Embracing Chaos

A while ago, while standing outside in the garage with Steve, I looked over at our neighbor.  He is an old man with no family to speak of, who is always working in his garage until dusk.  Then he goes in his house, and from his kitchen window, you can see him putter around.  If you look through his dining room window you see that at the same time every day he sits down to dinner, by himself, hunched down reading.  I have thought about him often. About what it must be like, to live very much of your life in total silence, unless you fill it with background noise.  .

I have been thinking these thoughts for so long now, that when my mom introduced me to a song I'd never heard before, tears streamed down my face.  Thomas was just a very small thing at the time, not more than a few weeks old, and the song hit on a nerve that runs deep in my veins.  Having children with such a wide age range, my experiences have really changed.  I remember, with Andrew, being so excited for each milestone that I completely forgot about one that we were going through.  I would look forward, in such eager anticipation.  I loved seeing him turn bigger & bigger with each step, and loved how excited he was to get there too, presumably to please me.  Then when Hannah was born, I saw how big Andrew looked next to her.  For the first time it occurred to me that I would never recover the time I'd so nonchalantly let pass by in the blink of an eye.

This is the song my mom introduced to me..

IT WON'T BE LIKE THIS FOR LONG

DARIUS RUCKER

He didnt have to wake up
He'd been up all nite
Lay'n there in bed and listen'n
To his new born baby cry
He makes a pot of coffee
And splashes water on his face
His wife gives him a kiss and says
Its gonna be OK

It wont be like this for long
One day we'll look back laugh'n
At the week we brought her home
This phase is gonna fly by
So baby just hold on
It wont be like this for long

Four years later bout four thirty
She's crawling in there bed
And when he drops her off at preschool
She's clinging to his leg
The teacher peels her off of him
He says what can I do
She says now dont you worry
This will only last a week or two

It wont be like this for long
One day soon you'll drop her off
And she wont even know your gone
This phase is gonna fly by
If you can just hold on
It wont be like this for long

Some day soon she'll be a teenager
And at times he'll think she hates him
Then he'll walk her down the isle
And he'll raise her vale
But right now shes up and cry'n
And the truth is that he dont mind
As he kisses her good night
And she says her prayers
He lays down there beside her
Till her eyes are finally closed
And just watch'n her it breaks his heart
Cause he already knows
It wont be like this for long
One day soon that little girl is gonna be
All grown up and gone
Yeah this phase is gonna fly by
He's try'n to hold on
It wont be like this for long
It wont be like this for long

There are times when the world is going completely out of control around me. I sit there in the center of the storm, dreaming of a life that starts by sleeping until 9, lazily crawling out of my silk sheeted bed, drinking my coffee while slowly reading the paper, and proceeding to spend the day doing whatever I feel like.  Because the laundry is all finished, the dishes were done last night, and the bathroom won't have toothpaste around the entire thing.  I will probably only have to pick up items off the floor because I am moving furniture to vacuum..not because an entire family dropped everything and never looked back.  


I won't fight anyone to eat their veggies. I won't have an entire forest  recycled into the form of school papers as carpeting.  I will eat my lunch the way I like it, without having to scrub yogurt off of the table legs first.  I will make a small dinner and sit with my very quiet husband and we will talk about something other than the reasons why we don't discuss farts at the table.  I will have 2 plates and forks to rinse, and my dishwasher will take at least 3 days to fill up, instead of 3 times a day.  I will take a quiet shower at the timing I wish, not when the water comes back from cold.  I will get out to find my towel exactly where I left it-and not have to yell for someone to get me one.  I will leisurely brush my teeth, and quietly get ready without worrying about whether I forgot to sign something or another.  I will watch some late night talk show-because I will get to sleep until I feel rested-and then quietly slip into my nice satin sheets again.  


The problem with that is, when that day I dream about comes, I will be totally and utterly bored.  I won't have laughter ringing through the house.  I won't have hugs and kisses at my disposal.  I won't have teammates for a game of Guesstures, or anyone to tell stupid jokes to.  I will never again get the utter chaos that my life has been for the last 13 years.  I will have joy, and I will have laughter but it will never, ever be like this again. 

It's amazing what perspective can accomplish.  My life is good, sweet, and filled with blessings so numerous I can't begin to list them all.  I know that I am far from done with raising the kids, but as the days melt into weeks that somehow ooze into years I know that what I have is better than a clean house free from ear piercing toddler screams, or tween dramarama.  These are blessings I can't even begin to imagine replacing.  


When that day of boredom comes I will stalk my children.. I will be pushing the doctor aside as my grandbabies are born and I will pretend to not notice that my kids are hoping Grandma goes home soon...


Just kidding..sorta...!

