And So It Was With Grey's

Years ago, I stopped watching Grey's Anatomy because I just felt too convicted watching something that was so damn smutty and immoral. Says the girl with the sailor's mouth and more sins than there are stones to throw. Living, breathing dichotomy here. There's a spin-off from that show, Private Practice, that I also wouldn't watch, for the same reason. Somehow, during the final season, I caught an episode that reeled me in. I figured it was a good thing that it ended, so I could have one less guilty pleasure in my life. Then, Brando died in May and I started recording reruns because it was such a stray from my usual fare, that it totally kept my mind off my reality.

In July, I was in Vegas with family, while my girl was in New Orleans with her Auntie and Grandpa. While I was there, I'd watch Private Practice on my iPad, while I was falling asleep each night. It didn't take long before I realized that I was falling asleep crying every night because people kept getting sick and dying. Every episode. I decided to take a little break from the heartache. Enter the Fall TV season. I see a preview for the Grey's Anatomy season premiere and decide to record it, thinking their craziness would distract me from my own.

And, this is how I ended up in bed last Friday night, saying to the television, in between sobs, why is everyone effin dying, only with much more colorful language. That is where my daughter found me when she got home, in bed crying uncontrollably because people were dying...on a tv show. She's going for the remote to quickly put it on anything that doesn't involve people dying and all I can do is keep my head under the covers and try not to cry out loud. Because in their expertly acted reality, my reality will not go the **** away. In the death of one of their own, I cannot escape the death of my own. They don't actually feel anything and all I can feel is pain so real, so piercing, I think that if I just don't look it in the eye, it won't take my life, too. It's just that scary. Not scary for me, but scary because there are other people I love, there are people who love and need me. Today, and maybe for the rest of my life, I think that, just maybe, allowing yourself to think about the worst possible thing, somehow opens the door. So, how do I stop thinking so that the bad things won't see the door cracked open? I don't know. I try...I try hard...and there it is, out of the blue...in a song, a stray thought, a tv show where I didn't expect it.

Jeremiah

Today was a hard day. There's so much going on and I'm having a hard time finding the will to not feel defeated. I dragged myself to church because I had to serve today and I knew we'd be at least one body short already, so I decided to go, in spite of myself. It's a hard season in my life to be at a church that is going through a season of lots of newborns and tiny children. I love babies, but right now all I see in them is Brandon as a newborn and all of my hopes and dreams for him just gone-forever. When Brandon was a newborn, he made these cute little sounds that we likened to starting his engine. One baby in church today was making similar noises and it was just ripping my heart out, one sound at a time.

I filled out the prayer request form and decided to try and stay to listen to at least a portion of the message, even though it wasn't my pastor doing the sermon. The book of Jeremiah is where we landed. Almost immediately, I was struck at how closely the message resembled my prayer request. Jeremiah had become disillusioned, which is EXACTLY what I have described. No circumstances could turn my faith to unbelief in the Father, but exactly nothing is how I'd envisioned it being in my life... it's much worse. Jeremiah also simultaneously laments misery and lack of hope, while clinging to the hope that the Father gives us, just as I do.

I am no prophet with a book in the Bible, but I am human as was Jeremiah, with human hurts. God heard Jeremiah and I know He has heard me. He, in fact, addressed my very heart, not fifteen minutes after I laid it out. It doesn't make it all better..I ache with the pains of a woman in labor for years, missing my son, but I am not alone. I feel more lonely than you could imagine, because this particular pain is mine and mine alone, but I am never, ever alone.

Firsts and Lasts

That's a picture of my first tattoo... it might be my last.  It hurt. BAD.  What I'd give to be able to go back in time and have gotten that for the boy while he was alive.  He'd have been so honored, so proud to see his wimpy mom with a tattoo bearing his name.  Maybe then he'd have understood just how special he was, how much he was needed on this earth.   The lettering below his name reads, in Farsi, half of my heart.  There was a time in my life that I swore I'd never have a tattoo, but I can't think of anything more beautiful to have permanently imprinted on my body!

