had people around him, but no one understood the imbalance in chemicals. The brain, the thoughts, they didn't sleep. Warm arms around you don't always mean comfort.

Sometimes the pillow under your knee can be enough. Teaching the use of the pillow can be enough.

I held a shaking, skinny boy in my arms. I knew all he needed was love. If someone, anyone just truly loved him.

Twelve years later...

Two sons.

One living.

One dead.

He knows. He knows I love him.

Isolation.

She's lost control.

Transmission.

He knows.

UPDATED!!! Tuesday, Bloody Tuesday

Here's the thing about yesterday? Yesterday was bitch. Yesterday was the kind of bitch that could make a girl face plant into a bag of mini candy bars and come up for air only to complain that there was not one single solitary drop of bacon grease to be found in that fucking bag.

Yesterday left me with two choices.

Get drunk
Eat a lot of shit.

This morning came really fucking early and found me feeling hollow - well except for the bacon covered peanut butter cup that I could be making up. But am I?

So this jerk face, ass wipe Tuesday also found me laying in bed, sobbing hysterically because I ended up watching one of those Dateline shows where they put actors in horrible situations and then watch mankind fail miserably at being anything close to human. And when they had the homeless actor, lay dead on the sidewalk and not one asshole stopped to help because he was homeless I decided I no longer wanted to be human.

The good thing that happened was when Sunday, Bloody Sunday came on the radio, for the first time in 3 years I smiled at the song. Mostly, because I had this entire Twittersation with someone that I'm just going to go ahead and put in the same category as knees that belong to bees, about how Bono is totally her imaginary husband and how Michael Hutchense makes your soul ache and bleed with his beauty. So when that song came on I smiled instead of feeling the pointy little bitch dagger that usually just turns itself inside my bruised and broken heart.

The thing about that song is that it's forever burned into my being and is simultaneously on my highlight and lowlight reels of life because when I hear it, when I feel it, all I can see is the night my husband swayed and danced with my now dead son around our tiny little living room while this video played behind him.

That's a total bite, isn't it? I know, fuck me and my sadness today. As a matter of fact?

Fuck you sadness.

But that wasn't about sadness right? It was about new found goodness.

Yesterday's big suck factor was mostly due to this really insanely stupid meeting we had with our financial planner that made me want to gouge out an eye, kick a shin and then just made me cry like a baby. And here's the thing about crying, I hate it and try to not do it.

This morning, I might have said something to Jason about how buying Depeche Mode tickets might not be our best plan of action and that left a big gaping hole in my belly. Then I stopped to get a Diet 7-up (which is my new crutch in life) and stood there, grinning like a jackass when the guy in front of me plopped to tall boys down on the counter and started to count his pennies to pay for them at 7:30 in the am.

Because hell? Life could be so much fucking worse, right? I waited patiently because no matter what, I wasn't doing that and I knew if I saw that guy laying on the sidewalk, with his can in hand, I wouldn't hesitate to call 911 and check his pulse. I'm a hella good person, I know it. And then? Then I reached in my pocket to pull out the dollar and some change I had to pay for my drink and all I pulled out in the first handful was a few pennies, a partial Kleenex and a mother fucking button.

I pulled out a button.

Like Charles Fucking Dickens was writing my bacon lacking life story.

Fuck you, little street urchin button!

I found my dollar and clutched the cold bottle as I walked into the cold air and got into my car. I looked at the car with the broken window next to me, smiled, again thinking, look, worse, right? Look at my pleasure over other's misfortune. Oh and maybe I should consider moving.

As I reversed my car, I turned up the volume and this is where I just wonder what the hell I've ever done because the haunting drum of Sunday, Bloody Sunday started tearing into my ear drums and I burst into tears.

So you know what? Fuck you, Wednesday. Fuck you hard.


Hold the Mah'fucking phone. My day just got better. I found THISSSSS!



Or even better? Huey Mah'fucking Lewis!



Thank you cracked.com

I Feel Weird...

Recently I've realized that I've been feeling really strange. Some of you might call it "manic" and still some of you may have referred to the fact that I might be "cracking the fuck up."

Whatever. You guys can be so mean.

But truly, I have been feeling weird and suddenly as I was driving back to my office from lunch with Jason today, it hit me.

I was sitting behind the wheel and I was all, "Wait, what is that? Is that what I think it is? Is that happiness? Yes, Yes, I think it is."

When I laugh, I'm feeling it on the inside rather than just laughing because it's what I'm supposed to do.

Suddenly it feels like there is life inside of me again. I don't feel like the soft underbelly of a raw nerve ending.

I feel alive.

And, I haven't felt this way in nearly 4 years. Not since Jadon died.

Much to my husband's chagrin, we suddenly remembered why everyone used to say that I reminded them of Dharma or Dharma reminded them of me, and let it be said that Jason is definitely the Greg to my Dharma.

So what appears to be me cracking up, is actually the first time I've been "normal" in so very long.

To celebrate this feeling, I have put together the BEST DRAWING EVER!

That's right, I went there.



Say it with me now! TADOW!

