Some days are just sad days. The days have all been sad since we lost Patrick. His birthday, the holidays, the 14th and 18th of each month, are all especially hard and I already know they will be tough to get through. But, then there’s the random Tuesday, or really any day of the week with no special meaning attached to it, and the tears just flow on and off all day.

I want to see him running and playing in the backyard. I want to have him sit in my lap and tell me about his day at school. I want my house to be filled his constant chatter, singing and humming. I want to hear him tell me about the latest Minecraft maps. I want to hear him read a book to me. I want to hear him say, ‘Mommy do I have to?’ when I tell him to put his toys away. I want to find him hiding in my bedroom when I tell him it’s time for a bath and then we both giggle and he say’s, ‘Let’s hide from daddy!’ and we both hide by throwing all the blankets on top of us. I want to catch one of his hearts, kisses and air hugs. And, I want to feel those chubby arms reach out and hug me and I want to hear him say, ‘Mommy, I love you no matter what!’.

The brain does some weird(and remarkable, but I’m going with weird on this one) things in grief… Just a couple more weeks I tell myself and then I’ll get to see Patrick. I know it’s not true but it makes it more bearable because a couple of weeks is far enough away that I’m not anticipating it in the next day or so. I think this started because when I was in my early 20s I was working a job that began mandatory overtime shortly after I started working there. I was required to work 10 hour days, 7 days a week for six weeks. Our supervisor told us to just think of everyday as Tuesday–no dread of the Mondays and no anticipation of the weekends. It helped. So now my brain has remembered the idea of every day was Tuesday and turned it into ‘in a couple of weeks’…

So today is one of those random sad days, that just happens to be a Tuesday. No reason attached. Well there is always a reason and it always becomes apparent, but until then… Tears are healing. So I take the time to cry, because crying is okay…

Depending on where you look or who you talk to statistics show that there is a high probability that couples who lose a child will eventually divorce.

We’ve been married for almost 30 years, 28 this March to be exact. I knew the first time I saw my husband that I would marry him. In fact I told everyone at church (small church) to mark their calendars for March 30 because I was getting married. He later told me that he heard me say that and wondered if he was the one I was going to marry.

I saw him at the church water fountain. He wasn’t strikingly handsome to me that day. He needed a haircut. I have a thing about haircuts… and lips. And his lips were beautiful. We started dating shortly thereafter, were soon engaged, and set the date to be married–March 30.

I remember when we told my dad that we wanted to get married. His words were, ‘I’ve never seen two people more opposite. I don’t think it’s going to work but y’all are grown. You do what you want to do.’ And we did.

I’ve never thought of marriage as being hard. We’ve had our share of rough patches, plenty of rough patches, but at the end of the day we were always on the same team. We’ve had so much fun together. We truly enjoy being in each other’s company. We love each other, are in love, and we’re the goofy couple holding hands and flirting in the grocery store.

When Patrick died we were still on the same team. We clung to each other like never before. It’s a weird thought to think the death of a child could bring you closer but it did. Neither of us held back with each other when it came to our grief. We were both open about our bad days and not so bad days. The rule was that there were no topics off limits. We decided if we were going to make it through this we had to be honest and open with each other. Patrick could be talked about at anytime. Lots of grace was given on the worst days.

We were going to counseling to help with the grief of losing Patrick. We assured our counselor that our marriage was solid. While she agreed, she suggested that we read a book: The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman, PhD. which we lovingly called “the divorce book”. We called it that mostly because I could never remember the title of the book, but I knew it was to help you work through problems instead of getting a divorce.

If you are going through the loss of a child I recommend going to counseling. Mine has saved my life a thousand times over and probably my marriage, too. A seasoned counselor is going to be at least five, probably more, steps ahead of you at every turn.

Why in the world should we read a book about improving our marriage? We’ve got this. People look to us an example in marriage. We’ve been through crap before and came out just fine. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.

Then our first disagreement after Patrick died came along. In deep, deep, grief your emotions are so heightened. Anything funny is the funniest thing you’ve ever heard, anything sad is the saddest thing and if you had the patience of Job in the past…you now have the patience of a two year old screaming for a cookie that has been told no for the last twenty minutes.

Read the book on improving your marriage because while we were solid in our commitment to each other, everything else was changing around us.

