With Hope

This is not at all

How we thought it was supposed to be.

We had so many plans for you

We had so many dreams,

But now you've gone away

And left us with the memory of your smile.

Nothing we can say

Nothing we can do

Can take away the pain, the pain of losing you.

 - "With Hope" by Steven Curtis Chapman

A year ago today was a Wednesday.  It wasn't a normal Wednesday.

Fresh on the news that Ryan was going to come home under hospice care and that maybe we'd get a few days to cram in as many joyful memories as possible, I was trying to figure out a way to sneak a pool into his backyard, get it filled, get it stocked with fish, and give him one last chance to go fishing...an activity he dearly loved.

I was exhausted.  I'd woken up suddenly just before 5 am.  Not the bleary eyed roll-over-and-go-back-to-sleep waking, but the kind of waking up where you are suddenly alert and untired.  I sat up in bed and thought, "Ryan.  Something's going on with Ryan."  I considered calling his mom, but it was five in the morning and a phone call seemed intrusive.  So, I prayed and I waited to feel sleepy again.  It took about a half-hour before I could lay down and get a few more minutes of sleep before going in to work.

So, there I was later that morning...running around trying to figure out how to help Ryan's parents make his final days at home the celebration they wanted it to be...when my phone lit up with his mother's name.

"Tara, where are you?" 
"I'm at work, with the kids."
"But where are you?  Are you driving?  You're not driving, are you?"  And I knew.  I knew, but didn't want to know and didn't want it to be true, so I pretended not to know as if that would somehow change reality.
"No, I'm in the kitchen.  Do I need to sit down?"
Through tears, his mom said, "I wanted you to know that there's another angel in heaven now.  Ryan...a few hours ago, around five o'clock this morning.  I wanted you to hear it from me first, I didn't want you to find out another way."

Did you know that when your heart shatters, you actually feel it happen?  That the pain is physical, right in your center, and that all at once the world becomes both crystal clear and a blurry mess?  That you hear your own breathing stop...and even when it starts again you aren't sure that it has?

The details of Ryan's last night and final hours are not mine to share, that story belongs to his parents.  They were both with him, holding him and loving him as he peacefully and, finally free of pain, gracefully slipped away from our world.   It wasn't until the next day that I realized my sudden waking on August 10 coincided with the time that Ryan's soul was on the way home.  A convenient coincidence?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  I've chosen to take it as a validation that choosing to love a child who is not your own means something, something important and something significant to the universe.  If you disagree, please keep it to yourself, because I NEED to believe this in order to cope with the unimaginable grief that comes with losing a child.   I need to believe this so I can continue to choose to love other people's children, rather than protecting my heart from the possibility of ever having to feel this again.  I cannot be a good nanny if I cannot choose to love the children entrusted to my care...so I have to believe that the choice to do so matters beyond the walls of the homes where I work.

And now, somehow, a whole year has passed since that sunny, grief filled morning.

Never have I known

Anything so hard to understand.

Never have I questioned more

The wisdom of God's plan

But through the cloud of tears

I see the Father's smile and say, "Well done."

And I imagine you

Where you wanted most to be:

Seeing all your dreams come true

'Cause now you're home

And now you're free

- "With Hope" by Steven Curtis Chapman

I thought that by today, it would hurt a little less.  I thought that by today I'd be able to hear someone call a little boy "Ryan" without tears clogging my throat and that I'd be able to drive home at the end of a work day without those tears spilling down my face.  I was wrong.

Grief, I've learned, can bring out the best and the worst in people.  I have seen some beautiful acts and relationships come from this loss.  I've watched an extraordinary school community lift up Ryan's parents and family and carry them through this year.  An incredible hospital staff that has stayed in touch and not forgotten a little boy who was but one patient among many.  Two desperately grieving parents reach through their tears and create a non-profit that will, someday soon, provide cancer stricken children with outdoor adventures just like their son loved to have...turning their grief into something productive and supportive for families walking a similar journey to their own.  Countless people who have never met Ryan, Kristen, or Bob but who allowed a very sick little boy into their hearts and who find ways to honor and remember him because they grieve him, too.