Today I made a nice dinner for my daughter, something that is still really hard for me to do for just the two of us.  Sitting at the dinner table continues to be a real challenge for me because I can't get past Brandon's empty chair.  When we have guests, it helps that his chair isn't empty,  but then I struggle with someone, even if it's me, sitting where my son should be.  How I wish I'd known, the last time he sat there, that it'd be his last so I could've recorded every second, committed every second to memory or something that really awesome moms do, the moms who have every moment of their children's lives preserved somewhere.  It wouldn't make his empty chair hurt less, but at least I'd have it permanently recorded, so I could never forget.
                                                                                                                                                     
This was the girl's first day of school... her last first day of high school, so my last first day, as well.  I'm not a big fan of lasts, especially when I'm not prepared.  Maybe it's a control thing, who knows, but I'm not a big fan of things ending, even when it's on my terms.  Change just hasn't been much of a friend to me, I guess.  Before I know it, we'll be in her last day of college, of being single, living with mom, last birthday in the teens, etc.

 We just celebrated her last birthday in high school. The first birthday celebration without my boy there.  I wanted to look forward to her day and just relish every single second, but the closer we got, the more I thought I wouldn't be able to cope with the day at all.  My husband had to remind me that it was her day, all about her, but all I could think about was how I didn't get to have my son there and how he'd never celebrate a birthday past his teen years.  Celebrating anything seemed like pure torture. We got through it,  though, and we got through it with some smiles and laughter, amazingly.

I never imagined there'd be a last day of being Brando's mom.  Well, that's not entirely true, I feared it would happen, but I didn't want to believe it would happen, could happen. I needed our last day together on this earth to be as I was going home, never him going ahead of me.  May 16th was, unknowingly, my last normal day on this earth, the last day I was the Lisa I used to know.  Now, I'm stuck in a world of firsts that are a living nightmare, every one of them.  New normal continues to suck, with its lack of reference points, no navigation AND no way out, even if I tried to turn around, other than just trudging through it, hoping I don't get my daughter lost, while I'm feeling around in the dark.

100 Days

August 15th...Obviously, a date before the 100 day mark.  I could've just left it at 'here's my 100 day blog post, all this came to me right on this day', but I want to be authentic here, even about something as silly as a date.  I can pretend everywhere else, but here I want every word to be real.  So, all of this post is just me coming to the computer here and there, throwing my thoughts on here, up to August 26th.

It has already been 100 days since time stopped for me, when Brando left this earth.  Those hundred days have done little for my disbelief that this is the life I have to live.  I will pull into my driveway and be overcome with emotion at the thought of Brandon never being in this house, again.  I still cannot believe it's possible.

A hundred days that I've lived with half of my heart gone.  Something I never imagined would be possible.  I look back at some of my blog posts and wonder, especially on the ones where I seem sane and normal, if there's not something really wrong with me.  Am I still in deep shock, am I going to look back at this time and wonder who that person was?  I wonder this because I do not understand, even knowing God and understanding grace, how I haven't just collapsed in a heap...and stayed there...sobbing my eyes out, every single second of the last 8, 640, 000 seconds (yes, that many).  You just keep living, like it or not, but it doesn't seem rational to allow life to make you keep living when your child is gone.  I should be fighting it every step of the way.  That's what my heart says.  My mind understands that it cannot be that way.  I imagine someday, mind and heart will be on the same page, although it's a day that will surprise me, since it's yet to happen in my life.  Ever.

The other night, the girl and I were sitting at a restaurant talking about eye color, when Brandon's was mentioned.  He had the most unique eye color and the most beautiful, long, curly eyelashes.  Sitting there, I realized that I'd never get to see those eyes, up close and personal, until I meet him in Heaven, and instantly tears welled up in my eyes.  What I would give to see those eyes, even with anger in them or sadness or his pupils dilated for some Godforsaken reason or any sort of way, just to be able to look into them, to touch him, to hug him, to talk to him one more time.  God, I miss him so, so much.  I still physically ache for him.

