same on the inside

Of all of the things that my children have been exposed to. Siblings in Heaven, foster care, adoption and friends and relatives of every race, color, creed and handicap I have never been asked a question. Anna has never once wondered (aloud at least) why she and Wyatt have different skin or hair. She often says how she loves his curly hair, but never questions the difference. She has friends with wheelchairs, tracheotomies, hearing aides, feeding tubes, glasses, vesicostomies and so on! She sees the tubes and the feedings, hears the suction from the trachs and just goes on playing. That is just how they are, no different really. She has cousins from China, Russia and born right here who are all very different! Not once have I ever heard a question about these things, until the other night. We were so happy to have Kimora stay with us this week. Kimora is one of Anna's best friends. Kimora and Anna have something very big in common. The same little boy made them both a big sister. Our Bug is Kimora's little brother. Her mom and dad went on a much needed vacation and they asked if she could stay with us. She was so much fun to have and Anna and Wyatt loved being able to spend every day and night with her. As we were getting ready to go to the mall the other night Anna and Kimora were holding hands, as usual! Anna looked at her hand and Kimora's and asked "Why is the inside of Kimora's hand different?" I found this to be funny and I giggled a bit. I took their hands and I told them. That is the part of your hand that is the same. We then looked at our hands and how the inside was close in color. They were so excited by these things that we decided to do an impromptu photo shoot. we lined up there hands to see how everyone's hands are different on the outside, but the same on the inside. Just like we are.....

In My Mind -

I have always had a relationship with my brother. I have never met him, I have never talked to him, I have never even been able to see him...other than in a picture. From the time I was very little I had my own ideas of who he was. It is odd to look back now and realize how much that "relationship" helped me in getting to have a similar one with Emma and Connor. Two more very important people in my life that I love, who I never really got to "meet". Grief was a part of growing up for me. Funerals were normal. Heaven and Death were never taboo. In the first 6 years of my life I lost my grandmother, grandfather, cousin, favorite uncle and of course my brother before I was even born. I remember attending funerals. I remember buying new dresses and shoes for each one. I remember being in the little room with the coloring books and crayons at the funeral home with my cousin Susan. Birthdays and holidays were spent decorating graves. Singing happy birthday to a headstone rather than to a person. The same way we celebrate Emma and Connor's holidays and birthdays now. I remember thinking when Emma was born that I would be able to help Anna in dealing with having a sibling she had never met in Heaven. I have had that situation my entire life. Ten years ago I started writing poetry for Mikey. Just as I write now it was my therapy then as well. I thought I would share one today...



Written Spring 2001

In my mind you're tall
Sandy blonde hair like me
and hazel eyes like dad
you play baseball and the guitar
and you always annoy me playing
the Sarah song
you know I hate
you have a tiny scar on your lip
from falling off your bike when you were six
but no one notices but you
you looked so great
walking down the aisle in sis's wedding
but we couldn't talk Brian into making you
best man
you love to write
just like me
you've always wanted to teach
I 've loved to write all of my life
but I have always wanted to
be like you
Sis and I loved it when you played with us
you brought the age difference to a close
your smile always made us laugh
and your stories put us to sleep

Labor Day at our house....

