First day of school was always frozen yogurt. Last day of school was always a sno-cone.

You would think not having a child at home and in school and not teaching, that the first and last day of school wouldn’t mean that much anymore. But here I am overwhelmed with sadness that we have missed another last day of school. Yesterday, I visited the school where I used to teach and I can’t say that I missed just how excited kids are for the last day of school–that pure ecstatic electricity bouncing off their little bodies. The tired teachers. The constant reminders of how to behave because it’s still a school day. Because if you’ve ever taught school, you know that the last day is a lot like the first day.
Oh but to see the progress, the growth and change, the completion . Watching little minds as they learn and remembering how far they’ve come from when they walked into the classroom for the first time back in August. To me that is the pure joy–the completion of a whole school year. So many new experiences, so many lessons taught and learned by both the pupil and the teacher, the “we’re all in this together and we made it” sense of community.

Another end of the school year. Another few minutes standing in line waiting to celebrate, the sun beating down and the humidity sucking the very breath out of us, trying to decide what flavor of sno-cone only to go and pick the same flavor again and again… and again.

Popsicle kisses and big bear hugs, little boy trains, and jars full of bugs

I hung this in Patrick’s room before he was born. It’s a pretty fair description of little boys. Tonight we started packing up his room because we’ve decided it’s time to move on. As I drove back home tonight with his favorite song blaring, I started thinking about all the things he liked.

Patrick liked…
The song, It’s Raining Tacos
Legos
Star Wars
Being read to
Being Snuggled
Giving hugs, air hugs, hearts, kisses
Saying, ‘I love you!’
Playing hide and seek
Playing catch
Riding the school bus on field trips
Black holes
Saturn
His best friend
Feeding chickens
His brother
Eating
Swinging
Minecraft
Rainbows
People
Target
Wearing socks to bed
Peanut M&Ms
Going to the park
Help bake cookies
Riding in Daddy’s truck
Pizza
Hometown football team
Astronomy shows
Cherry pie
Going to the movies
Sonic
Math
Numbers
Sock skating
Airplanes
The Wizard of Oz
Telling jokes and being ‘sarcasm’
Gumball
Pat and Jen on Youtube
Jazz
Animusic
Dancing
George Strait
Red tennis shoes
Polka dot slippers
Wearing his blue hoodie
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21
Singing
Watermelon

Your passion is born out of adversity

early morning thoughts by me

I don’t know if someone famous said that. I looked and couldn’t find any reference to it, so if you know who said it first, let me know and I’ll give them credit.

I have been in a bad place lately. It feels so similar to the early days of grief or maybe even worse because I no longer have the initial shock of losing Patrick to numb me. The question, ‘why?’ has played and repeated over and over in my brain.

Now my question is what if. I don’t mean, ‘what if?’ like it usually plays out…what if I had left earlier or later on the day of the accident, what if we did a different activity that day. Not those kind of what if questions.

I’m been tearing myself up over the idea of not teaching. For the longest time teaching reading and sharing my love of children’s literature was my passion. It still is a passion of mine. I don’t think it will ever go away. But…what if teaching was to teach me something–something I didn’t know that I needed.

What if the class I taught last year was to teach me how to love and reach people where they are at that moment? My class was academically low, so low in reading I couldn’t imagine how I was going to help them. But, I did help them and their teachers this year were able to build on the skills I taught them, and so teaching goes… Those sweet little 2nd graders crept their way into my heart and taught me to be present for them right where they were. If they needed help with sounds, that’s where I helped. If they needed help spelling new words, that’s where I helped. If they needed help picking out a chapter book, that’s where I helped. Teaching them was so much more than meeting their academic needs. It was building a relationship with them. And in case anyone reading this is considering going into teaching or working with children–that’s the secret right there–building a relationship. So even though I had years of experience working and teaching children, what if this class specifically taught me about building relationships and meeting the immediate needs of my students?

What if teaching taught me to handle difficult situations with parents? Parents regardless of their involvement level are protective of their children. Some parents are easy to talk to and others you feel like you need a whole entourage to meet with them. Again, talking to parents about easy and difficult matters boils down to building relationships with them. What if teaching was to help me learn to build better relationships with adults and what if teaching helped me learn how to talk about unfortunate situations with parents?

