17 months old.

March 26, 2013

Dear Brynna,

17 months ago today, you were born.  I can’t believe it!  I can’t believe that what should have been one of the happiest days of our life, turned out to be the starting line in our journey through this life without you.  How has one year and five months passed since that day? 

I sure would love to turn back time.

I sure would love a second chance at that day.

What I would give to try again…

To insist they find a way to bring you into this world without using Cytotec or Pitocin.  How different our lives would likely be if I had only known.  If I had only really known what the possibilities were… What the outcome could be…

I’m still so very sorry, Brynn.  I am so sorry that I couldn’t protect you.  That is something I will wrestle with for the rest of my life.  The fact that I am your mother and I could not save you simply undoes me. 

I’m limping my way through this life without you.  Some days I seem to walk as I used to, but then I trip over a memory of what might have been, and I fall.  Some days I get back up pretty quickly, dusting off the sorrow, but other days I stay down. 

I just stay down.  Because some days, it’s still too heavy to stand.

We would have had a lot of fun, you and I.  Do you know that?  You and me, the only girls in a house full of boys.  :o)  We would be amazing for each other because we would be able to enjoy Daddy and your brothers, and take part in all of their amazing, active chaos, but then we could have slipped off for a quiet day getting pedicures, or going out to lunch and talking.  I could have taught you how to ride a horse, how to French braid your hair, how to cook dinners that bring people running from the hills to eat.  Don’t get me wrong, I would have taught you to ski, wakeboard, play tennis and baseball, and all the other things you showed interest in, just as we do for the boys, but it would have been just a little bit different because you and I would have had “that something special” in common in the same way the boys and Daddy do. 

There’s just something special about a mother’s relationship with her daughter.

Can I confess something to you?  I am terrified that as the boys grow, they will find their life partners and, in a sense, forget their relationship with me, their momma.

So many people say, “A son is a son ‘til he takes a wife, a daughter is a daughter the rest of her life.”  Does this mean I will be alone?  I know your brothers will love me forever, but will they be the ones to call just to “check in” and say “hi mom, how are you doing? Do you need anything?”  Silly to worry about, huh?  But this is my life now.  Sad about my 17 month old little girl that is not here to grow into my 37 year old little girl…

I miss you Brynna.  I love you so much, and I am incomplete without you.  That’s just the way it is.  The way it’s going to be.

Please don’t worry that I still feel sad.  Don’t worry that I won’t be okay.  Because I will.  I will feel sad, to a very certain degree, for the rest of my life on this earth, but at the same time, I will be “okay”.

I will.

I recognize that the boys and Daddy need me.  I recognize that I need me.  So, I will be “okay”.  I will keep trying to get up in the morning, vowing to face the day with some semblance of the woman I “used to be”.   The happy, more or less, “glass half-full” woman I used to be.  I will keep trying.

My goodness, my sweet girl, how incredibly deep my love is for you!  So deep that even death can’t extinguish it.  Not even a little bit.

I love you so very much greater than the distance between us right now.  Happy 17 month birthday, Beautiful!

Love,

Momma

Lead me.

Dear Brynna,

It’s been a long time since I sat down to write.  I am not sure exactly why, but it certainly does not mean it’s been a long time since you were on my mind or in my heart.  Not at all.  You are in my heart and on my mind all moments of my life.  I don’t know how it is has been almost seventeen months since you were born, but here we are.  You are almost a year and a half old!!  Oh my goodness, where has the time gone?  And also, how have we possibly made it through 17 long months without you, our sweet girl?

I so wish I were sitting down to write a letter that would go in your baby book.  A letter that you could read when you got older.  A letter that would give you a picture of the little girl you once were.  A letter about a little girl, running, jumping, learning, loving.  A letter about a little girl living.

But instead, I sit down and write to you, my angel.  A letter for my angel, my little girl in heaven.

Oh, how I wish it were different!

Daddy and I are making our way through this life.  One way or another, we are going to do this.  Together.  We are so committed to each other and to making this life the best possible life for your brothers.  The “how” of it, we aren’t always too terribly sure of, but we just keep on.  I love him so much.  He is a man like no other.  I am in awe of his willingness to examine himself (even when he doesn’t realize he’s doing it) and his constant re-commitment to continuing to be a better person.  He works so hard at being a great Daddy and a wonderful husband.  He makes me laugh, and for that I am thankful!