Today is a day that stands out in my parents mind. It is the Friday before Labor Day. This weekend has had a very specific feel for a very specific reason for my entire life. I know when I was in college I asked my parents to tell me the story. I know I wrote it down and it was an essay for a class I was taking. Now I sit in T.J.'s office with 8 little floppy discs in front of me and a computer that no longer has a place to insert a floppy disc. I know bits and pieces of the story. I have heard certain things in different context than ever in an actual timed outline of events. I know that it all started on the Friday before labor day, so I will try and put the pieces that I have in my mind down on "paper" and I hope I do it justice.
I know that evening my mom and Dad and my sister and brother, Mikey were eating Drumsticks. I know that he was fine and playing, acting as any normal 2 year old would. I am not sure if it was late that night or early the next day that Mikey vomited. He did it again and then he became lethargic. My mom took him to the doctors office and from their they took him to the hospital. I know he went from a perfectly healthy boy to a very sick boy in a very short time. I don't know much about the next 2 days. I know he spent them in the hospital and had many tests run. As far as I know they expected him to recover until he went septic. He was only sick for three days when he died on the 4th. He died on Monday, labor day, 1978. He was 2 months shy of 2 years old. He left 2 loving parents and a 4 year old sister with a very vivid memory. To this day sis can tell you about the day he died. My dad came to pick her up at a close friends house and when she went to hug him there was a bee on his back and she got stung. My dad has told me the story of how in her 4 young years she announced at a party at the friend's house "you'll never guess what, Mikey is dead".
My mom has told me things like that she does not remember the funeral. My dad said she passed out and he counts that as a blessing. They talk about the grief, the fear and about certain things that happened. I know when he got sick, it was in a glass measuring bowl, hence why I have never and will never use one. I know he ate a drumstick before he got sick. I know my mom still wonders if he ever got any of the pond water from their back yard in his system. I know my dad was not in the room when I was born because he was there for Mikey's and not my sister's. He said the only child he saw enter this world he saw leave it and he would not do that again. I know Mikey had a little push toy that was a taxi and that he had a game called pass the nuts. I know that my mom had taken him and my sister to get their pictures taken and he died in the time it took to pick them up. When she went back to get the pictures he was gone. I know that I have always held a special spot for Mikey in my heart. I used to question whether or not I would even be on this Earth if he hadn't died. My parents have always said that was silly, of course I would be....but would I be? I was born after he died. My father had a vasectomy reversed. They had the perfect family. One boy, one girl. Then that world ended. I have always grieved for my brother. I have missed who he would have been. How our relationship would have been. I used to think of him as a baby, until I had a 22 month old and I realized he was a person. I used to feel bad for my parents, until I lost a baby and knew what losing a child felt like and bad couldn't begin to describe it. I used to think this was a bad weekend, until I watched my best friends lose their son in a similarly freak and sudden way. Now I see the pain that my parents went through 33 years ago in the eyes of a dear friends. I can feel the dread of the days as they linger and the thoughts of what and where they were and what if anything they could have done to change it. As I grieve Austin and watch his mother deal with his impending "season" I feel like I am finally realizing a little of how my parents have been feeling for the past 33 years. 33 flippin years and this weekend still sucks. It still takes them back to the days, the hours and the events. I pray they find a little peace as they take this journey once again. I know they have helped not only me and my losses, but Rob and Jamie as well. It is an amazing gift and a curse to have parents who know your pain. To have the people you love, respect and admire more than anyone be in the same "club" none of us wanted to join. Something I would never wish on anyone, but I feel blessed to have as well. Mikey you know I love you and I know some day I will finally meet you and I know you will be waiting with open arms. I will end this with a quote from a song that has always been my song for Mikey. I have always wondered if he would still be 22 months old if he would look the same and if he would know who I was. I have only known him in pictures and stories I have always wondered....

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Would it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?

Hockey sticks and Walnut trees

Tonight I was sitting in the basement with T.J. and Anna. I had just put Wyatt to bed and decided to play a little Angry Birds, when the phone rang. Anyone who knows me knows I never answer the phone. I can usually never find it and if I do it ends up not being charged. Tonight I answered the phone. It was my sister. Jacob had gotten hurt and he was going to the hospital. He was okay, but had gotten hit in the head with a hockey stick. He had a gash on his eye brow and was bleeding a lot. She said he wanted me to go with him. How would you ever turn down an invitation from someone you love more than anything in a time when they need you. I was not scared. I guess I could hear the calmness in my sister's voice on the phone, or I just didn't have "that" bad feeling. They picked me up and we were on our way. Jacob was crying a bit, more from fear of stitches than pain. He was bleeding a little and had dried blood on his face. As I sat and looked at him, holding his hand and trying to make him laugh on the way there I thought about how lucky I was. It was only an hour before this happened I was talking to him about the booger jelly beans and having him try a baby wipe one. Now he was on his way to the ER. How lucky am I that he is up and talking, laughing and trying to be brave. We got to the ER with the other 100 people who decided to go in this evening and I could tell he was more nervous. They took us back right away and got his vitals, put some numbing cream on him and gave him some Tylenol. Then we went to wait again. He said he didn't hurt, he was mostly worried about the stitches and upset about what happened. We had talked about the events....He and his friend Connor were trying to get Walnuts out of a tree. Connor went to throw a hockey stick up to get a walnut and got Jacob instead. The story is a funny one, because of the outcome, but to Jacob it wasn't because he knows too much. He felt the stick hit him he saw the blood and he ran in the house. In his mind, in that instant he thought of Austin. He knows the story to some extent. That he was playing, hit his head and he died. Jacob saw the blood and felt the pain and these thoughts entered his mind. When we talked about it at the hospital he said that it was so scary with all the blood and he didn't know what would happen to him next. I told him that Austin felt no pain, he was not able to run into the house and if he (jake) was able to do these things then he didn't have to worry like that. Still, with a chest, face and handfuls of blood, what else do you do but freak out.
After we talked about it we got a snack, talked and laughed, waited another hour and then got called back. As soon as he heard stitches he was so scared. It is such a helpless feeling knowing you can't do anything. So I did what any Aunt would do...I started singing a really silly annoying song that made him laugh in the car earlier. I told him to say anything that was on his mind, ask any questions and he did. The doctor was amazing and as she promised as soon as the first stitch was in and he hadn't felt it he totally relaxed. As she finished we talked about Jacob's hockey stick incident and I tried to help clear his mind and make up a few stories that were even better. Like maybe he was in a fight, which his mom changed to a fight with a squirrel since Walnuts were involved originally. He was really proud of himself and Sis and I couldn't have been any more proud either. I told him I would get him anything he wants, his choice is a music stand for his guitar.
I know I say it all of the time, but I am so blessed. I felt so lucky to walk out of the hospital with an amazing, bright, kind, funny boy that I love! I have always held a special place for each of my nieces and nephews in my heart, but Jacob made me RaRa, he made me an Aunt. He is my Jake. Thank you God for helping to keep him safe tonight. Thank you for helping to keep him brave and for giving Sis and I strength to stay silly and help calm him down.
Last year a little head injury would have been something that would have been cared for and forgotten about. This year as with anything in life since Austin, I think of tonight as a little miracle.

