Easter Saturday

i told myself it wouldn't be as hard as other holidays because Easter is about the resurrection,  about hope....but,alas, i was mistaken....today has been a very dreary day for me.  I'm sure part of it is that i have been home all day, something i used to love...I've also been alone here and there today.  again, i used to cherish my alone time, now i dread being alone.  so i think that contributed to my dark mood.  I'm sad,I'm filled with a longing that can not be fulfilled.  i have turned away from prayer,except the family prayers,the accusatory prayers, the why me?  perhaps this Easter weekend i Will turn my heart back towards Christ even though I'm angry at Him.  for now, I'm filled with anguish and darkness

so scared, i hate it

I'm so scared.....every single night....I'm scared....Liam just yelled i love youto m me and Patrick ...he doesn't usually...now I'm extra scared.   I'm so scared.   does anyone get that???????? on top of my grief for Nolan, i an scared out of my mind

it is all one big fat act

I'm not ok.  i don't know how i can ever be ok ever again.  my life was turned into a nightmare.  my son was stolen from me.  i have four other beautiful children that i must put on an act for....  but it is an act.  I'm not ok.  when you ask "how are you?" and i say ok, I'm lying

sometimes struck by something

it just hit me today, again, just how scared my kids really must be by all of this... think about it.  it's a scary, scary thing.... you have a normal day with your big brother, he goes to bed, and he dies.  it's awful.  it's truly the most traumatic, awful, horrible, nightmarish thing.  i am scared as hell.  i know they are too.  i need to be a little more understanding of all that they must be going through.  i really do.  they all have to feel it, even the ones who don't show it like logan and liam.  ciara is wearing her fear on her sleeve... but the boys, they aren't.  i see sadness in their eyes often, but not so much the fear.  but think about it.  they have to be scared.  everything about this sucks.

btw, these pictures, i just found them on my camera yesterday.  i thought i had already seen the final pictures i had of nolan that were probably taken earlier that same day, not sure how i missed these.  there are a few others that i will probably put on my next post of him and ella.  these were taken december 29th, 2012 in the evening...

traditions

how do we continue our traditions without Nolan?   yet.....don't the others deserve those traditions?  Liam, Ciara, Logan, and Ella....they do...they deserve those traditions that i have strived to give my family.  i may not be the best mom in the world,but i do try....

we have faced a few minor traditions since losing Nolan....Valentine's day, st.Patrick's day parade, ash Wednesday...all with sadness.

I've already thought of things like taking pictures of kids...without my Nolan..  our fall pictures at loose park that we taken Nolan was ten months old....without him.  Easter is this weekend....pictures...taking their pictures... all that we do.

that is one reason i decided to do something different.  we're invited to spend Easter with some friends who have a huge family...i said yes because i thought that this year different is good.  the kids will still have their Easter morning hunt for their baskets...we will dye eggs together.  of course,we will attend mass to celebrate Easter.  so most traditions remain.  but it is all forever changed.  i remember Nolan running outside last Easter in shorts even though it was cold.   i had bought each child a big ball and out them in the back like giant Easter eggs.  i bought four this year.  i  should have bought five

journal

i have a Nolan journal that started when he was a baby... i can't the darn thing.  shortly after losingNolan,i tried write some memories in it.  now i can't find it.
I'm sure it will turn up.  but i hope it isn't ruined or torn up....things spill in this house....

so until the journal turns up, i need to start putting memories here.

Logan told me today he liked shooting bows and arrows with Nolan, going to our neighborhood park, doing the Nolan show.

Ciara told me she remembers playing hide and seek with Nolan, go to the park, playing cards.

i remember one school morning Nolan awoke when dad left for work before six am.by the time i woke up eight, he had already completed all his school work for that day.  (only happened once)....he did always work hard though so he could get free time.  he spent most of his free time outdoors, building  forts,working on a fire pit, climbing trees, walking in the neighborhood.  if indoors, he loved to draw and would often lose himself in imaginary battles with his action figures.  I'd walk by room and hear his sound effects.

he liked movies and Wii games, but still preferred the outdoors to technological gadgets.  he'd rather sit in a tree watching the birds than play a video game.

food

food makes me sad....

i used to cook 32 ounce package of spagetti every friday night & have to make sure everyone  had enough.  nolan would be going back for 3rds and 4ths and then IF there was any leftover, IF, he would be snacking on it later that night or the next day for breakfast... There was never too much pasta.  every week lately, i have had to throw away leftovers.  this week, i made 24 ounces instead of my usual 32.  still threw away a lot.  i guess Nolan was really the only one who would eat it so much the next day...