What if Patrick’s goal in this life was to teach me(us) to have more compassion for others? What if through raising him for 7 years I learned to love people more and truly care for them? What if Patrick taught me how to enjoy the moment? What if having Patrick for my son was getting me ready for the next step I would need to take? What if his death helped to bring life to others? What if the adversity of losing Patrick has started a new passion for me? What if this tragedy begins my new purpose? What if what happens next is the most incredible journey? What if it’s all because of a sweet, ragtag group of 2nd graders and a precious little boy named Patrick? What if…?

It’s tiring. You could have had a perfectly good day and then wham, grief slaps you straight across the face.

There’s a trigger–there’s always a trigger. Whether it’s identified or not becomes irrelevant once grief and tears have enveloped you. Sometimes it starts late in the evening and you end up crying yourself to sleep. You pray that sleep will take the pain away and you can forget for just a little while that this is your life. When you wake up the pain is still there, the sadness, the tears. What’s not there is Patrick. He’s not there.

6:00 a.m. “If I don’t wake up too much, if I lie this way in bed, and breathe this way I will go back to sleep. I have nothing but dirty dishes to wash and clean clothes to fold.” That stupid little ditty about being thankful for dirty dishes and clean clothes goes through your head…you still don’t feel thankful for them… There is no reason to get up. Jesus please help me go back to sleep. Jesus please help me today. You sleep 4 more hours. Still no point in getting up but you do.

You mentally go through the list of things that you want to do today or things you can do to keep yourself occupied all day. But the list is draining…but you are up…1 goal accomplished for the day–you are out of bed.

Then you put one foot in front of the other and now you’ve eaten some breakfast, started laundry, at least looked at the dirty dishes, put some sunshine scentsy in, wiped the kitchen counters down, wiped the bathrooms down, decided it was better to put real clothes on instead of having another pajama day, washed your face, brushed your teeth, put on some deodorant, and put your hair up… For a few minutes you forget about the sadness and the tears have stopped and you don’t think about Patrick for a little bit…until the next time…

Newton’s Third Law of Physics states:  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.  We all learned that in school, right? I’m sitting in a chair. My body pushes force against the chair and the chair pushes force up against my body. Force works in pairs and there is always an equal and opposite reaction for that pair. In the case of the chair and my body one is pushing up and one is pushing down.

Emotions…those are tricky! They can masquerade as something else, they can trick you and lie to you. They can make you feel all kinds of things that aren’t necessarily true. Keeping your emotions in check while grieving is not an easy task. Some days I do better at keep my emotions from ruling my day…other days not so much…

I have noticed that anytime I experience an extreme emotion there is an opposite emotion waiting for me a few hours later. Extreme, in this case, meaning the intensity of how much I felt it. It can be simple as belly-laughing at a joke, but I know the crash is coming. I’ve been noticing the pattern for awhile now. This past weekend was our anniversary. It was also one year since Patrick’s funeral. I felt it was imperative that we do something, even something small to celebrate our anniversary. Last year we didn’t even really mention our anniversary. And, if I’m being honest, most years we just floated it along until we had time to celebrate. We always did something, but most of the time it was a family activity, just not something for the two of us.

We had a wonderful weekend. It was better than either of us had hoped for. But…I also noticed that after a day of enjoying ourselves, spending time with friends, and laughing til our sides hurt, there was the crash. We had listened to stand up comedy on the way to our destination. We both enjoyed it and laughed at almost every set. Then we met up with friends and laughed more; a whole lot more! I mean tears streaming, belly hurting, face stuck, full wide mouth, teeth showing, laughing! A few hours later on our way home, nothing was funny anymore and we pulled over because we were both crying.

Nothing had happened. Nothing changed in our conversation to explain the difference in the mood or tone that took over. It wasn’t the first time it had happened…we even talked about it afterwards about how often this happens. Every time there’s something to be enjoyed and we do (enjoy it) there’s a ‘price’ to pay. As happy as we were, we were equally and oppositely sad and feeling empty.