tiny angel

Four years ago, today was the worst day of my life, relatively speaking. I had waited for over a week, had 3 ultrasounds and prayed endlessly to see a heartbeat. But, alas, no heartbeat. Four years ago I suffered my first loss. I remember asking my mom and dad to stay home, because I knew they would be best to care for Anna. T.J. took me to the hospital and I ate a Big Mac when we came home. I never eat Big Macs. I remember thinking this day sucked enough and I was eating a damn Big Mac. Each year as this day comes and goes I realize that the day seems less and less terrible. Maybe it is time passing. Maybe it is the events that have unfolded in our lives since, but the pain is less.
The year after my miscarriage I had lost Emma and had the feeling I was pregnant with Connor. The following year I had lost Connor and we had just had Bug placed in his new family. Last year I could not tell you what I did, I know that I remembered because Facebook reminded me of my status update this day last year.
This year I remembered the date, but I have to admit the sting is gone. I think of that baby and the thing that "spec" gave me most was compassion. I have come into contact with so many people, strangers and friends, who have suffered miscarriages. I am not sure I would have been able to love, counsel and understand their specific situations if I hadn't had an early loss. Little things I have come to find that help me to be the person I am today.
So to my tiny Angel, know I will never forget you, I will always love you and I hold you in my heart.

Thirty One Year Old Rainbow

Well, today is my birthday. To be honest this morning I was so focused on the importance of it being Anna's first day of Kindergarten that I didn't even think about it. As the day progressed and school was over a few thoughts crossed my mind. Of course on each of your children's birthdays you think of their birth. The story, the labor, the weather, the feelings that came with it on that day and each year after. This was the first year I thought of my own birth that way. I have to admit that this year, post losing Austin, every thought I have is different. This year I realized my birth was more than just average. I have always known I was a "miracle". Being born after a reversed vasectomy in 1980 wasn't a normal occurence. Being born 3 weeks late and perfectly healthy wasn't always seen then either. But, it wasn't until today that I realized I am a Rainbow baby. For those mom's who have lost a child, they probably know what this is, but for everyone else....
"Rainbow Babies" is the understanding that the beauty of a rainbow does not negate the ravages of the storm. When a rainbow appears, it doesn't mean the storm never happened or that the family is not still dealing with its aftermath. What it means is that something beautiful and full of light has appeared in the midst of the darkness and clouds. Storm clouds may still hover but the rainbow provides a counterbalance of color, energy and hope.
I was born less than 2 years after my brother passed away. My mom has told me that her pregnancy with me is part of what helped her heal a little and kept her going. It is odd 31 years later to see myself as an adult that is a Rainbow baby! It is a good feeling as well. To think I never realized what I did for my mom and dad 31 years ago today, I only hope that they know how much they have given me in return.

Choo choo.....

Today as part of my Birthday Week celebration, I decided I wanted us to go on a train ride. Wyatt loves choo choos and talks about going on a big choo choo about everyday. This was my birthday gift to him! Anna loves it as well and today we went to see Clifford the Big Red Dog. We had a great family day together and enjoyed our 3rd ride on the Lebanon Mason Monroe Railroad. As T.J. and I sat and talked about the previous two trips on the polar express here at Christmas time, we reminisced on our first ride. We had just met Wyatt. He was only 18 months old and Anna was just over 3 1/2. We didn't even know each other at that point. In fact we had to call and get him a ticket, because we had made the reservations before we knew he was ours! We took that train ride the first weekend of our extended visit before he was permanently placed. Before we even knew how much he loved trains.
Today we went with the full knowledge of how much it meant to him and to Anna to see her brother smile. Today while we were chugging down the line, T.J. took a picture of the kids and I. As soon as I saw it, I smiled. It is almost the exact same shot he took nearly 2 years ago. Sometimes when life is going along it is nice to have a little reminder of where you have come from...