i made fish tacos last night, one of our family favorites.  granted, i didn't bread the fish, and that is everyone's favorite way, but still, they all love fish tacos, period.  not only did we have enough leftovers for lunch, we ate lunch and STILL have some leftover.  i miss my growing 13 year old boy who would be upset when we were out of fish because he wanted more. 

the other night we had dinner a some friends' house.  I made some bruschetta and roasted some goat cheese with fresh tomatoes & basil.  Nolan would have been thrilled.  He loves goat cheese.  He's always been the only one to love goat cheese of my kids, though Ciara and Logan were snacking on it at the Harrison's house.  Nolan also was my only feta cheese eater.... I was sad when I bought the goat cheese on Saturday. 

nolan, the one who didn't want jelly on his peanut butter sandwiches... i make them almost every friday for co-op lunch.  i'm sad when i don't have to remember to make one without jelly. 

Nolan would snack on saltines and peanut butter, i don't see anyone else doing that lately.  He'd eat a couple hard-boiled eggs as a snack or breakfast.... I haven't even been making hard-boiled eggs lately. 

Everything is so different.  My entire life has been altered.  Even the mundane like grocery shopping and cooking... Doing dishes.  I picture Nolan in the kitchen doing dishes.  he hated it.  But he did it. 

dependable

i always knew Nolan would take care of me in my old age.... i just knew i didn't have worry because he just would....no matter what his wife was like, no matter whether he had a great job or not....i just knew he would make sure his mom was ok....

such a beautiful happy boy

his smile was contagious... i would rather say "is" because i hope he is smiling that same beautiful smile in heaven...  but here, on earth, for us, it was contagious... he could be so silly, then serious and thoughtful, then sad, then friendly... all boy... from the love of the outdoors to the enjoyment of sports to the silly boy humor... all boy.  my boy.  my Nolan. 

we have lost so much

am i ever going to sleep easy?

every single morning i wake up scared... scared to check on my children... scared that one of them will be dead.  it's a horrifying way to live, really.  is that every going to fade?  i just don't see how it will... i honestly think that will be how i wake up every morning for the rest of my life... every night i go to sleep thinking of the same thing, but i also go to sleep worrying that i may be the one to die and then they would find me and be further traumatised.  what a terrible way to fall asleep each night.  i know many of you out there would just say that i need to pray, and yes, i know i do.  but that is just hard right now.  I tell my daughter not to worry so much... I know I am worried too.  Even more than she is because I understand genetics. 

found a poem today

found a letter tonight, in the process of getting ruined thanks to a spill in the basement, Nolan wrote it to us while he was at scout camp in the summer of 2011. He wrote a little poem in the letter that seriously could have been written today, part of was unreadable, but I think I got most it. here it is:
I miss home and you
In the days that have gone
Many things here are new
As things are to a faun
I've been here so long
But home does not fade
I remember you guys
As I sit in the shade
I know that I will see you soon
And by and by
And I can't believe I'm lucky enough to tell you
I love you and goodbye.

dear Nolan

dear son, oh how i miss you, my boy....my sweet first born....

i miss your laugh.
i miss your smile.
i miss watching you draw.
i miss your creativity.
i miss your silliness.
i miss your helpfulness.
i miss hearing you talk about your animals.
i miss your voice.
i miss watching you push Ella in the swing or the stroller.
i miss you always doing a good job on your chores.
i miss your friendliness.
i miss watching you climb trees so tall that i was always so nervous to watch.
i miss reading your stories and poetry.
i miss your kisses.
i miss you doing the i love you sign when I'd drop you off at soccer or scouts.
i miss your positive attitude.
i miss your bedtime prayers.
i miss your love of the outdoors.
i miss you wanting to build fires in the fire pit.
i miss you building forts in the backyard.
i miss you always trying to do what was right.
i miss when you would get a mischievous grin.
i miss that sometimes you were the only one who could make Ella happy.
i miss watching you play soccer, soccer season is going to be so hard.
i miss your hugs.
i miss your love of pasta....we always have too much left over now.
i miss you deciding that it is "mom and dad day" out of nowhere and then conspiring with your siblings to surprise us with something.
i miss your love and knowledge of birds.
i miss reading to you.
i miss you reading to Ella.
i miss you taking Logan for walks in the neighborhood,especially to visit Larry.
i miss your long hair.
i miss your short hair.
i miss you wanting to cook eggs or ramen noodles to help with lunch.
i miss the loud,silly laughter when you and Liam had fun together.
i miss the epic wrestling matches.
i miss playing chess or apples to apples with you.
i miss your talks about co-op.
i miss giving you breathing treatments for your asthma.
i miss your love of scouts.
i miss your enthusiasm over rango.
i miss listening to you play the piano.
i miss the phase when you were drawing with your feet.
i miss how grown up you were getting.
i miss watching the last ten minutes of your gym class, you were always having such fun.
i miss your kind spirit.
i miss watching you sword fight with Liam or Logan or your friends.
i miss you playing your bongos.
i miss watching you dance.
i miss your enthusiasm when we would sing for school.
i miss your goodness.
i miss how well you would treat little kids parks,pools,wherever...