Cole is getting so big!  He is 9 ½ now and at times it feels I will blink, and he will be 18.  He wears glasses and that makes him look even more grown up and mature.  He is such a wonderful kid.  He is smart, witty, tenderhearted, and oh so very kind.  At school, he is always looking out for the kids that don’t really seem to have anyone looking out for them, and that makes me so proud.  He would have cherished you in a way only an oldest brother can.  He misses you and loves you so very, very much.  He is playing on two baseball teams right now (Puyallup Little League AAA ball, and also a select team called the Black Sox), and improves with every practice.  It’s so cool to watch he and his team play, and it excites me to see how he continues to grow.

Aidan is going to be 8 next month.  He is also playing Puyallup Little League baseball, and he seems to enjoy it very much.  He also continues to be devoted to all things artsy and creative.  It is wonderful to sit back and bear witness to what he creates.  The other day there was some old fabric lying around and I was about to throw it away, but then I decided to offer it to Aidan in case he wanted to use it to sew a project.  He was thrilled, and in the matter of about a half hour, had created a little, stuffed blue bear.  It is darling.  He recently had to do a project for school about a favorite meal.  He was given a blank, white paper plate and instructed to recreate with whatever supplies he wanted, a representation of the food.  Then he had to write about why he chose that meal.  He chose to present our “healthy chicken nugget” meal, and his project was picked to be on display at the Puyallup Spring Fair this year.  He gets to go and talk to people about why he created what he did and tell them about his artwork.  It’s so exciting!!

And “little” Jack is not so little anymore.  He is over 5 ½ now and he will be starting kindergarten next year.  I just turned in his registration packet, and it was bittersweet to say the least.  I’m so excited for him to start school, and watch him while he learns and grows, but so sad that it is going so fast.  This spring is Jackson’s first year playing t-ball and Daddy is his coach.  He loves, loves, loves putting on his baseball clothes and getting ready for practice.  Daddy says he really does a good job paying attention and is great at throwing and hitting.  He will forever be the one that really keeps us on our toes.  He is a “going concern” for sure, but man does he make us smile and laugh.  He is so smart and funny!

I am hanging in there.  I went to a doctor that changed up my hormone replacement a bit, and I think I am feeling a “bit more myself,” whatever that means.  I know I am permanently changed, and I do not expect (nor want) to be the person I was before you were born, but I think physiologically I’m a bit more on an even keel, which makes handling the emotional changes just a bit more doable.  I am still working two jobs, one at Woodcreek and one at the Franklin Pierce School District, and it’s definitely a lot.  Daddy and I continue to have a conversation about this, and in time I think I will cut back to one job, but we’ll see. 

We are still waiting to hear about whether or not we will get the house we made the offer on.  It’s a “short sale” which is a complicated way of saying the whole process can take a very long time, but we are being patient.  It’s an amazing setting!  The more I think about it, the more I hope it works out, because I really feel it would be a wonderful place for us to continue to heal, and for your brothers to grow up.  It’s got nearly 5 acres of flat, fenced land, which means I will be able to realize my dream of having horses again.  Remember when you were in the hospital and I told you about riding horses and how much fun we were going to have doing that together?  I am so sad you won’t be there with me in the way I hoped, but I know you see so much. 

I feel you everywhere.  I can’t wait to be with you again and finally know how this all works.

I miss you, sweet girl.  I really think I could sit here all day talking to you.  I feel when I am writing to you, that you are just that much closer.  Maybe with your hand on my heart and your head on my shoulder? 

I have so much to say.  So much I wanted to tell you, show you, teach you.  I’m starting to see, though, that you are teaching me.  I see you showing me it’s going to be “okay” and that our story is not done being told.  I hear you whispering to me to stay strong for the boys and for Daddy, and I really do feel you holding my hand when it continues to all be “too much to bear”. 

Please do not let go.  I need to feel you in whichever way I can.  Please do not stop talking to me.  I need to hear you in whichever way possible.  Please do not stop teaching me, and showing me the way.  I need to be led.

I love you little girl.

Love,

Momma

Rock and Walk 2.0

Steven and I have decided to participate for the second year in a row in the Tears Foundation annual Rock and Walk. So many of you joined us in support and remembrance of Brynna last June, and we are calling on you again. Please consider joining us in walking for our sweet girl, and donating to a group that has proven monumental in our family's ongoing healing. Thank you.

Click here to view our 2013 Rock and Walk page


A FEW PICTURES FROM LAST YEAR'S WALK

Little Tears

February 21, 2013                                                                           9:11 a.m

Losing your daughter after just six days of having her is heartbreaking.  Planning a funeral for a baby is unimaginable.  Living the rest of your life feeling like a gigantic piece of your heart is forever lost is, at times, more than you can handle.  But this reality does not end there.  Nope.  There’s more.

