So I haven't been great about blogging the past year...

Dear long neglected blog,

I wanted to do a quick catch up on some of the things we have been busy with over the last year.  First in August, we welcomed Mila Love, and she has been pure joy for us.

Nathan worked on his eagle scout project.  We are so proud of his strength and bravery.  He honored his sister and tried to save other children at the same time.  Here is an article on his work.

Nathan's Eagle Scout project-in memory of Abigail

And Michael, Mila, and I travelled to DC to urge our government to issue a rear visibility standard.  The legislation requiring a new standard was signed by the president on 2008.  It passed unanimously with 80 co sponsors and bipartisan support.  The new standard was due out in 2011.  It is 2013 and this is unacceptable.  We bought plane tickets and joined a group of parents in DC on April 11, the 3rd anniversary of losing Abigail.  We interviewed with CNN, spoke to USA Today, participated in a press conference, and met with our senators and representative in their office.  We hope they do the right thing.  Keeping our children in danger because of bureaucracy is simply unacceptable.  With 50 kids hit each week, and 70,000 backover accidents having occurred since this bill was signed, we must do something now.  Blind zones of up to 50 feet behind vehicles is more than dangerous for all of us, but especially the elderly, the disabled, and children.  We must protect them, and ourselves.  We are at risk of causing one of these accidents every time we are behind the wheel because we simply can not see.  The cost of cameras is minimal.  It adds less than $100 to the cost of a new car.  We have done so much to protect passengers inside vehicles.  It is not time to protect those outside the vehicles.  We strongly encourage anyone reading this to contact your members of Congress in Washington today to urge them to make sure this rule comes out immediately and that it is effective in such a way to prevent these accidents.  34% of preventable fatalities in children are caused by backovers.  It is too late for Abigail, but many other lives will be saved because of this standard and rear view cameras on all vehicles.  Here is our interview at CNN and the article at USA Today. 

CNN interview

USA Today article

Holidays

I don’t think anyone would be surprised if I say holidays are one of the hardest times after the loss of a child. The reasons why are many. Significant days, fun days, memory making days when your family isn’t whole are obviously miserable. However, it is more than that even.

Most days I can just act like it is any other day. If you knew me before, I am the ultimate planner. I plan our school year on Christmas break of the year before. I know the summer camps my kids will attend for the next several years. I have plans that carry my kids through their high school years. As you can imagine, my weeks are planned out to the minute. All of that was before. Before my world came crashing down around me. Before my family was ripped apart.

After. That is where I live now. In the after, I do not plan. I take one day at a time. Sometimes I take one hour at a time. I have a vague understanding of what I need to get accomplished each day. Gone are the days of lists of my lists. Now, I am so distracted, just getting through the next few minutes is sometimes the best I can do. And this is not because I am overwhelmed by grief, although sometimes I am. It is just because the grief takes so much of my brain space. And then there is the time…

Looking into my calendar, the fact that she isn’t here slams me in my face. The fact that she did not see this November. She didn’t see this fall, much less this summer. Those plans I had with her were lost with her. The struggles I imagined at the pool this summer didn’t happen. This day, this moment, she wasn’t with us. I can lose that thought if I stay away from my planner. If I stay away from dates. I can live in the thought that this is just another day to get through. Another moment to hurdle. Nothing significant—not a specific day or date when she isn’t part of us. Not another day further from her touch, her sound, her smell. My calendar feels like a count down away from her and the further I am away from her, the more I want her.

But holidays. It is those days when I can’t ignore the date. Holidays, by necessity, imply time passing because they are specific moments. It can’t just be another Thursday, because it is Thanksgiving Thursday. It can’t just be another Sunday, because it is Oct. 31/Halloween—a specific date, a specific moment she isn’t here. I don’t know if that even makes sense, but in my world, the world of after, dates are feared and avoided, and holidays force me to face them.

So if you try to make plans with me and I act indecisive or put you off till the last minute, it isn’t that I don’t want to see you or our plans aren’t important. It is just the sheer act of “planning” something that doesn’t include one of my children is absolute misery to me. Forgive my current spontaneity and flakiness. I know it isn’t like me. I know avoiding holidays isn’t like me. It is just more than I can do right now.

When I am ready to face holidays again, they will be different. We are different. She changed us and that impact will live forever. We can not and will not go back to the same traditions and celebrations and pretend that my baby girl never even existed. The things we chose to do will honor her memory, will help us focus on what is real and what is important, and will help us to maintain a connection with my Abigail. It is important for my kids and for us.

The Concert

As you probably well know, Michael and I were very blessed to have the opportunity to attend the Night with the Chapman concert last Sunday. I have so many thoughts running through my head about that night. Here are some...