Today something similar happened. It was a different set of circumstances. This time nothing funny was happening. But, the situation at hand was something I had to do and I was pleased with how well I had handled it. I was proud that I stood up for myself, took the high road, and was not the one that looked like the idiot at the end of the conversation(I feel I should state this is not a relationship issue. My husband was with me and proudly watched as I took care of this situation with a whole lot of grace). 6 hours later…the crash…I’m still happy for the way things turned out this morning but this afternoon I’m having to talk myself out of the equal and opposite reaction. The satisfaction I felt earlier has now turned to gloominess.

I never thought so much about emotions until I lost Patrick. I didn’t have time to analyze or feel what was going on. If you asked me I could tell you how I felt but I didn’t put a lot of thought into it unless it was something I was ‘worked up about’ or felt passionate about. Now emotions, whether I’m reigning them in, or taking time to experience them, embracing, ignoring, reading about, or studying about them, they are a part of my daily routine.

emotion: any strong feeling
feeling: an emotional state or reaction

Grief is sitting in the car for an hour or more after you return home
Grief is getting mad at your husband because he brought an umbrella into the restaurant even though you don’t really care that he brought the umbrella in
Grief is knowing better than to wear mascara because in a couple hours you will look like you got in a bar fight and lost
Grief is getting up every morning and trying to be ok with things that are not ok and trying to be ok with knowing that things will never being ok again
Grief is looking at pictures and crying and then promising yourself that you won’t do that again but you do it anyway because it’s the only connection you have left
Grief is wanting to die every day but knowing it would only complicate things if you did die
Grief is the wish to simply not exist for a little while to not feel or think
Grief is trying to act normal when you want to run and hide or lash out at everything and everyone
Grief is eating a lot
Grief is not eating at all
Grief is having a completely different conversation in your head while talking to someone
Grief is smiling even though you are dying a million times inside
Grief is questioning everyone and everything
Grief is being pissed off at God and asking him why 90% of the time and begging for grace, peace and mercy the other 10%
Grief is dealing with people that have no idea what you’re going through
Grief is knowing that a part of you died, too
Grief is walking into a room and everyone thinking her son is dead
Grief is dealing with people’s pity
Grief is anxiety and panic attacks
Grief is sleeping too much
Grief is sleeping too little
Grief is losing something that gave you purpose
Grief is hoping someone will check on you but at the same time hoping they don’t
Grief is losing yourself in a deep dark mud pit that you so desperately want to climb out of but the light keeps going out
Grief is knowing that tomorrow will be a lot like today

Hope is getting out of the car, maybe only because you had to pee, but, you got out of the car
Hope is enjoying each other’s company
Hope is wearing the mascara because you have great eye lashes
Hope is getting up every morning and telling yourself you can do this. Yes, it’s not ok but you can do it
Hope is looking at the pictures and remembering the happy times because there were a lot of happy times
Hope is taking care of yourself
Hope is taking care of your needs
Hope is giving yourself grace
Hope is cooking your favorite meal
Hope is being present
Hope is being mindful
Hope is giving yourself more grace
Hope is relying on God and embracing his love for you
Hope is sharing your story
Hope is finding the new normal
Hope is setting boundaries
Hope is letting people know it’s ok to say his name and to talk about him
Hope is remembering to breathe
Hope is giving yourself even more grace
Hope is knowing you still have a purpose
Hope is having friends check on you and and are there for you regardless of how you are handling the day
Hope keeps digging out even when the light moves
Hope is knowing that it will get a little better every day

I’ve gone back to work a few hours a week. For the most part I have enjoyed being there and working with the students. I’ve gotten over my anxiety of what I’ll be doing while I’m there. I’m not in the classroom so much as I’m being plugged in wherever they need me. Maybe one day it will sound good on a resume all the ‘roles’ I played for a few months in an elementary school.