We had suddenly become empty-nesters. Our world no longer revolved around a 7 year old. It revolved around a 49 and 47 year old. We had to remember what it was like to be a couple–just the two of us. We had a lot of free time on our hands. Little things that we had let slide were all of a sudden a big deal. We had to learn to communicate again and solve problems. In the past we’d wait til the kids were in bed or until we had some free time and by then we would both be so tired we would just look at each other and say, ‘Wow that was crazy. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, too.’ Kiss, kiss and all was good again. We hadn’t really talked about what was bothering us or solved anything. We were just too tired to make it a priority and this had gone on for years.

We’ve had a few more disagreements, even some big ones that in that moment I thought would do us in. We survived them. We both enjoyed reading the divorce book. It helped us to connect and understand why we behave the way we do and to communicate better than we ever had. We still refer back to it when problems pop up and… We’re still on the same team.

An event or situation that causes something to start.

Trigger–a word until almost a year ago I thought was probably overused because it was every where and people were being triggered by the most random things. I don’t know if I’ve changed my mind about the overuse of the word but it is a word that I am all too familiar with now.

When Patrick died I knew there would be things that I would remember that were specific to him. His blue hoodie. I knew cool weather was on the way so one day after school he and I stopped in Target to get a lite jacket. He saw the blue hoodie and had to have it! They didn’t have his size, but he loved it and I knew he’d grow into it, eventually! I had been doing this mama-gig for a long time. Pick your battles was a lesson I learned early on. Buying a blue hoodie a couple sizes too big was not my hill to die on. Blue hoodie bought and I had a very happy 5 year old. He loved that blue hoodie and he wore it every.single.day. It didn’t matter what the temperature was, Patrick had his blue hoodie on.

I remember finding it the first time after he died. It was in his backpack. I took it out and smelled it and rubbed it on my face. It smelled just like Patrick. Not stinky boy Patrick, just Patrick. I can’t tell you how many days I sat with that blue hoodie and just trying to make sure I could still smell him. The blue hoodie is safely tucked away in his memory box now. It’s taken on the smell of the box more now than Patrick’s smell and I’m okay with that now.

So things like his blue hoodie, walking by his empty bedroom, anything related to rainbows(his favorite color at the time of his death) and The Wizard of Oz(one of his favorite books) I felt somewhat prepared to handle.

The things I was not prepared to handle jumped out at me like a savage attack. It would literally feel like someone was stabbing me in my chest when I came across an ‘unplanned’ trigger.

Lego

I am a teacher and foolishly thought I was ready to go back to teaching the next school year(more on that later in another post). I went to a summer workshop. The workshop was going well and I was enjoying being back into a routine and seeing my teacher friends. We were a couple of hours into the workshop when the word Lego was mentioned and we were told that we would be doing a little project with Legos. My heart fell and I tried so hard to keep smiling and act like everything was fine. I ended up in the bathroom crying because of Legos.

Loose Teeth

I can’t remember when Patrick lost his first tooth. I remember the day and I have a picture of it, but not the exact date. He was just starting to lose teeth when he died. The first time he lost a tooth he was a little scared but then the tooth fairy showed up and that made losing teeth a lot less scary and a lot more fun! When Patrick died the autopsy report stated that he had 3 loose teeth.

I was having a good day at school and I had made it to the ‘it’s all downhill from here’ point in the day. I had gone to the cafeteria to pick my class up from lunch and take them out to recess. One of my students came up to me and said, ‘Mrs. G I need to go to the nurse. I just lost a tooth!’ Unplanned trigger. My partner teacher took my class out to recess and I sat in my classroom crying for 15 minutes over loose teeth.

Red Tennis Shoes

If you didn’t get to see Patrick teaching you dance moves in his red tennis shoes you missed out! I am forever grateful for those few minutes after school one day where my partner teacher, assistant principal, and I got private dance lessons from the sweet boy wearing red tennis shoes.

Holding Hands

I have my children and I’ve worked with children for many years. Holding hands with kids is just part of the territory. Everyday after school Patrick and his best friend would play together. When you’re a teacher’s kid the school is a completely different place after the dismissal bell rings. There are rules in place but sometimes…well, teacher’s kids tend to make their own rules after school. Patrick and his best friend’s after school activities usually included holding hands and running as fast as they could down the halls, sock skating, playing in the office, and of course helping teachers clean up.