The "C" Word

Disclosure: These are the true feelings of my current life situation.  Please, don't judge me, as I promise not to judge you.  What I say may not be used against me, given that I'm listening to heart cripplingly sad music, feeling a bit lonely while the house is so quiet.

When my Grandma died, we didn't know that it was going to happen.  One minute we knew she was sick, but that it was treatable, and the next she was gone.  I was so angry. Hurt beyond belief, and felt that there was this hole that could never be filled.  As time went on, of course, the hurt was no longer always present.  I can smile when I think about her, and know that she truly was the best Grandma I could have ever had in the world.  I'll admit though, that there are times I break down into a full blown sobbing mess, but I've learned to work through it & take my feelings to utilize them for personal growth.

I thought that, maybe if we had known, it would make it easier.  Get to say our goodbyes, hear her voice & soak it in.  Last goodbyes seem so vitally important when the they get ripped away from you.

Now though, I'm not so sure.  Getting more time to say goodbye still means you have to say goodbye.  Don't get me wrong, I'm really thankful that we get to know we can have closure.  It means we get to brace ourselves.  But who are we kidding when we think getting time will make it easier?  Especially since I truly live by the cliche "Live each day like it's your last."  Or my other life's cliche "No Regrets"  Because I remember how it felt to lose my Grandma so quickly.  Not that I had a single regret when she died.  We had a good relationship, and there were things I wish I had said but I know she knew them already.  I was terribly sad that she didn't get to see Hannah after she was born, and it tore my heart to pieces to see Andrew so forlorn when he lost his best friend.  She was such a figure of our lives, such an important piece to the family puzzle, losing her meant losing myself in a way.  After adapting to her being gone I was never who I was before.

Cancer changes everything you thought you knew about death & loss.  There's this horrific feeling of guilt, that knowing what his diagnosis is-knowing cancer will invade every last second of every last day until he succumbs to it's awful grasp-knowing all of this & having so much anger at it's painful grip on him..well what should you feel?  Knowing it's terminal, knowing it will physically & mentally hurt worse than anything he will ever feel again, what can you feel but the dreadful hope that he will go peacefully before it gets to that point?  Cancer is a hateful thing.  It leaves you with thoughts rattling through your head you never thought in a million years you'd have.  To hope for him to be at peace sooner, rather than later. To hope he can be walking into those heavenly gates before he's hurting so badly even the largest dose of medications cannot help.

Of course, there's always faith.  That the cancer will be gone, that a miracle happens in our midst.  But staying optimistic is ultimately more hurtful than being a pessimist.  I've seen the progression of this disease.. The tentacles of it's vileness reaching out.  Giving him side effects that make the current level of cancer seem secondary.  Soon though, I know deep in my heart, that this is his final time here, and whatever hope we're intended to have just can't pull it's own weight when the word "terminal" is used in the same sentence as "worst possible form of brain cancer."


What angers me most is, he was SO healthy.  They say "Oh, he was so full of life" and they may be right, but that saying should actually be coined as my Grandpa's own personal tagline.  He ran circles around us.  Not one, not two, but maybe three or four circles a day around us.  Not just mentally..physically he could probably actually run around us! Yet, there he is, after a lifetime of right choices, being told that he has something so randomly ironic.. Healthy life, worst brain cancer possible.  Go figure.

Of course, I've had to sort through all of these feelings while simultaneously trying to protect him from someone so despicable that she's not even worth more than one sentence in my blog.  (Ok two, because I ramble) To quote my Aunt: "I can't wait for the day when hearing her name means nothing at all"

My kids have been so strong through all of this.  They have so much love in their hearts, and so many good memories.  If there's one thing I hope they know deep down, is that they had one of the most rare types of relationship a person can have.  They have a whole vault full of memories of their Great Grandpa.  Not very many kids get that, and they were so blessed to have such a beautiful relationship with him.  He's given them so much.  And the gifts he give them will continue even when we have to say goodbye.  I don't know if they'll ever truly realize just how much they are who they are because of him.  But I hope they do, because knowing that is what still makes me smile, even now as I write this.

I think what I will take most from all of these reflections is this: As one who will eventually leave my current body & move on:  Live a robust life, and throw yourself into it daily.  You never know what might show up in the least likely of places. You never know who's lives you're going to touch.  And most certain of all, whatever your ultimate life's blueprints are, however it works out, don't wait till the end.  And if you do get a timeline, never just give up because you know it's ending soon.  Fight for every last ounce of life you have.  The people around you do need you, and they're soaking up this time for a reason.  Whether it be years from now, or tomorrow, even when you don't think it,  you're truly needed.

Why?

It's simple....

You.
ARE.
Loved!