That's Just His Gig

This is one of my all time favorite pictures. In our wedding pictures there were so many that really showed how we felt on that day. We had waited so long to get there.

After Jadon died we weren't sure what to do. I assured him that no one would say a word if we didn't stay together. Everyone would understand... They'd expect it from us.

But what I expected was this:

This picture was not planned or staged. This is the very moment he kissed me after our vows.

He thought I knew he was going to do it. I didn't. Although I should have known because I can't count the number of times he has done this throughout all of our years.

That's just his gig.

And I'll continue to expect that he'll do this until he can't hold my fat ass over his skinny arm anymore.

Low

I can't see my way out right now.

I'm really lost in the hurting. I know a good deal of it is Jadon. I know the rest is the hard little ball of hate I have for myself stuck way down inside my belly.

I've heard things said. Things said that won't undo. Things that resonate so clearly inside of me it's all I can feel. If it didn't feel so true then I could brush it aside. If I didn't feel that way too then I could forget it.

Being good enough is never an option and that big hill is always outside my door when I awake in the morning. I wish I could wake up and that hill I've been running up my entire adult life would just be gone.

But it won't.

Things that I have done that are good and right are seemingly unnoticed.

I cling to my son right now because he's the only one I have near me. Jadon is gone and always will be. My sweet daughter is gone for a few more weeks.

I'm rushing towards the end of this year of my life and the beginning of another. Why do we have to mark birthdays when they only serve as a reminder that another year of a life that isn't perfect has washed away?

I want so much to just smile and say that it's all alright. Maybe I should.

Maybe I realize that I'm not what was expected. Maybe I realize that until I'm that very thing then I'll never be right. All of it is running around in my mind. I hear it over and over.

It's always been bad for me this time of year. My birthday, Jadon's death and having Marley gone so close together while realizing that I don't bring happiness are so very much like cosmic kick in my soft belly.

If I can smile. If I can smile and keep smiling will it go away? Will it fix itself? Will a flood of smiling wash it away?

Thursday

This coming Thursday would be Jadon's third birthday.

Last night we were exhausted after a long weekend at the lake. Jason and I decided to lay about and watch a movie after dinner.

We chose 'Godsend'. The timing was really poor on our parts.

I cried for the first 15 minutes of the movie. Jason was just about to turn it off but I knew the tone would change.

I slept very little last night and this morning my heart hurts.

I didn't want Crazyman to go to bed last night and I didn't want to leave him this morning.

The busy-ness this week has in store for me is a secret blessing.

If only I could get rid of the steel band holding tightly around my chest. It just shocked me. It always does. I go about for time periods not thinking about it, not hurting and then...

Well, you know.

What Happens In The Night

Lonely wails and possibly hungry screams tore me from my melatonin induced, heavy slumber.

I laid there, still, waiting for the storm to pass.

The door was shut, the fan switched to the on position and pillows piled on my ears.

An hour later, I stumbled down the hall to the kitchen to prepare his bottle. The second I touched the tube of Anbesol to relieve his swollen gums the howling ceased.

Bottle in fridge, Anbesol back on the counter, I stumbled around the dog and climbed into bed. The previously tossed back covers were re-wrangled back over my tired body. I nestled down into the wall of pillows necessary to sleep.

Releasing one deep breath, the wail permeates the house yet again.

Bottle in hand, I creep into his room. He lays there, mouth wide open, giant tears flowing down chubby, cherubic cheeks. I reach into the crib and scoop up his highness.

He grabs, desperately for the bottle he verges on too old for. He drinks like it's his job. His damp head falls onto my shoulder.

We climb back into my too often vacated bed and curl up together. He reaches the end of the bottle and starts to wail again. Desperate for sleep, I stumble back across the hall and place him in his bed.

He'll cry it out and be fine. Clean diaper, full tummy. He wants for nothing.

I close the door on his soul-piercing howl.

Back into the the would-be bliss of my bed. I lay still for yet another moment. The cries continue.

Suddenly, visions of his dear, sweet brother float into my head. His birthday is rapidly approaching. The ache tears at me to hold that brother that is no longer with us.

As the lump forms in my throat and the tears fall from my eyes I have just one thought. Fuck sleeping through the night in his own bed.

I have a sweet, little boy in the here and now and all he wants is for his mother to hold him.

As I woke this morning, exhausted, I looked over at his sweet round face, his naked baby shoulders, chubby tummy pushing the top of his diaper out. Snuggled up in the very blanket that we took his brother to the funeral home in it, it all comes rushing at me.

There is no sense in clinging desperately to the what should have been. I have what I'm supposed to have. That's the deal and I cannot be so selfish as to want to change that.

My two-children have the full love of a mama of three. Those lucky little beasts.

Jadon Riley

Today Ian is 11-months old. It feels like such a major milestone. We are one-month away from making that one-year mark.

I have been asked about Jadon. And again, I never mind talking about Jadon I just have to be in the mood to handle telling the story of my sweet baby boy.

When I became pregnant with Jadon, Jason and I were not yet married. We had known each other for almost a decade and we were engaged and living together. We were in the midst of planning our wedding when I found out. We had planned to go to Antigua to tie the knot and quickly dashed those plans.