Like when your loving, kind, compassionate, heartbroken seven year old son comes to you before he goes to bed and asks if he can ask you a question.  “Sure,” you say, “you can ask me anything.  What’s on your mind?”

“Do you think Brynna knew us?” he asks.  “Do you think she knew us, like that I am her brother and you and Dad are her parents?”

You take a moment, trying to figure out the best way to explain to this sweet boy, what you feel in your own heart is true.  You ask him to close his eyes.  He does.  You say, “I am talking to you now and you can’t see me, but do you know who I am?”

“Yes,” he says.  “By the sound of your voice.”

“Right,” you say. “Exactly.  And when Brynna was growing inside my tummy for 41 weeks, she heard all of us.  She heard me, she heard Daddy, and she heard all of her brothers.  And then when she was born, and even though she couldn’t open her eyes, she could still hear us, and she knew when we were near her.  Each time we would talk to her or rub her back or hold her, her heart rate would go a little bit faster and so would her breathing, like yours does when you’re excited…so I believe very much that she knew who we were.”

“Oh,” he says.  Then his eyes well up with un-spilled tears and he says, “I am just worried that dying hurts, and I really don’t want to die, and I don’t want anyone else in our family to die. And there is always a chance Mom, like when you leave and go to work each day, there is always a chance that you might not come back.”

Then he cries.

And you fight with everything you’ve got left inside, to try to sum up the courage and the knowledge and the wherewithal to answer this.  Because you can’t tell this sweet boy that “nobody else will ever die” and that “everything is going to be fine”.  Not really.  Not honestly.  Because he already knows that life is not certain like that.  The blessing of naivety has been stripped away already, and he is only seven.

So you say to him, “that is so much to be thinking about and that must be really scary.  I am so glad you came to me to talk about this.  Your Daddy and I have the same fears and the same heartache and we are adults and it scares us, I can’t imagine what it must be like for you.  You will always be taken care of, you will never, ever be left alone.  No matter what happens in this life, your Dad and I will always make sure you are safe and loved.”

And he says, “I just really miss her, and I know I will see her again some day. But I really want to see her now.  I want to have a long, happy life with her here.”

And your heart breaks all over again.  Literally, you can feel it crack in your chest.  Because this is not right.  It is not right that a seven year old boy has to suffer like this.  Miss his sister like this.  It is too much.

But all you can do is hug him close and offer that he can cuddle with her blanket if he wants.  He says, “yes please” and then you continue to hold him while he cries.  And you tell him it’s okay to cry, it’s going to feel better to get it out…

He asks if he can sleep in your bed with you and you say, “of course.”  You tell him that sometimes listening to music helps you go to sleep and he says he, “would like to try that, and, do you have that song?”  “You know, the one that the little girl sang at the cemetery that time when we went to see Brynn’s name etched in stone?”

“Angels Among Us?” you ask. 

“Yes, that one.  Do you have that one Mom?”

You do.  So you call it up on your ipod, and you push play, all the while calling out to your daughter, begging that she comfort her brother somehow. 

As the song begins, his face relaxes and his tears slow.  His breathing evens out and his body becomes less tense.  Eventually, his eyes close and you can tell he is drifting off to sleep.  You kiss him on the forehead and wish him sweet dreams, and as you turn over to go to sleep, in a sleepy voice he says, “it’s okay Mom, Brynn just touched me on my toes and said she loves me and I’ll see her again someday.”

And your heart melts.  And you smile through your tears.

Dear Steven

February 8, 2013                                                                                         2:37 pm

Dear Steven,

I love you.  I am so sorry this is our reality.  I am so sorry we are on this earth without our beautiful little girl.  My heart broke the day she died, and then it broke all over again when I watched your heart break as well.

You are an amazing man! 

I won’t tell you, “You’re so strong, and I don’t have any idea how you’re doing all this,” because I know you don’t have a choice.  What’s the alternative right?  We can’t just lay down forever.  The boys need us…life needs us.  But I will tell you, I will tell you over and over again, that you are an amazing man!

For more than half my life now, you have been here with me.  I have known you longer than I haven’t known you.  I have grown up with, and continue to grow up, with you. 

Our road has not been smooth.  It has been bumpy, winding, and at times such as now, rather dark and unsure.  But we have walked our road.  And we are walking still.  Together.

I love you.

