There are several things that have changed my life. How I see things. The person that I am. Here they are.
1. When Derek was born he was nearly 1 week old before I was allowed to hold him. He was over an hour old before I was able to even see him and then I was able to view him thru a plastic isolate and stroke his chubby warm elbow. He was wisked off to Childrens hospital 45 minutes away from the hospital I was in. I was groggy from the c-section and exhausted from labor. We filled out his birth certificate and off he went. Every day we waited and prayed the infection that was in his tiny new body would respond to the medication. He wasnt able to control his own blood pressure, breath on his own, eat on his own or even cry. And I remember the look in his eyes when I was finally allowed to see him. He was mad. He was determined. When the other babys in the NICU cried he cried. When the machines beeped and chimed he stopped whatever baby thing he was able to do at the time and glare at it. He was not happy to be there.
I will NEVER forget all the tubes and wires attached to him. Questions we still have no answers for. He is our 50,000 dollar baby. 2 weeks in NICU that was the final bill. Yet he is so priceless to me.
2. I remember the day I drove in to the garage with Derek in the backseat. Dominic had been working late night after night loading the flights that were leaving from the states to Iraq. But this afternoon he was already home. Derek and I were very happy to see him. I remember saying "you're home" and it hit me he was home to get his stuff he was leaving. We had just under 24 hours to make the final preperations. I remember just looking at him to take him all in. The evening was horrible. He just wanted to be with me and Derek and family after family member came to say good bye to him. I wanted time to stand still, the world to go away. When the time game to finally see him off, we all hugged in the hall way. And we cried and hugged. I remember the smell and the feel of his uniform. The salt of his tears. I will NEVER forget that day. Derek will never forget it either. Little boys shouldnt have to do that sort of thing.
3. I knew what an MRI was but it did not occur to me that Joseph would have to be sedated in to such a deep sleep. The took us back into a very dark room and adminstred the medicine that almost instantly made him feel groggy. And he fought. You could tell he hated the feeling. He was floppy and wanted to nurse. And he cried a very low foggy cry. Finally he subcombed to the sleep and off he went. He is little body asleep but not in a sleeping position. He moved thru the MRI machine quickly and it was over. Before he was awake they began asking me a millon questions. Why was this test ordered? Has he had any seizures? I will never forget the seeing the picture of his wonder gray brain and the ugly dark, black spot on it. It told the whole story. He had a had a stroke and it was big. Had the same stroke occured to an adult they would be incappicated. I was mad. I was angry. I was so sad. So deep, so wide. Why? Nobody knows.
4. Jen kept on online journal through out Lucas' struggle. Thank God she did that. For her, for us. As I read each entry I prayed and sent happy thoughts, I was hopeful. I was optomistic. And then things seemed to get worse. I could see the hope was missing from her entries. I felt but did not want to acknowledge that this was happening. I had just put Joseph my heatly 1 month old in his bouncy seat and began to read the lastest entry Jen had made and the words brought me to my knees. It took my breath away and replaced it with sobs. Lucas had passed away. I grabbed Jospeh from the bouncy and paced the floor holding him tighter and tighter. I called for Derek to come to me and hugged him too. Dominic drove in to the house and I handed him Joseph and said "Hold him, love him. Lucas is gone" I think I can tell you what I was wearing, what Joseph was wearing the time of day it was. Everything.
Some things get my goat. Some time I forget what the big picture looks like. Every now and then I recall these days in my life and feel blessed truly that I am where I am. Life could be much worse I know. The things changed me.
This is just why I am the way I am.
2 comments:
It's strange. I was going to say 'funny' but it's really so not funny, that's just a word we say sometimes when we don't mean it. It's strange. I think even sometimes my own husband wants it all to go away. Not Lucas. Never Lucas or his memory but just the stuff.
You guys, Dominic, Derek, Joseph, and you--all of you continue to barrell ahead even despite things that could easily knock you down. Two things about that; one, you could easily let it, two, you don't. When we really think about it, we can't let life do that to us because we have these precious children. Swear to the Heavens above, these kids..... THEY are the reason we trudge on. THEY are the reason we keep moving, keep going, pretend we are alright, and sometimes hold it all in. My favorite phrase, "bottom line". The 'bottom line' is that if we let life bowl us over, it will then bowl them over. I think we all know that (only now speaking of Dom you, Ivan and me). Many more people know it but only speaking of us for now.
Tamm-if I were able to truly express those memories that I vividly hold in my head, if I were allowed to unabashadly talk of the few days preceding and the day he died, I think I would have to be given a sedative to calm down. My book will one day help me to do it in a slow and calm fashion but if someone walked up to me and said, "spill it, all of it, do it now" I wouldn't know what to do.
Thank you for even saying a little. Thank you for remembering the day. In the oddest oddest of ways, it helps me to know someone so far away also fell to their knees. That day the life was sucked out of me. The old Jenn was swept away and probably never to return. A new person took her place and here I am. Flaws to the nth degree and many more issues than ever I had before.
You, I admire. You think you are not strong. You think you are weak. You think your life is horrible sometimes. Maybe a fraction of that might be true sometimes but look at us and what we've been through. Look at you and what you have overcome and what you continue to overcome even though it seems it will never get here--I truly believe your pot of gold in whatever form is there with you and that more is yet to come. Lots of your friends (including me) have houses and this and that and you know what? So what? Look what you have. After all of that, look what you have. I too think we have a lot and I'm not talking about material things. Even though I can have horrible days and boughts of crying out of the blue; I still recognize we are rich. Not money rich. Not that at all. Just rich in what we have; the three of us with a little one on the way.
I think we both have reasons to be the way we are and they are as valid as the day is long. If others think we are strange or don't understand us, that is THEIR problem, not ours. Remember that. They can't possibly understand us and that's ok. We wouldn't really want them to truly relate because in doing that, they would have to experience all that we have had to and we would never want to see them go through any of that.
Thanks for being an incredible friend. Just thanks.
Jenn
I'am use to staying at home.
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