1. Getting to ask questions to SCC and MBC is so worth the extra money we had to spend for VIP tickets.

2. Seeing the Chapmans connect and relate to our story was priceless. They offered beautiful words of wisdom, hope, and understanding.

3. My biggest impression was how honest and raw they are about their pain. Expect to see more on this in days to come. I so appreciate their claiming the freedom to grieve that so many think they can't. Grief is hard. Losing a child is awful. It is not something you get over ever. It is not something you "heal" from completely. Nor do you want to! I don't want to move past my baby. I think I will always keep a slice of this pain close to my heart. Physically, it is my only connection with her right now. The Chapmans have a beautiful story of faith and rising above, but they never downplay the pain. They never act like it was just all ok, or that it is even all ok now. They have suffered and are suffering. They questioned their faith and their God. They wrestled with huge issues. They keep wrestling with big issues. They hurt, and they aren't afraid to talk about it.

4. They have such a passion for their ministry-Show Hope.

5. Cinderella, See, Beauty will Rise, and Heaven is the Face are incredibly hard to sit through, especially if you are sitting next to your husband and he is sobbing.

6. There is a beautiful community of support between parents that have lost children. If you haven't, you can't really understand this pain. Meeting someone who is also walking this path helps me feel a little less of the weight of loneliness that I feel most of the time.

7. I need to read Mary Beth's book. She and I seem to much alike in personality. The things she was saying about God's plans and her own--I just had that same discussion at a Bible study I attend...almost word for word. (And I thought her trick on her daugther in law was hilarious) I could relate to pretty much everything she said. I have thought or experienced most of those same thoughts and emotions. Again, I need to read her book.

8. I couldn't take my eyes off of Will Franklin when he was on stage. My emotions there are a tangled up mess.

9. I loved the informal feel of the concert, but I would have loved a little more of a sit around and talk time.

10. I am too old to sit at a concert from 5-11 or to be out of the house that late. I left there starving, with a massive headache, and hurting all over, lol. And I am too old to hop right up and do school Monday morning if I wasn't in bed until 12. Contrary to popular belief. I adore sleep. Lots of sleep.

My dream

I don't dream much. Never have. When I do dream, I notice. I want to dream of Abigail, but when I do, the experience shakes me. Here are the 3 dreams I have had of her.

1-Early on I dreamed she was sleeping with me. This was the most real dream I have every had. I felt her. I smelt her. I touched her soft baby hair. I couldn't see her. I was asleep myself in my dream. It begain as a realization that there was a little person in bed with Michael and I. Having kids, that isn't an uncommon occurence, but in my dream state, I couldn't quite figure out which one it was. I just enjoyed the moment of snuggling with my little one. As I started to form the thought in my head that this was Abigail, she stood up and jumped from the bed and disappeared. I grabbed for her and woke up sobbing.

2-I dreamed we were in a long hall with lots and lots of people. There were stairs at intervals in this hall. Michael was up ahead of me and he was coming toward me so excited and emotional. He was holding Abigail and screaming "I found her! I found her!" I was so thrilled. My ecstasy at that moment can't even be put in words. We had "lost" her, but now she was back with us. I started trying to share my enthusiam with all the people around us. I was putting her in their faces and showing her to them saying, "she is back! he found her!" To my surprise and annoyance, no one even seemed to notice. They gave me such a strange look and then passed on by. They didn't see her. I was so confused so I carried her to a large mirror in the hall and looked in. The child I thought I was holding wasn't there. I could see her in my arms, but in the mirror, she disappeared.

3-I dreamed that I was crying and was so desperate to see my baby girl. Michael said to me that you know you can visit her anytime you want. I was very surprised and frustrated that no one had told me before. If I could have been visiting her, why didn't anyone say?! Well, I went to visit her (I have no idea how I travelled), and arrived at the gates of heaven. It was very much a pearly gates kind of place, and I could see Abigail but she was behind a heavy plastic sheet--much the same as you would see in construction areas. I could see her and talked to her (though muffled) but I couldn't actually touch her--only through the plastic. My lasting impression of that dream is that she was smiling. Oh, how she was smiling. Her smile was never-ending and didn't lessen the entire time. I knew in the dream that she was smiling because she was happy, but also because she was happy to see me.