It was just a few days into the new school year. School was out for the day. Patrick’s best friend found me. “Mrs. G I want to show you something!” I go to meet her and she grabs my hand and we’re off down the hall. She lets loose and shows me that she’s learned how to turn cartwheels. She’s grabbed my hand and we’ve walked down the halls together a lot. We’ve held hands and checked on and watered Patrick’s tree. She’s a good hand-holder and she was his very best friend.

I’ve gotten better with unexpected triggers. I guess they will always catch me by surprise. When they happen now, I try to remember Patrick and how happy he was to play Lego, get a visit from the tooth fairy, wear red shoes and show off his dance moves, and to play with and hold his best friend’s hand.

This is not what I planned to write today but something popped up in my day and now my plans are all rearranged. Of course the task that lies ahead of me should not be that big of a deal but it has brought panic and the inability to focus on anything else except that!

Somewhere along the way in the grief process, probably from the very beginning, I lost my ability to focus or in some cases I became hyper-focused.

Before the accident and losing Patrick I prided myself on my organizational skills and the ability to have my $#!t together. There was nothing I couldn’t take on, accomplish, or learn when I decided it was what I wanted to do. Do you want to be a teacher? Yes, of course. The certification takes about a year. No problem–I was done in 3 months. I need these documents ready for the city council meeting by Friday. No problem–I had them ready on Wednesday. Your oldest son shows autistic tendencies. He’s going to need therapy and lots of intervention. No problem–17 years later he’s a junior at the University holding down a 4.0 and succeeding in life. I love a good challenge! These days I find myself sitting at a stop light telling myself red means stop and green means go. That’s humbling because even as far back as a young child playing red light–green light, I have understood what red and green meant.

Grief swallows your whole being. All those things that were once so easy to do and that I never gave a thought to became overwhelming, insurmountable tasks.
In the evenings I would have a burst of mental energy and I felt like I could take on anything. I would make lists of all the things I wanted to do the next day. The next day would roll around and it was all that I could do to get up, bathe, brush my teeth, put on deodorant, and get dressed. I joke now about putting on deodorant, but there were days where that was my one thing I did.

Our home was nothing fancy. It was our home and it was cozy. It was dated, still proudly showing off the decorum of the 1970s, and we had outgrown it a long time ago. But it was our home, where we have lived half of our married lives, the home where we were raising our kids and it was the only home Patrick knew. It was decorated for every holiday, it smelled good, and it was tidy as much as it could be with 2 boys. People loved coming to our home because they said it felt homey and they felt comfortable here.

Doing that one thing every day didn’t include staying on top of the housework. It was never filthy but things just kept getting piled up. Looking back, I think we may have been very close to being on an episode of hoarders… maybe not, but it certainly felt that way when we would walk in and see the disarrayed piles getting higher each day. Thankfully a couple of friends came over and helped us get back on track. Eventually my husband and I were able to tackle the majority of clutter and while our home isn’t what it used to be, I’m not worried that A&E will show up with cameras.

Sometimes it’s hard to write about a specific time of grief because there are so many details that make up the whole situation. So the events may seem disjointed at times. That’s grief. It is the constant state of being disjointed. Grief completely takes over your mind and body. You are no longer the person that you and everyone else knows. I lost my ability to get through simple everyday tasks. I could be told new information and I could sit and obsess over it for hours, over-analyze a conversation that I had with someone, or just simply sit in a daze for hours and then wonder what I did all day.

Grief–Heartbreak

Why should I feel discouraged
Why should the shadows come
Why should my heart feel lonely
And long for heaven and home
When Jesus is my portion
A constant friend is he
His eye is on the sparrow
And I know he watches over me

Where was God and why did he disappear when things were so bad? I have no explanation for why some people feel God right beside them during a crisis and others feel completely abandoned. It seems to be one or the other and usually not anything in between. I felt abandoned by God. I was so angry with God that he let this awful, awful thing happen to me, to my family. I tried to rationalize it. Maybe I hadn’t gone to church enough, prayed enough, been good enough or nice enough to people. If you ever feel abandoned by God try and skip all that because it is a waste of time. God does not operate on how ‘good’ we behave. Deep down I already knew this but it was so easy to get caught up in trying to figure it all out. I don’t know exactly how or when it happened but I was able to eventually start praying for God to help me see him in this tragedy and to change my heart.