i miss everything about you.  if i were to sit here for the next eight hours,I'd still be writing things i miss about you.  i miss you from the deepest depths of my soul Nolan.

busy

we have had a busy couple of days....Nolan floats in and out of my thoughts when I'm so busy.  Friday i spent most of the day fighting tears. i was at co-op and that makes me cry pretty much every week, some weeks are worse, this was worse...

then Saturday rolled around and i was so busy and distracted that i think i only teared up twice.

every day is just different.  i feel the immense heartache and pain constantly, but some days i am busy with things that actually allow me to enjoy life.   it is often up and down like a roller coaster because enjoying myself one day results in overwhelming feelings of guilt and anger and sadness the next....

Nolan should have been there yesterday.... i have been robbed

hard day

all the days are hard...  today the permanence of our situation is weighing heavily on my heart.  the permanence of living without Nolan.  it hurts so much.  i put on public face, but inside I'm getting even more today than i was a week ago.  the hurting doesn't stop.  some days I'm better at living than others...some days i am able to laugh with my kids, smile at something a friend said, focus on positive stuff.  but even when I'm laughing,I'm hurting

being Catholic

today a new pope was chosen.  it was a cool,exciting,somewhat emotional feeling.  see I'm a convert, so the richness of the Catholic faith still amazes me sometimes.  to me,the foundation of my beliefs from my childhood as a protestant are the same as Catholics..there is just a deeper,more profound richness to Catholicism...the traditions are beautiful.   and when i saw the white smoke from the Vatican today, i was deeply moved.

Nolan's funeral was beautiful...it was so deeply sad,so sorrowful, but i was so thankful to be Catholic as it happened... the traditions,the beauty of the Catholic church.  I'm so grateful Nolan could be taken care of in such a profound way....

autopsy results and more

today, ciara asked "what if we have the same thing as nolan?" or "what if it's contagious what nolan had and we get it?".... she doesn't even know about genetics.  she doesn't even know that i am so fearful of this exact thing (not the contagious part)....

today, we received verbal autopsy results... patrick has been calling every monday.  it has been 10 weeks.  70 days.  70 days.... how can that be?  seventy days since we lost our son.  seventy days, well 71, since i hugged him.  since i heard his voice say "i love you mom"....

autopsy results:  the results said "natural causes".... yes, you heard me right... natural causes... a 13 year old boy died in his sleep, after going to bed seemingly fine, from NATURAL CAUSES....   what absolute utter crap..... yes, crap.  or shit.  or f....d up messy shit.  yeah, this makes me cuss.  yes it does.   and i hate cussing.  i hate the F word. 

so... what is next?  we will do genetic testing on nolan.... that will cost us around $3000.... and it is not even an all-inclusive thing... it will test for various heart genetic stuff.   there are other genetic things too..... but it gets expensive.  we can't afford more than the $3000 for this heart stuff.  then after testing nolan's dna, if it tests positive, then i guess we test the 4 other kids.  but nolan's test will take around 6 months.  what if someone else dies in 6 months?????

nolan's autopsy results were never going to bring him back.  they were never going to make me feel "good".... but now, knowing that his heart JUST STOPPED.... well, i am scared as hell for my other children.... any single morning i may wake up to another dead child.  or one day, liam could be playing soccer and he could drop dead on the field.  or i could die.  and my poor children could wake up to find me dead.  then how would they handle life?  i am already scared for them.  dealing with this loss of nolan... dealing with this crazy feeling. 

i think how their world has been turned upside down.  i think how you try to make your children feel happy and secure in life.  i think how you try to create a safe world for them.  i think how you tell them when they are scared to go to bed in their room at night, scared of shutting out the lights, that nothing can hurt them.  that mom and dad are right in the other room and that they are safe....

yet..... they woke up on december 31, 2012 and their 13 year old brother was dead. 

how do they reconcile that?  how????? i honestly don't know how they can ever have faith again.  how?  

ciara (before the loss of nolan)  "mom i am scared"
me (before the loss of nolan)  "we are right in the other room, nothing can happen"

nothing can happen.... 

your 13 year old brother can go to bed after praying the rosary with your dad, then watching doctor who/ and monk with us, kiss his mom goodnight... say i love you.... and die. 

what am i suppose to tell you?  what??????