One hundred days of tears, with no end on the horizon.  My friend who lost her husband said she cried every day for eight months, though, so I guess it doesn't seem crazy to be at the 100 day mark.  Most of the time, I try hard to keep it together because I'm afraid if I start crying, I won't stop and it's just not practical to walk around this earth crying constantly.  I'm actually able to wear makeup now, something I couldn't do for the longest time because I knew I'd have it cried all over my face and clothes within an hour.  I still have to be mom and attempt to give my girl some semblance of normalcy, although I honestly have no idea what normal means.  I doubt I'll ever understand normal the way most people mean normal.  It's not even possible to have what I thought was normal and I still don't want a new normal, I want my old one back, with my boy.  I keep saying, "I hate new normal," and I do.  I can't get it to go away.

A hundred days of going back and forth with the inner voices that battle constantly.  "You didn't do enough.  You're a horrible mother.  God gave you this beautiful gift that you cared for poorly.  If only you'd done something else, something different, he'd still be here.  You should've made him go to church more often."  The gracious voice rarely wins the argument, but it tries.  "You loved him with all you have, he knew that.  You tried the best you could, the best you knew how.  Brandon had free will.  He's in heaven, it's good that you raised him in the church."  This dialogue, or some form of it, goes through my head on a daily basis, if not more frequently.  I can't understand how to reconcile the fact that Brandon dying was preventable, yet it wasn't, or how I cannot be responsible for him being gone, when I was the one responsible for him. 

Praying is still a similar conflict.  I prayed for Brandon constantly and I had others pray for him, lots and lots of others.  Still, he is gone.  So, do my prayers matter or is everything already decided and I'm merely talking to talk?  In the same breath, I ask God why this has to be my lot in life and apologize for not being a better mom, for allowing Brandon to die.  Sometimes, I'm afraid to pray, afraid that when I ask for something, I'll be given the opposite or God will take the other half of my heart.  Still, I practice believing God for his goodness and reminding myself that it rains on the just and unjust and that, while I may feel picked on and abandoned, it's a huge blessing that Brandon sits with the Father and that I will get to see him, again, regardless of what has happened on this earth.  I won't lie, it's hard.  Trusting in His sovereignty and knowing that it'll all be ok because God has already been there is so very hard, when you know that He was with your son in his final moments and didn't let him stay.

**The paragraph directly above this was one of those moments, written before the third paragraph from the top, when I had a moment of talking to myself about trusting the truth I know.  That third paragraph, where I question the sanity of such a thought, was written five days later.  It's bad when the dialogue in your head starts arguing with itself in a public forum.   Good grief....and what kind of a thing is that to say.  No, just grief, bad grief...all by itself.  Raw, exposed, ripping the cushions out of the foam in my head, crushing grief.  I want Brandon back.  God, please?  I'll do anything.

Another 18th

I was having a bit of a struggle this morning and then I realized that it's the 18th.  My  boy has been gone three months.  The three saddest, numbest, most painful months of my life.  I hadn't planned on doing a blog post today, but I had one already typed up from yesterday, so I guess I'll go ahead and post.  I keep wondering when I'll run out of tears and questions and just accept that things are how they are and move on to the next stage of my life. 

I think it's safe to say that for most of the last three months, I've been lost.  I'm getting more lost by the day, it seems.  I'm getting better at putting on a facade, something I have long despised in other people, but now totally understand.  Every time I get two minutes with my thoughts alone, I cannot stand what goes through my head, so I try not to let that happen.  If I knew what kind of help to ask for, I'd ask for it, truly, but I'm at a loss.  It's hard to even describe what I feel, other than just done....or, maybe like I'm drowning, but not every life preserver can save me and I don't know the kind I need someone to throw in to me. 