I've seen the ugliness that comes when emotions are strong and people do not know how to respond.  The person who ranted, just a few weeks after we buried Ryan, that friends offering me a shoulder to cry on were "indulging in drama" and that no real friend would do that.  The friends who made a point of telling me they didn't want to hear about his journey because it was "too sad" for them to bother with, they only like happy things.  The so-called friend a few months ago who told me that she..."and others"...were of the opinion that the only reasons I bring up Ryan are to get attention or to have people feel sorry for me, commentary which left me feeling like I had no right to express my emotions or to remember him with others for fear of being so harshly judged or becoming the subject of further gossip and derision.

And, while it was painful to realize that some of the people I'd thought of as friends were not truly friends...were not people I could lean on when I needed it, were not people who were willing to allow me a full range of human emotion...I've also had other friendships strengthened and renewed.  Some of those people, I've never met in person.  They've merely reached out through the internet and offered their love, prayers, and ongoing support to me and to Ryan's family.  The friend who, even though she never met Ryan, has helped raise money for St. Jude's in his memory.  A friend whose own infant son is buried just yards away from Ryan...who always knows the right thing to say because she knows a greater grief than I do and who, when she visits the cemetery, sometimes stops in to visit Ryan, too.  She doesn't have to, but she does, and it means the world to me.  The friends who don't run away if Ryan comes up, but who welcome his presence in our conversation even if it means that tears may follow.  The ones who bring him up themselves. The ones who, today, flooded my facebook and email with messages of support and sharing how they were remembering Ryan.

I've become a better nanny.  There are no moments that I take for granted any longer.  Even in the midst of the mundane, the irritating, the frustrating, the exhausting, there is a bone deep appreciation for the ability to have the moment, even if it is not sweet or joyful or giggling.  They are here...and no matter how difficult a day with them might be I am always always grateful that I have the opportunity for that day with them.  It is a gift, I now know, to have them here to give those frustrations, those exhaustions, those irritations.  I am able to more fully appreciate every single moment, not just the ones that are filled with laughter and fun and cuddles.

I've also learned that I really can't fix everything.  I want so much to be able to heal the indescribable pain Ryan's parents experience with every breath they've taken since their brave, beautiful boy died.  Kristen and Bob are two of the kindest, most genuine people you could ever meet.  They always have been and I am in awe that they still manage to be so.  As much as I miss Ryan, it is nothing compared to what they are going through.  I can't heal this for them, nobody can.  We can only be there for them, and help them face each new day without him and hope that they can feel how loved they are.  We can remember him with them, cry with them, laugh with them, and celebrate Ryan with them. We can allow them all the time and ways they need to cope.

We can cry with hope

We can say goodbye with hope

Because we know our goodbye is not the end

We can grieve with hope

Because we believe with hope

There's a place

By God's grace

There's a place where we'll see your face again.

- "With Hope" by Steven Curtis Chapman

I've learned, relearned really, that for me grief is not linear, it is circular and twisting.  It doesn't progress through the famous five stages in any predictable order. Some days, it is overwhelming and stuns me with its force when I least expect it.  It is solitary, separating, lonely. People don't know what to say or are afraid to say the wrong thing, so they often say nothing. They get frustrated that their words of support or comfort have not...cannot...magically lift the sadness and anger away and so they do not offer them.

It has strengthened my faith.  I don't believe that God causes death and destruction in the world, and I do not even begin to try and comprehend why He allows it to happen when He does have the power to prevent it.  I have, though, learned to accept that some things truly are beyond explaining and, more, that I do not have to defend this faith to those who find the death of a child a reason to not believe in God.  I don't understand why Ryan died...but I have to believe there is a reason even if it is a reason I cannot understand.

I've learned that love is worth it.  That at the end of the day, what I will regret are opportunities not taken, kindnesses not done, love not given freely, help not offered.  No matter how much any of this hurts, no matter how wretched it gets, I will never regret loving that little boy.  If I had to do it again, knowing the outcome, I would still choose to love him and to have been his nanny. 

I do not know if this kind of grief is something that has a finite end in this life.  I don't know if any of us who loved Ryan will "get over it" or "get past it."  I think we will adjust to it, but it will always be a part of us.

And I know that, someday, we'll see him again.  Whole, happy, laughing, free of pain.  We'll see him again.

That's the only hope that makes this survivable.