My passionate one

Abigail is a spunky little girl (I refuse to use past tense--she IS a spunky girl). She always knows what she wants. A friend visited this week that used to watch Abigail while I taught at co-op. She knew my baby girl's passionate side well. She told me about one day at co-op. The big kids were headed outside playing and the little ones were staying in. Abigail definitely qualified as a little one--both in age and stature. However, when the big kids were headed out, she thought she should go too. She, in fact, was so positive she should go that she proceeded to through a full-fledged fit to emphasize her point to the sweet ladies watching the kids that day. The other ladies were quick to tell my friend that "Abigail is different. Yes, she is a little one, but we let her out with the big kids." (they must have already learned the consequences) She thought she was one of them afterall. She was independent and fully capable of handling herself on the playground--at least, so she thought. My friend also told me about my sweet little momma Anna Faith who would follow Abigail around--at just the right distance to not upset her--to make sure she didn't hurt herself. The two of them are polar opposites, but make the best team. Such a treasure--such a vivid memory--such a perfect picture of my little bit's passion.

Abigail, I miss your fits. I miss the way you would lay yourself on the ground kicking and screaming until you thought we weren't watching you, and the way you would reposition yourself to where you knew you were seen. I miss our daily battle of wills (which you usually won). I miss your zest for life--singing twinkle twinkle or shake your booty as loud as you can in the car, impromptu performances on the fireplace, waving bye to me at the door as you thought you were headed out on your own...I don't have a fraction of the fire you have my baby girl, but I am trying. I am trying because I know you would keep me moving if you were here.

My Week-perspective

This week has been insanity. What an emotional roller coaster. We started out Monday with Samuel's surgery. I prepared for it as I had wished I had been able to prepare for Abigail's accident. I took pictures of him with each of us, talked about all his favorite things, and, in general, tried to remember every tiny detail...just in case... I think so much of my life is lived that way now. The reality of losing my children hasn't changed. Children are just as likely (or not likely depending on your perspective) to die as before, but I expect it now. It is real to me in a way it was never before. I know that pain. Anyway, I walked him to that door and handed him off to the nurse. I watched him walk down the hall and did not expect him to come back. Imagine my surprise when he did come back fine a short time later.

All week I have been dealing with a whiney, miserable, post-op 5 year old. I have been blessed and thankful. It has been a miserable week because he is miserable, but I am so thankful I was able to care for him instead of plan his funeral.

Eli has been teething. Wow, I am once again so thankful for the extra fussy baby. Not because he is miserable. Not because he has made my life difficult this week, but because he is here to cause me distress.

Nathan turned 13. Normally I would have cried endlessly that he is growing up and is closer to moving out. Now I am once again thankful. I have had 13 years with him. I would give just about anything to have had that long with Abigail. I have had the opportunity to see him grow and change. He is so mature and calm now. We have come a long way.

As I sit at the end of a very difficult week and reflect, I know that my perspective has changed. I know that I see life so differently now. Some changes are not good-I expect my kids to die. Some are good-I am constantly reminded of how thankful I am in even the worst moments. Abigail, regardless, you have changed my view of the world. I miss arguing with you most of all. I love your spunk. I have always loved how you know your own mind. In that moment, I didn't enjoy your passion fully everytime, but I do now. You lived every minute and I am so thankful for that.

Halloween

I don't have anything profound to say, but I guess I have to start somewhere. I sit here tonight, just me and my snuggly little one. Eli is the most snuggly baby I have ever known. He is crawling and mobile, but prefers to lay in my arms, sucking his thumb, and gazing into my eyes. God knew I needed this one.

I have so many days where the thought of Abigail being gone is just too much. On those days, I just pretend she isn't gone. Today has been one of those days. A day when the pain is too much to bear.

The rest of my family, except the one missing, are our trick-or-treating. The level of guilt I feel for not being with them is profound. I have never missed one minute of Halloween. I usually do it up big. I make themed costumes and everyone participates. We hit every single fall festival/halloween event I can find. And we always trick or treat till we drop. This year, we have done none of the above. The kids put together their own costumes, and I haven't been at a single festival. My sweet friend very kindly took my kids to an event so that would get to go to something, but that is it. We spent all day working on the house pretending it was just a regular day and then Michael took them out tonight while I sit here at home pretending it is just a break. We have done so little Halloween this year, my kids actually didn't believe me when I told them it was the day. Wow.

My feelings here are so conflicting. I want to be there with them. I don't want to waste a minute with them. But, it feels just so wrong to not have little bit here in the middle of all of us. Today would have been the ultimate excitement for her. We would have had her in the cutest of costumes, and she would have been so thrilled to knock on doors and get candy. Nothing excited her more in this world than chocolate. Last year she had a blast. This year would have been even better. I am that crazy person that started planning this Halloween last year, and her unexpected absence is just so profound and apparant.

This year, the Halloween-themed decorations are like knifes in my heart. I see tombstones and images of death taken lightly everywhere I turn. It has never bothered me before. It bothers me now.

My struggle is when to push myself and when to let the grief win. Tonight the grief is winning. I am sitting at home, missing watching my others have their night. Next year, maybe I will be stronger.