I’ve discovered that being there, especially on Mondays, I use up all my good, happy, positive, smiley, cheery, sunshiney personality. I got in my car happy that I had had a good day today. Then I went to the post office…one mishap on their part and it sent me into a funk. I really wanted to go off like the crazy red neck East Texas girl that lives deep inside of me–I have to keep her contained most days, she will get me in trouble! I still had errands to run in town so I thought I would go to a couple of my favorite stores and walk it off. Didn’t work. I had to go to the grocery store. I’ve gotten pretty good at navigating around items that I don’t want to look at or purchase that remind me of Patrick. Today I was stuck. Damn’t I had been ‘forced’ to walk by the lunchables (the lunch Patrick would beg for and more times than I care to admit gave in to because they were so easy to throw in the lunch kit on a hectic morning)and there I was standing, staring, and crying at lunchables. Then there were the BB-8 cheetos… I was pretty much done for in Kroger this afternoon. I finished running errands, came home and baked some cookies. Still struggling. I listened to TedTalks on gratitude and read Bible verses. At least I was trying to get in the right frame of mind. Then I remembered I had saved a simple (the key word here being simple) gratitude journal prompt on Pinterest. The first one was to write about a smell you are grateful for. Coconut. Specifically my coconut OGX hair conditioner(this is a not a paid endorsement, in case you were wondering, but I really do like that conditioner). It didn’t make everything right in my world, again; but, it was enough of a distraction to finally get back to being grateful for something. So, you might catch me smelling coconut conditioner from time to time, because…there are no rules in grief.

“I love things that are beautiful and epic”-Patrick age 6

Beautiful: delighting the senses or mind; extraordinary, incredible

Epic: brave and noble in character; powerful and wonderful

A very good and wise friend told me that it is scientifically proven that increasing your gratitude will decrease your depression. Makes sense, right? If you’re busy being grateful it frees up a lot of your mind that the depression is trying to take over.

The last couple of weeks I’ve tumbled down that dark hole and I don’t like where I am. Irritable, frustrated, sad…it’s so easy to hold on to those feelings in the dark.

I wrote down a lot of things that Patrick said and put them on Facebook. When those funny or profound quotes show up in my memories I like to share some of them again. This one popped up in my memories the other day: “I love things that are beautiful and epic”. He was 6 years old.

It didn’t take much for the things Patrick experienced to be beautiful and epic in his mind. Many a night he would come running in the house telling us to hurry and come see the sunset because it was so beautiful! People were beautiful to Patrick–he loved people! He would talk about his best friend, ‘Mama she’s so beautiful and I love her!’ A trip during the summer to get a sno-cone, getting to order a cherry pie at Chicken Express, or playing Minecraft with his dad, light saber wars with his brother, or going on a Target run with me–those things all made for an epic day for Patrick.

So I’ve decided that I needed to take a lesson from Patrick. What’s beautiful and epic in my life right now? How can I find the good right now?

I love the gingham pattern. I can barely help myself if I find some article of clothing in gingham. In the words of my husband, “Did you buy the gingham shoes??” Because he knows I’m going to talk and talk and talk about the cutest shoes I’ve ever seen. He’d rather I just buy them instead of having to listen to my obsessive conversation over gingham. I don’t know why I like it so much, but I always have. I don’t care if I look like I’m draped in a tablecloth, I love gingham and I’ll be wearing it probably til the day I die. I’ll probably be buried in a gingham dress in a gingham casket! I found gingham shoes on sale yesterday. Yes, I bought them. I’m grateful for gingham.

My friends are beautiful people. They don’t know how much I’ve relied on them this year. They’ve seen me at my best in the past and my worst this year and they are still my friends. Good friends are so hard to find. When you find those 2 or 3 people that really get you, hang on to them. They are precious and they are life-savers! I’ve told them but I want them to know without a doubt how much they mean to me. They make the hard parts of life a little more bearable. I love my friends and I am grateful for them everyday.

The beach. The beach is both epic and beautiful. The peace and the calm that it brings every time I visit is hard to explain. The beach soothes my mind and soul. It’s sheer beauty and magnitude are overwhelming to me physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I am grateful for a weekend trip to the beach.

My marriage is beautiful and epic. I am grateful that we are able to walk together in grief. We have a weird thing that we say to each other now. “I hate that we’re having to go through this right now, but I’m glad it’s you that’s going through it with me.” He’s my best friend, he’s made me laugh for almost 30 years. All the pieces of our marriage are an epic story of living life in the mundane, the exciting and crazy times, and through the hardest times. I am grateful for who we have turned out to be and for the way our marriage has made us better people. It’s been and will continue to be a beautiful and epic story.