I’ll give God credit here because I can’t see any other way for all of the next events to come together. There are a lot more details but for the sake of time I’ll only write the highlights. We were invited to go to the church where my husband and I met and were later married. It wasn’t the same church, almost 30 years had passed, the church was even a different denomination now, and we only knew the person that invited us and one other. Not exactly our comfort zone. We thought it was would be a nice visit down memory lane and that would be that. What we found was the word of God being taught in such a way that neither of us had ever experienced. I had gone to church my whole life. I even went to Bible college for a year, so of course I had the scoop on God and had things figured out. I had heard words grace, mercy, forgiveness, and all the church vernacular probably every Sunday of my life but something in the sermon resonated with me that God was indeed a loving God. He truly cared for me. He was pained by my situation and He was going to love me through it. God did not swoop down at that moment and make things right again. God put a few people(well they were already there but now I knew why) in my life that could handle me and all my feelings, emotions, doubts, good days, and bad days. I can’t say that everyday is filled with YAY God! and it’s good and God is good. I still get angry but my foundation is strengthening and I remember more easily that God has not left me to deal with grief alone.

With God all things are possible. Matthew 19:26
Patrick: I think if you don’t have God everything is impossible

God is close to the brokenhearted Psalm 34:18
Me: It sure doesn’t feel like it

God gets blamed for a lot of things he doesn’t do. I was in that camp of blaming God and I still hang out there from time to time. I had followed the rules. I had done the ‘right’ things. Why did my child die? I’ve asked that question everyday for almost a year now. I still don’t have the answer. People like to spout out platitudes because they don’t have the answer either but feel compelled to fill that void. We all like to have the answers and feel like we are in control. Why is a hard question to get an answer for sometimes. I didn’t feel God in anything that was going on in my life. Truthfully, I still don’t feel God in some powerful way most days. I’m starting to see some small pieces of God again–more on that later.

Now I’m going to write a little bit about things that were said to me after Patrick’s death. If you start reading this and see yourself in here don’t overthink it. When someone dies we want to make sense of it. When a child dies we try even harder to figure it out and we want to know that the God we love and trust is carefully orchestrating everything and there has to be a reason for it all.

God is good. This was God’s plan. Patrick is in a better place. God knew this was going to happen all along. Those are just a few of the things people told me. I’m not angered by their words nor do I resent them for saying them. We are human and we are trying to make sense of tragic events. I’ve thought the same things, probably even said them, too. These things do not help a grieving parent. You know the best thing you can do? Tell the person you love them. Sit with them and hold their hand or put your arm around them. Cry with them. You don’t have to say anything. Words are not necessary. Call or text and say you are thinking about them. Share a memory of their child with them. These are all good things to do.

Back to God. I would go to church and I’d read the Christian books on grief, I’d read my Bible and do my devotion. Doing all these things would put me in a horrible mood. I would read those popular verses–plans to prosper and not harm you. Really God? Not harm me? Patrick, one of the sweetest children to ever walk this earth is dead. Not harm me? You know the plans for me? To take the child from me that I waited for so long? What kind of plan is that? God is close to the broken-hearted. God didn’t show up that day and I haven’t seen him since. I had a comeback for every thing. Jesus loves me. Nope, I don’t think he does. All things work together for good. How could any good come from this? Patrick is dead. There’s nothing good about that.

I was stuck in a loop. Someone would want to talk about God and I’d oblige their ideas, smile, and pretend to agree but deep down I was cursing them and God. Even the preacher would say things that I could turn and twist to suit my feelings that day. Stop talking about things you don’t understand would play over and over in my mind until I completely tuned people out and then at some point I’d realize the conversation was finally over and I’d be on my way. Somehow through all this I was still praying everyday God help me. God please help me because I miss Patrick so much. God help me. It was the only prayer I could attempt. Praying anything except those words was out of the question. I didn’t pray for anyone else or world peace or even a blessing over the food. Those prayers were too hard. During all this my husband had completely dismissed God. I truly felt like I was alone in trying to figure out where God was in all of this and I had to decide if I was ready to tell God to take a hike and I’d manage very well on my own since He could have stepped in at anytime and saved/healed/performed a biblical miracle for Patrick.