so now we wait for children's mercy.... we wait and pray.  and wonder if we are going to lose other members of our family.  we wonder how to move forward when we are grieving AND we are scared.  it's not fair.  the worst part is the grief.  i will never get over losing nolan.  ever.  but i have to fear on top of it.  i have tyo be scared as hell.  i'm so scared. 

is it any wonder i want wine every night? 

lollipop the puppy dog

Nolan has had lollipop the puppy dog since about two months before he turned three...so this sweet animal made it ten years...many other toys came and went, but lollipop was special to Nolan.

i miss the days when a tummy ache or a headache didn't make me fear the worst

tonight, Liam acting all tired and said he had a headache and tummy ache....my thoughts immediately go to the evening of Dec 30th.... i have this vague memory of Nolan having some vague complaint, either a headache or tummy ache....he once, then acted fine the rest of the night....but now,any complaint by my kids and i feel an immense fear.

i also fear for my health mostly because i think the trauma it would cause kids if they lost their mama....   i have weird flutter feelings in my heart.. i need to call our crummy insurance company and make sure i follow the right process to see a specialist...grown-up shit sucks...excuse my language....i rarely cuss.  but seriously, this all sucks. i would have been to a cardiologist a month ago if not for the insurance stuff....i can't seem to get anything done.

i fear for my daughter's mental health because of her worries....her constant worries about everything since Nolan died.

so much fear....i know worrying does no good, but i worry i may miss something important if i don't worry...

escapism

is it wrong for me to try to escape the pain?  lots of tv, too much wine, mindless hours on pinterest, distractions, if I'm watching the shenanigans of gus and Shawn who make me laugh,then the thoughts of how much i miss my son are temporarily pushed aside...if I'm on m my second glass of wine,the happy buzzy warm feelings place a shade over my sharp pain...  browsing beautiful works of art on pinterest keeps my mind on the beauty in the world... playing a game of words with friends is a challenging way to virtually play with my friends....looking up funny pins about doctor who, distracting... reading a good novel takes me to a fictional world where my sadness doesn't exist...

i feel the sadness, the pain,many times per day...the escapism isn't constant...even if I escape all the time, i wouldn't. i need to spend time with Nolan each day.  i need to think about what i miss.  i need to remember him....and right now, that is so painful....

pray for us because she needs it and she is making me crazy

Ciara is getting worse....the worrying it's constant....it is waking her up at two a.m.then five a.m.after being awake until after midnight.  she is obsessing all the time...and I'm not being patient anymore... Patrick is being great with her,thankfully.....  but I'm the one with her 24 hours...... pray for us.

two separate people

I'm two people..the one who wants to cry all day and never talk a soul...the other who tries to for my kids and to forget my pain

sometimes it is hard to get out of bed

I'm lying here,awake,but in bed...getting out of bed takes so much energy these days.  i could lie here in bed, awake,all day.  everything takes so much more energy.  cooking, cleaning,breathing.  i have a sink that desperately needs me to have some energy as it sits full of dishes... meals are still coming, thankfully...not every day, but frequently.  that helps.  i haven't even written thank you cards....though part of that is i lost the book that listed who gave what... maybe i will find it when my emotional state can handle writing all those notes.  it's time to do taxes and i don't have the energy for that....plus who knows what i have done with our documents...

that is one thing i don't know if friends and family really get about bereaved parents, just the mental dysfunction that is happening.  not only do i have zero energy, but i can't focus,i can't remember important things,my grief clouds every single thing that goes on in my brain... i don't feel like i can be counted on for much of anything right now... sometimes i will be walking along in a somewhat "normal" state and then i will just be suddenly overwhelmed with such sorrow that i can't take another step.  whatever i was about to do forgotten....

negative ninny hammer

that's what i am on this blog...i wallow in my sorrow.  i have read a couple other blogs by bereaved parents who sound so much better than i do.actually saying something to inspire on their page.

today, I'm thinking how i haven't been allowed an entire day in bed...boy that would be nice... that isn't very inspirational.  no,i don't think i have it in me to inspire anyone.

last night,the kids and i watched a couple episodes of doctor who until about 11:30pm.  we have been watching too much tv.  pre-traumatic life changing event, i would have had them in bed and watched something by myself afterward.... Nolan might have come out and said"you know, I'm the oldest,can't i stay up too?"  i usually said no.  why?  sometimes I would let him,but mostly i just didn't want to hear the  others complain.   i know none of us are sleeping well and now, well,it's better being snuggled up with them on the couch watching tv than watching alone.  i know we should be reading or playing a game. i know our sleep habits need to get better.  i miss the good quality times...the days when the tv was only on in our house for Friday night movie night.

we have our co-op today...I'm going be so tired.  so will the kids... next year co-op is going to be twice a week, longer days...I'm not looking forward to that