Since becoming “the grieving mother” I have joined several Facebook groups for the bereaved. Some specific to moms, some specific to childhood cancer, some specific to children’s brain caner. These groups have been my therapy for three years. At times I am heavily involved. I pour my heart out. I attend online chats. I cry over other people’s stories. I…
When you’ve been told for a week that your son is going to die “any time now, maybe even within the hour,” and then he continues to hold on, you start to wonder if the doctors are right. You look for any miniscule shred of evidence that they really don’t know what they’re talking about. Every flinch, every eyelash flutter, every hand squeeze becomes a flicker of hope.
Hearts. TJ sends me hearts
I am not always capable of overlooking the grief. That’s ok, though. It’s not about living in denial of sadness; it’s about living despite the sadness.
On certain nights, though, the weight of the atmosphere is so great that all I can do is sit in my chair at the kitchen table, silently cryining and unable to move.
I thought I knew what I was going to write about. Three years ago today, TJ and I were being airlifted from Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia, from one Children’s Hospital to another. I thought I was going to tell you about all the hope I felt that day to be able to get back to our home hospital and meet…
Christmas day is nearly upon us. It can feel quite surreal since Christmas is the start of the worst three weeks of my life. On December 26th, 2015 the shit hit the fan and the bottom fell out of my world. I can hardly bring myself to write about it. Everything was going “well” (meaning as well as it could…
Driving to the home school co-op this morning I felt the holiday sadness creeping in. Like a wiggle worm- one part “get off me” and one part “don’t go away”- the emotions moved through my ears to my head, to my heart, and finally finding their escape route as tears that drenched my cheeks. It’s never easy knowing how to…
Thanksgiving. It’s tomorrow. My co-worker called me this morning to ask if I’d be okay. “It is what it is,” I replied. “Yes, it is.” We ended our conversation with promises to talk tomorrow and I moseyed into the kitchen to tackle some cleaning. After all the dishes were cleaned I set my sights on dusting. I enlisted the help…
Our family celebrated the wedding of my sister yesterday and so yet another special occasion has come and gone without the sweet exuberance of my TJ. It was an amazing day with such love and joy. But for me, I can’t help but miss the one who’s missing. It all started Friday night when we went out to dinner at…