Patrick never recovered from his injuries. He was brain dead. His body broken in so many places. His leg, his fingers, his neck, and his brain was swelling. The neurosurgeon had tried to save him and sent him to Texas Children’s hoping for a miracle. We all prayed for a miracle.

My oldest son that always sat in the back seat with Patrick had chosen to sit up front that day. That choice saved his life. He managed to come out of the accident with only a few physical injuries. I later learned that I had been resuscitated and that my doctor broke down after looking at all my records and stated, ‘Everything here says that you are dead. You should not be here.’

4 days later Patrick was declared dead and we donated his organs. It’s not a heroic or brave act that so many people say when they find out.
Patrick was all about taking care of people and making people happy. Not a people pleaser, but he genuinely cared about people. Someone needed that hope and they needed that chance. It was the Patrick thing to do.

Physical recovery was painful but nothing compared to the emptiness and heartbreak we began to experience. There was so much to do all of a sudden. Funeral plans, people were at our house, doctor appointments, endless things we had to address. I don’t remember much of it and from March until June is mostly a blur with bits and pieces of days sticking out here and there like a sore thumb that someone was repeatedly hitting with a hammer.

I found out Patrick was on his way in early January 2010. Shock was quickly replaced with an all consuming joy. You see, all I ever wanted was a houseful of kiddos to call me mama. 7 years into our marriage we finally had our first child. He was a everything we had ever hoped for. We spoiled him rotten and our world revolved around him. We wanted more babies like him. Unfortunately, we had already been down the path of infertility and knew our chances of having more children were limited. However, we quickly became pregnant with baby #2. Maybe whatever that was ‘broken’ was fixed and all was well. Sadly, at 11 weeks into the pregnancy, we lost our baby. For the next 13 years we tried on and off to have a baby. Infertility and loss followed us, friends and enemies alike welcomed baby after baby into their families. We kept going on with life. How fortunate we were to have our oldest. He was a dream. A gem of a child and still spoiled rotten. He was our pride and joy. Years rolled on and life was good. My husband and I were not getting any younger. I was approaching 40 and he was was already a couple of years ahead of me. We decided that we would not be the old people having a baby. Well, like most things in our life there was a twist heading our way. A beautiful and wonderful twist that I had pretty much given up hope on. Patrick, all 7lbs of him, came into our world on September 9, 2010. Joy did not even begin to describe what he added to our family.

Grief: The natural reaction to death.
Great sorrow caused by someone’s death. Heartbreak.

There is no word for a parent who loses a child. That’s how awful the loss is.

March 14, 2018

We were mid-week into our spring break. I had decided to take Patrick on a surprise outing. He had made a list of things he wanted to do over Spring Break. The item for today was go to NASA. I don’t like driving in Houston. Patrick and I made a deal that we would all go to NASA on Friday when Daddy was off work. I was going to take Patrick on an outing not too far from our home and drive all country roads. Patrick’s brother was home from college and decided to join us.

Patrick had not been a good traveler. He suffered horribly from car sickness. Sometimes he could make it 15 or so minutes before the throwing up commenced. It seemed in recent months Patrick had become a better traveler. Either that or those sea bands were really doing their job! This particular day he did not get sick and the trip to our destination was an enjoyable time for all of us.

We were almost to our destination and Patrick saw where we were going. He excitedly asked if what he saw was where we were going. I replied that, “Yes and I’m so proud of you today! You did a great job traveling today and you didn’t ask how much longer and you just enjoyed it!’ The next thing I remember is a police officer trying to wake me up and telling me that we had been in a very serious car accident and they had taken both of my children by ambulance to the nearest hospital and they were waiting for another ambulance to arrive on the scene of the accident and take me to the hospital. I don’t remember a whole lot because I was in and out of consciousness. I do remember asking over and over where is Patrick, where is Patrick? I could see his brother and he was walking around and seemed to be okay at that moment. I also kept asking the officer where I was and why was I there. He kept telling me where I was and I kept telling him I wasn’t supposed to be there and that he wasn’t making any sense to me.

Later I would find out that while we were waiting to make a left hand turn a distracted driver hit us at about 70 miles per hour. Patrick had been life-flighted twice. Once to a local hospital and later to Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Patrick, although properly restrained in his car seat, did not survive the impact of the crash.