Defeat can have me because I just do not give a shit right now.  This is such an isolating experience and darn it I've gone it alone for so much of my life, I'm just so over figuring it all out alone.  Evidently, that is not the case because here I sit.  Alone.  I could pick up the phone and have people by my side.  I could drive down the road and have people all around me.  Guess what I'd be....yep, all alone. 

I subscribed to a daily email (for a year, I think) from Grief Share.  One of the first things they tell you about grief is that it is the cost of loving someone.  At first, that made sense, but the more I think about it, it doesn't seem fair or right.  Does everyone we love cause us grief?  Well, I guess so.  I know that's not the grief they're referring to per se, but gees it's depressing.  I think I'm just feeling really negative, maybe I shouldn't be putting this into words because I'm sure I'm not helping a soul, but maybe someone will have their own negativity validated someday because of mine.  At the very least, everyone who reads this will be assured of their own sanity, so that's something, I suppose. 

The end of my first day's email had a scripture that crops up often in church, in 'religious' emails, in testimonies, etc, it's:  “But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).  My problem is that I have hoped, I have hoped like no one has hoped, seriously.  I don't believe in false hope, I think hope is often the only thing we feel like we can live for, so I have clung to it with my last breath.  I have waited so long for renewed strength and something other than a weary feeling and yet I have walked through a desert so dry it makes the Sahara look like the Pacific Ocean.  I am not soaring and man am I faint.  Off the top of my head, I can't think of the entire passage, to put it in its proper context, and I'm too lazy to reach over the six inches to look in my Bible, but maybe that's in the eternal sense.  I know it is claimed often in the here and now, so people walk it....it's even on my fridge to give me hope...but I am slowly losing hope that there is even a remote possibility of this verse being for me because I am so weary.  I want to turn around.  I've held on, thinking the desert will turn green if I just wait a little longer or trust a little more and, instead, I'm nothing but parched. And lost.....sad....and exhausted from crying an ocean of tears. 

I desperately want my boy back....my boy who also hated being alone....I miss our long talks.  As your kids grow, you look back and think, where did all the time go?  To have that and to have his adulthood snatched away, knowing you'll never get to reminisce with him about the early days or help him learn something or just share anything....it's beyond surreal.  I am just broken.

The Uninvited Houseguest

August 12, 2013

That's how Grief Share refers to grief and, like an uninvited guest, it just lingers and lingers.  It's terribly rude, too.  I can be totally minding my own business and what do ya know, grief has interrupted me and stolen the moment, pushing itself into every tiny crevice of my existence.  It is why I spend most nights with my eyes swollen like the picture.  To be honest, it's seriously starting to piss me off, the way it won't leave and the way it demands my attention.  Grief is not quiet, constantly reminding you of what you've lost, in as loud of a voice as possible.  And, it brings friends.  Friends that remind you that some of the nastiest, most horrible people that have ever existed in this world, have not experienced this devastating loss.  What does that say about me?  What does it say about God, that He knew this was going to happen before I ever got pregnant with Brandon, He knew where our lives would already be, He knew the devastation it would leave and yet He allowed it?  I suppose it says more about the grace God gives (part of why I keep rehashing this same question, over and over-because grace allows it), than the punishment and abandonment I feel I've gotten, but most days that's a really hard fought battle, to keep the grief quiet enough to have just a little perspective. 

Grief is stubborn, even as I try to ignore it or sleep it away.  I see something with Brandon's DOB and date of death, almost daily.  It's a cruel reminder that I have a boy who never got to live this life past his teens.  And, grief is a jealous wench, she wants my focus solely on her.  It has made me pull away from so many things.  If I can't do something mindless that takes my mind off the constant pain, then I'd rather be asleep, so I don't return phone calls, I don't reach out to anyone at all.  I am being forced to exist in a place I don't want to exist.  I do not want to be here and no one invited this wretched pain (that makes me want to claw off my face to keep the tears away) into my life.  Just GO.AWAY. 