When Brynn was in the NICU and her future was uncertain, you told me to stop fighting to get back to “what used to be,” and join you in the middle of the pool.  Remember that?  You told me if I kept insisting on getting back to “before,” I would die trying.  Instead, you said, we needed to hold onto each other and tread water in the middle of the deep, dark pool, taking our time to rest and wait. And then, only when WE were ready, we would begin to swim toward our future together, whichever way that was.

Now, somehow 15 ½ months out, we are swimming…

This has, without a doubt, been the most horrific thing either you or I have experienced in our life.  But I am so sincerely thankful that you and I waited for each other in the pool, and continue to swim together toward whatever comes next.

You are an amazing man! 

You are my best, most treasured friend and the most amazing father to our four beautiful children. 

I love you.  I thank you.  I need you.  I want you.  I am proud of you.  I am inspired by you. 

I am so sorry we have a reason to be on this road, or in this pool, but I am so very thankful to be with you.

You are an amazing man.

Love,

Me

Don't Know Much

January 21, 2013                                                                              11:35 a.m

This pain is awful.  The hold that it takes on your heart is terrifying.  It threatens to shred the person you were and leave you with only a shell of what used to be.  To the outside world, time passes, and you appear whole.  But you are broken inside in a way you never knew was possible, seemingly beyond repair.  And you work every moment of every day to try to reassemble the parts of you.

The others carry on.  Life is light for them.  Happy moments are just that…happy. 

But it seems now, that your moments will no longer be 100% happy.  Maybe 50%.  Maybe on a “great day” 98%.  But either way, there is ALWAYS something missing.  Always something detracting from the honest to God, no holds barred happiness….

She is gone.

Oh my God, how unfair this all seems!  Why do we have to live a reality such as this?  Why do I have to wake up every day and remember that she is gone?  Why does my heart have to break over and over and over again, each and every day?

What did we do to deserve this?

Don’t answer that. 

I know that we did nothing.

I know that we just got dealt a really, really shitty hand, and now it is our job to survive it.

But there are days when I don’t want to survive it.  It is such gruesome work to wake up each day and walk through this life when one of your children is not here to hold your hand and walk with you.

I am not fighting the “healing” although I feel that is such an inappropriate word.  I am allowing myself to feel what I feel in each passing moment and recognize that they’re all part of the “process” (another silly word). 

I do smile.  I do laugh.  I do have fun. 

But I miss her while I am doing all of those.  Every time.

This coming Saturday, she would have been 15 months. 

There are so many things I would have discovered about her by now, had things been different.  I would know for sure by now what color her eyes would be.  I would know how her cry sounded.  How her laugh sounded.  What her smile looked like.  Whether or not she was a thumb/finger sucker like her mom. 

And it makes me mad because I am so sad that I only know what she looked like when she was sleeping.  I don’t know anything else.  I don’t know anything about my daughter. 

That is so hard to live with.

You Are My Sunshine

January 21, 2013                                                                                          10:58 a.m

Dear Brynna,

Oh my goodness.  I miss you so much today.  My heart is heavy and my eyes have been spilling over with bitter tears.

I feel tired and I feel defeated.  I feel lost and I feel alone.  I feel confused and I feel shaken.  Yet, on goes the world…

“I woke up and I wished that I was dead, with an aching in my head.

I lay motionless in bed

The thought of you and where you’ve gone,

And the world spins madly on…”

I wish I’d had another day, another hour, oh God, just another minute, with you my sweet, sweet girl. 

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine,
You make me happy when skies are gray,
You'll never know dear, how much I love you,

Please don’t take my sunshine away.

The other night, dear, as I lay sleeping,

I dreamed I held you in my arms.

When I awoke, dear, I was mistaken,

So I hung my head, and I cried.”

It’s so strange the connection I have to that song…

When I was a little girl and getting ready to enter preschool when summer ended, I remember laying in bed with my mom in the morning and we were singing songs together.  We started singing “You Are My Sunshine” and by the time we got to the last verse, I was crying.  Little, four year old me, was crying and my mom, your grandma, asked me why.  I remember telling her that I was so sad for the person that was dreaming of the one they loved so much only to wake up and remember that that person wasn’t there.

How I could relate to that pain at four years old, I don’t know.  Unless somehow, in some way, I knew already that that would be my pain… someday.

And then I grew up.  And then you came.  And then you left.  And then I dreamed of you.  And then I woke up, and realized I was mistaken.  And I hung my head and I cried.

I love you Brynna.  I love you so very, very much. 

I just wanted to tell you that.

Love,

Momma