I want the rest of my life to be beautiful and epic. I want to honor the little boy who had a passion for life and who saw the beauty and wonder in everyday life. Happy, anticipating, grateful.

It’s been almost a year since we lost Patrick. In that year I’ve had to let a lot of things go. I had to let Patrick go and with that any idea of what I thought the future would be like. That’s the big one and the most obvious. Death came in and swooped down and took him away from me. No notice or warning–just gone. If you never learn anything else about Patrick, know this about him–he was kind and caring. Patrick was kind, oh so very kind. If you knew Patrick you would understand why I wrote it that way. When he was passionate about something or really wanted something he preceded it with ‘oh so very’. Most of the time it was, “I’m oh so very hungry!” He was compassionate and charming. I can’t think of anyone that was not charmed by him. He could talk his way in or out of anything! And brilliant–he was absolutely brilliant. His ability to soak up and retain information was simply amazing. He was the smartest 7 year old I knew, almost adult in some of his insights.

There were lots of other things I’ve let go of this year, too. Some little and some not so little.

Thank you notes. This one really bothers me because I can get worked up over the smallest things and make a big deal about them. I was always a firm believer in hand-written thank you notes. But here I am a year later and I’ve only sent a few notes to the hundreds of people that sent food, flowers, money, gift cards, etc. when Patrick died. Either I’ll eventually get the rest sent out or hope that people understand that I am forever grateful for everything they did for us last year, in the meantime I’ve let the idea of thank-you notes go.

My job/career which is still up in the air right now. I think back to right after Patrick died and I remember telling people that I wanted to go back to teaching in a couple of weeks. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking other than I needed routine and distraction. I love teaching. I’m good at it. It fills my day and I love it when a something clicks for a child and the light bulb goes on for them. It is one of the best feelings in the world to be a part of that process! But it’s something that I’ve lost. It’s not the same. It’s weird to me that I can handle the children talking about Patrick, but something about being at the school he attended and where I taught is very hard for me. The students are very open and honest about Patrick. It’s almost always the same conversation. You’re Patrick’s mom. Patrick was in a car crash. Patrick died. Patrick is in heaven. I miss Patrick. Do you miss Patrick? I wish Patrick was here. Would Patrick be in our class? Patrick was in my class in Kindergarten and 1st grade. These conversations with his friends don’t even catch me off guard.

Patrick showing up in my classroom at the end of the day, Patrick sock skating down the hall at the end of the day, Patrick playing in the halls after school, Patrick having to run up to the office every day after school to give kisses to the office staff, waving to him when his class walked past mine, those are the things that I miss. No longer having those things to look forward to at the end of the day are the things that bring me to tears. Is teaching something I’m going to have to let go of because it’s so intertwined with Patrick? I don’t know…

A noisy house…I don’t really remember wishing for quiet a lot of the time. Kids are noisy and I just expected my house to be noisy. I know there were times when we’d have quiet time or one of us would say, ‘Turn that TV off!’ Our house is unnaturally quiet. I miss the busyness of Patrick playing and running around. I miss the TV being on some inane children’s show. Patrick was *always* singing or humming. Most of the time he was humming the theme to Star Wars or Wizards in Winter. I miss his voice. No house should be as quiet as ours.

Invitations to parties. I don’t want to be invited to his friends’ parties. I only mention this one because fun invitations are now replaced with invitations to ceremonies to remember him. Every few months we get an invitation to some kind of ceremony. We’ve received invitations to honor organ donors, invitations to remember children who died in 2018, invitations to honor children that died at Texas Children’s, the list of sad invitations goes on. We tried to attend one of the ceremonies. I appreciate the sentiment but it was a horrible experience. Now, when we get these invitations they go straight in the trash. Maybe some day we’ll be able to attend them but for now it’s not a way for me to remember or honor Patrick.

My identity as Patrick’s mom. I was never one to shy away from being identified as my boys’ mama. I was proud to be their mom. I embraced that role and never thought it would have changed with the death of one of my children. I’m still and will always be Patrick’s mom…

This is only a small portion of things I’m having to let go of this past year. So many things have changed. Letting go of what the next 15 years were going to be…finding a new normal…finding a new path to travel…holding on to Patrick’s memory, yet moving forward to make new memories without him… Letting go of what should have been and what could have been…