Grief is threatening to make the barely-beating, half of a heart I have left the only thing I understand, the only thing I recognize. Painfully, I also recognize that I cannot just kick grief out.  It was allowed here, for whatever reason, not by my own choosing, to be sure, and will serve a purpose if I will allow it.  The tears that come every single day are necessary.  Maybe grief does this to ensure that I can still feel, that I do not turn numb and settle into a false existence.  I don't know. 

I wish I had known before that almost nothing is worth crying over.  Who cares about anything, what is there to care about, when you've lost your child?  The deepest, most sacred part of you has been ripped out...literally, torn from your screaming hands.  What is worse....what was so bad, what hurt so much before that?  It seems like an insult to have cried over something else.  An insult to my son, to God, to somebody.  And, now, all I do is exist.  Day by day another number is added to the days I've been without Brandon, the number of days I feel like I'm being punished, the number of days that the clock keeps ticking for everyone else, but has stopped for me. 

Grief sits patiently while I scream out questions that have no answers.  She is there when I shake my head in disbelief that our little dog won't ever see Brandon.  He knew where Brandon's room was and, anytime I called him, Samuel ran right over to Brandon's stairs and looked up at his room, waiting for Brandon to come out.  Some days, it takes all I have to not call out Brandon's name, so I can watch Samuel look towards his room, thinking that just maybe, Brandon will come down.  Grief is there with me.  Not wanting to become my identity, but wanting me to come to understand my true identity, the permanent one, not the one on paper that says, Hello, my name is Lisamyteenagesonjustpassedaway....all together like that.  Oh, how I pray that grief will move out, someday, and give the room to redemption.  Today, I can't see it, but it just has to happen.

Bad Phone Calls

I think we can all agree that there are certain phone calls we don't like, e.g., telemarketers, police, the IRS, bill collectors.  It goes without saying that no one ever wants the phone call from the medical examiner that my husband and I both received nor do you want to look at the phone and see that the funeral home is calling.....AGAIN....two and a half months after your son passed away. 

UGH, I've come to despise the phone, which really sorta makes me angry because I used to love to talk on the phone.  My friend, who also lost a son, totally gets it....ringing phones can bring bad news, therefore, a ringing phone is a bad, bad thing.  Seeing the missed call alert doesn't make me feel any better, though, so turning the volume off on the phone hasn't solved my problem with the phone.  It is so hard for me to talk on the phone, I avoid it as often as I can.  To return one phone call takes just about all the energy I have for one day.  Texting is easier, but it drives me nuts that I have to keep a lot of conversations in my phone so I don't accidentally see that there's a thread at the bottom of the screen that was once a conversation between me and my son, a conversation that is over, but will always end with my urging, "You need to call me," a desperate mother's plea for a response from her son who had already gone home...oblivious to what was leading up the worst, most horrific phone call of my entire life.

So, I put off most phone calls and texts, if I can, for as long as I can.  As for the funeral home, none of their phone calls have been out of place, they've been necessary, and the people I've dealt with have been nothing less than wonderful.....but, still....you don't want the phone call that the memory book (what I call the reverse baby book) is in and it made the nice lady cry and oh, she'll be bringing the certified copy of the official death certificate with her, along with the extra bookmarks you asked for, the ones the that have your teenage son's picture and obituary on them.  The stupid phone keeps reminding me that I am not actually asleep, but awake, and the reality that every parent fears, is now my reality.  How can that be?  Whose life is this really, because surely I accidentally fell into a life that belongs to someone else?  I think every year a teenager you know or your kids know loses his life too soon....never could I have imagined that this year it'd be my teenager....my phone call.

If you call me and I don't answer or it takes me a bit to return your texts, please don't take it personally....I'm still trying to figure out which life I really belong in and avoiding all the others.