I-Am-Pregnant

Ok, the title is really quite deceiving.  I am not, in fact pregnant.  However, I say this phrase probably once a day.  Or I say IAP, or My IAP girls.

When I was pregnant with Thomas, as with both of my other kids, I was hungry for knowledge about my pregnancies.  There's nothing like being told that your baby is the size of a piece of rice, like when I 1st looked into my pregnancy online with Andrew.  Or a head of cauliflower, like I vividly remember Hannah.  So I wanted to read up on what food Thomas was at my week in pregnancy.  I typed into Google "I am pregnant"  which immediately popped up the website.  I browsed around for a little bit. Found my week's group and read some of the posts.

It wasn't until I was a little further along that I started posting stuff.  Then I became hooked.  Every day I would go on, check the updates, and refresh my page over & over & over again, since it didn't auto refresh.  As time went on, we all had things happening, and it seemed like they were happening around the same time for each of us.  Even down to the crazy pregnancy cravings.

One day a shock was felt through the forum, as one of our little babies was born way too early.  Our hearts broke for the family, and we all prayed for her to grow big & strong.  At any given time, there would be people checking in to see how she was.  Another mom was expecting twins and put on extreme bed rest, and others had other things they were needing advice, comfort, or a place to vent.  We became a close knit family, brought together by our love, hope, and understanding.  The little girl born extremely premature is now a healthy thriving toddler, and we all felt the relief and utter joy that she was okay.

The nature of the IAP forum was to be a positive one.  Although we could talk about anything we wanted, it was understood that we were to not judge, speak rudely, or insult anyone because of their beliefs,  Be it about parenting style, personal choices, or any other hot button topic it was to stay warm & friendly.  We didn't avoid discussions, but it was always so great to be able to understand each other without always necessarily agreeing exactly the same.  It was nice that, if one of us had a question, we could ask it without fear of being verbally lashed at.  Something that, let's admit, is hard for a large group of women to do ;-)  But it did.  There was only one incident.  The reason for it, I can't remember.  Somebody who wasn't from our week said something just awful about somebody else.  Oh, the way we were bound together that girl didn't have a fighting chance. Coming in and speaking about one of our loved ones like that!  Pretty much immediately she was kicked off of the site by the mediator, and it was like we now knew that we really were not just people passing through the internet's vast ocean.  We were our own little IAP clan.

As we were getting ready to deliver, all of us feeling the excitement of meeting our newest family member and relieved at the thought of being comfortable again, we realized also that there was a sadness there too.  The people who had come to mean so much to us were going to be saying goodbye, since we all weren't going to be pregnant anymore.  There is a post pregnancy site there, but the room was really quite small, and the idea of trying to maintain our friendships there wasn't as realistic as we all knew.  So girls started exchanging real names for Facebook.  I didn't have a Facebook at the time, or one that I actually used, so I didn't add anyone quite yet.  But then, as I saw that I really missed everyone, and seeing their babies we had spent so much time getting to know, well quite frankly, it bummed me out.

So, I dusted off the Facebook site, added my picture, and started inviting girls that I saw were friends of each other from there.. Slowly building up my friend's list.  I know I missed a lot of them, since even now there's an occasional girl I see who's mutual friends are from there, so I add them.  As time's gone on, I have begun to forget their IAP nickname.  I've also added, of course, other people to my Facebook.  Family, friends, coworkers, anyone willing to put up with my incessant posts.

And since then, of course, we have been able to resume our friendships in our original format.  Thanks to one of my good friends on Facebook, who set up the site so that we could all talk like the old days.  Only now we don't have to refresh the page.  We can get updates without always being on.  Although I do find myself lost in conversations for hours, when of course there are many things to be doing.

My IAP girls mean the world to me.  I never understood online friendships, or how close they could really become.  I never knew that talking to someone without ever hearing their voice doesn't change the fact that you hurt when they're hurting, feel joy when they're smiling, or completely understand the frustration that every other woman goes through, both parental and not.  We come from all over the world.  We have kids of all ages and stages.  Yet we are bound by this incredible journey we have taken together.

Some of the girls have begun adding new members to their family.  They have gone back to the I-Am-Pregnant website, excited at the chance to go through their pregnancy with girls their same week.  They have gone to their week, and they have tried to have topic discussions.  Each one have them have said the same thing-it's just not the same.  Since then girls have been added to the IAP site that weren't originally on, and they feel the same way we all have.  They love the group, love the friendships, and the support system is phenomenal.

Some day we all hope to meet.  It would be so hard, since we are all over the globe..but it would be a goal worth obtaining.  We've joked about playing the lottery, or contacting a talk show.  Somehow finding a way.  I know that if the opportunity ever presents itself, I will be the first one on that plane to meet some of the most incredible women I know!  I love my IAP's!!