My pregnancy with Jadon was seemingly normal for the most part. In the very beginning I had horrible cramps that I never remembered experiencing with Marley but I didn't think much of it.

With Marley I had to be on bedrest for the last month or so of the pregnancy. I had been going into early labor. With Jadon, I told the doctor, who I hated entirely, about this and she never really seemed to take anything I said very seriously.

When I was pregnant with Marley, my triple screening had turned up with funny results that indicated that Marley might have Down's Syndrome. I refused an amniocentesis due to the 1% chance of losing the pregancy and spent the duration of it worried out of my mind and in near hysterics.

I refused to worry through my pregnancy with Jadon and perhaps I should have. During the first ultra-sound with him they had a hard time finding all the chambers in his heart. They spent a good long time looking at it and in the end determined that everything was appearing to be fine.

I had follow-up ultrasounds where again they looked with great detail and couldn't quite see everything but always they decided it was fine.

Then? Then I started with the contractions. The same as I had with Marley but earlier. It seems I have what they call an irritable uterus. Really? That bitch was just pissed I was pregnant... All three times.

I was in and out of the hospital, like I was with Marley but worse this time. The experience was extremely similar but it all seemed so much worse and I had a dipshit for a doctor. I was put on Magnesium which my doctor bluntly told me she believed to be one of the worst medical experiences you can go through. She may have been right and it was the second time in my life I had done it.

After over a month of being in and out of the hospital and being on bedrest my body just wasn't going to keep the little guy in there any longer. They kept trying to put me on the meds and something inside me just said it wasn't right and there was a reason my body wasn't doing what it was supposed to.

Finally I refused the meds and told them I was having the baby and that's just all there was too it. By the time they listened to me, Jadon was born in a flurry of activity. It was extremely fast and I felt very little. Immediately when he was born you could tell he wasn't breathing normally.

They rushed him out of the room and Jason went to go watch them clean him up and hook him up to a seemingly endless number of machines. He came back in the room to give me a report on the situation and in all honesty, I didn't want to hear it.

I laid there, totally numb. For the first time in my life, as horrible as it sounds, I almost understood how animals in the wild will ignore the small and sickly babies. I knew in that moment that he wouldn't make it. I just knew it and I can't explain to you why other than it was entirely instinctual.

For a minute I didn't want to see him or know any of the details. But then, then my heart took over and I took myself over to the nursery and there was my little baby boy. He had so many wires and whatnot attached to him but he looked otherwise healthy.

Day after day they said he'd get better. And with every day that passed I fought harder and harder for him. As the doctor's started to get worried and say we needed to look further into the situation I got more and more adamant that he was going to be okay. Because if his own mother didn't believe it who the hell would?

They released me after a few days and everyday I would go up to the hospital and sit next to his little incubator and hold his hand. I would put him on my chest and rock him for endless hours. He would smile and hold my hand. I knew he was in pain, but always that smile would come.

The emotional rollercoaster we were all on was exhausting. Doctor after doctor would come in. His heart was looked at numerous times. And never any determination of what was wrong with my little man.

Finally he was transferred to Children's Mercy and that day I laid in bed and cried. Jason knew I couldn't go admit him so he went to the hospital like the strong man he is and filled out the paperwork that I couldn't bring myself to think about.

The doctors and the nurses there were excited to get him on their floor. He appeared to be the healthiest baby there. They had him for one day when they discovered what the problem was.

They called us at home and asked us to come to the hospital so they could talk to us. We knew it wasn't good. Jason said it wasn't good, but still I held out hope. My baby would be okay.

When we got there my parents were already there sitting with him, so tiny in his little bed. We were taken into a room where the doctor assigned to him started to cry as she told us our son was going to die.

What do you do when a doctor who sees babies die everyday is crying and can barely speak? I don't remember everything that transpired after that because I was numb. I do know Jason threw a chair across the room, he was so heart broken.

After that it was meeting with endless people and being told there was no way to tell what his life expectancy would be. He had pulomonary vein stenosis, an underdeveloped lung that was useless and his veins in his chest were too small and too few.

We met with geneticists, hospice, cardiologists and the people with the oxygen tanks. We didn't know if we had 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 month, 2 years... All I know is wanted to take my son home.

And we did. For two weeks. I slept with my hand on his chest every night, just waiting for him to stop breathing. Stepping around oxygen tanks, worrying and loving my baby. Every morning was spent trying to get all his medication in him until he threw it up and then it was starting over again. Every day was spent, struggling to get him to eat. He spent his first weeks being fed through a tube so he didn't know how to eat.

Two weeks. That is what I had with my son. Two, precious, love filled weeks of agony and pain. It was such a tortuous combination of feeling and being raw.

Jadon Riley died 3 days after my 28th birthday. That was the best birthday I ever had. That year I had that whole day with him.

If you made it this far and you read all of that, then you will understand why heading into this last month of Ian's first year is so very awesome. Everyday I look at him and I see him, I see his brother and I see his sister. My three babies.

I am the mother of three.

Not two.