Undeserved and Unexpected

It caught me off guard. 

15 year old Clara had been asking me about her mother.  She wasn't even 2 years old when her mother passed away from leukemia.  "What was my mother like?"  "What was my mother like with me?"  She's asked these questions of everyone...and I know she's asking me to verify, in her mind, that what she's been told is really true. 

And then, the one she can't ask any of them.  "Tara, what is it like to be a bone marrow donor?" 

So I told her.  I told her how you get a letter, or a phone call, telling you that you're a potential match for a person of a certain age and gender, with a certain disease.  That you agree to more blood tests to confirm you're a match.  How the marrow program will tell you all you need to know about the collection procedures.  And how, when it's time to donate, all you really do is just show up and lay there.  You let them put the needles into you and you lay there for hours while a machine separates the needed stem cells from your whole blood and then returns everything else to you.  And then you get up, you go home, and...if you're me...you chase around the world's most active two year old the next day. 

It's really that easy.  Kind of embarrassingly so when you consider how much fanfare can happen when you tell people you're a donor.  Really.  You show up.  You lay there.  You go home.  It's painless. By the third time I donated for Clara's mother, Erin, it was unremarkable enough that I slept through most of it. 

What I didn't expect, though, was for Clara to jump out of her seat, to grab me in a hug tight enough to rival the one I got from her grandma Diane the first time I met them, and to say to me,

"Thank you for saving my mother's life." 

Because in the end, I didn't save Erin.  To be sure, the cells collected from my body bought them an extra 17 months from the first transplant.  It gave them time, it gave Erin enough time to know that Clara took her first steps and to hear Clara's first sentence, "Hi, Mama."  It wasn't enough time. 

Is there really such a thing as enough time with a loved one?

Shortly after Erin had passed away, a vicious and sadistic person...under the guise of friendship...told me that someday Clara might seek me out and ask me why I'd killed her mother.  I knew it wasn't rational when he said it, but it stuck in the back of my heart with the guilt of not having had cells strong enough to kick her cancer's ass.  For over 13 years, I wondered if, someday, Clara would blame me for her mother's death.  I know it wasn't rational.  I know her family would set her straight if she did.  But it was still a lingering thought and it worried me. 

There was a lot I didn't tell Clara about being a marrow donor.  I didn't tell her how freaked out I was the week before I donated the first time, terrified that I'd get sick and not be able to donate.  I didn't tell her how I desperately wanted to know more about her mother so that I could pray for them.  Or how I wept bitterly when I was called to donate a second...and then a third...time, knowing it didn't mean wonderful things for them.  Or how it had really seemed like NOTHING on my part right up until that first time I met them, thanks to friends we had in common who put the pieces together and allowed us to meet before the 1 year of anonymity was finished...that moment when her Grandma Diane grabbed me in a hug and wouldn't let go and kept saying, "Thank you, thank you, oh my God, thank you."  Or how, this past weekend, when I showed up at that same house I drove to 14 years ago, that Clara threw open the door and rushed to me with the same energy and manner her mother had on that first meeting.  It took my breath away. 

"Thank you for saving my mother's life." 

I didn't deserve it.  I didn't expect it.  But I absolutely needed to hear it. 

Read her mother's story here.
Read mine here.

And if you're in Michigan on Saturday, August 8, 2015, come join us here from 9am until noon.  If you're ages 18-44 and would like to join the marrow donor registry, I'll be there to help you join.

Crime Spree

The love for a child has finally driven this nanny to a life of crime.

Well, a night of crime.

Alright, maybe just an hour or so of crime.

But crime, nonetheless.

My day started out a little roughly.  You see, today is Ryan's birthday.  Would be?  Is?  I never know which verb tense to use.  He's forever 7, but if that mother fucking bitch called cancer hadn't taken him then he'd be turning 11 today.  Crap.  Did my language there offend you?  You should probably stop reading now, if that's the case, because the rest of this won't be very fun for you.

I woke up crying even before my alarm went off, trapped in the intersection of grief and the depression side of PTSD.  It's not a place I get stuck in often.  In fact, all of it is usually very manageable...except for the occasional times like this morning, when the dark sadness overtakes my heart and leaves me curled under the blankets, wondering why I ever need to get out of bed again.  Lucky for me, my oppositional streak starts to fight the heavy darkness and gets my sorry butt out of bed after a half dozen hits of the snooze button on those mornings. 

Today, I knew that time spent with the SnuggleBoys, my current nanny kidlets, was probably the best way to put light into the day.  And, I looked forward to a visit with Ryan at the cemetery.  I figured that with the cemetery closing at 6pm, I'd have jusssssst enough time to get there and spend a few Happy Birthday moments after work. So, I got out of bed and made myself face the day.

I held onto that plan until late afternoon, when I decided to gps the fastest route from work to the cemetery, pulled up the cemetery website, and discovered that the cemetery gates would be closing at 4:30.  Not at 6.  At 4:30.  And I work until 5.

I wept, a little.  And shared my frustration with a small group of nannies.  We keep a running messaging conversation through our workdays and weekends about our lives, our joys and frustrations, our observations on the world, our ideas for kid activities.  Today, they kept checking in to see how I was coping, to make sure I was okay.  So when I told them my screw up about the cemetery hours, they got it.

Samantha, especially, got it.  Like me, Samantha knows what it is like to love someone else's son through cancer and then to lose that sweet little boy to the mother fucking beast.  (I warned you before about that language, didn't I?)  She's had other major, heart wrenching losses.  She gets it.  And her immediate response was "T if you want I'll meet you there and sneak in with you. No joke. I will help. As per my high school years I'm a pro at this. And although I have been in retirement for many years. This totally warrants breaking out the old skills again."

There I was, ready to be defeated.  And there Sam was, refusing to allow that to happen.  I admit I hesitated at the thought of breaking into a cemetery, in the freezing cold, after dark.  And then Sam added, "Also who gets arrested for sneaking into a cemetery to visit a grave? No one. That's who."

Sold. 
 
Not even two hours later, I was sitting in my car at the entrance gates to the cemetery, lights off to avoid detection, texting Ryan's mom to see if the cemetery had security guards.  (For the record...no.  Just cameras.  Good to know.)  Sam pulled up, hopped out of her car, and suggested we park in a nearby neighborhood to avoid detection.  Smart, that girl.  And she was ready, in her black clothes and black coat...I should have thought of that!  

We approached the cemetery with Sam muttering, "Sidewalks all the way around, that's good, we're just walking.  We just got out of work and met up for walking, that's all.   Oh, we can totally hop this fence.  Not here though, not near the gates.  There are cameras there for sure."  I followed along, certain that we would get caught, but comforted by the fact that our friends and my dad had already offered bail money.  

I wasn't as confident as Sam was about hopping the fence.  The 387 foot high fence with spikes on every horizontal bar.  Okay, maybe not that high.  Maybe more like 8 feet.  But definitely true on the spikes.  I'm sure that Sam, with her athletic and gymnastic past, could easily vault over that fence with a running start.  I, on the other hand, have the upper body and arm strength of a spaghetti noodle.  I took one look at that fence and had instant visions of various body parts impaled on top of the fence and trying to convince EMS that we had a really valid reason for breaking into the cemetery. 

We walked and walked and went around the far edge of the cemetery perimeter.  Sam's logic was sound:  The other entrance was less likely to be lit up, and we'd be more likely to gain entrance without detection.  Don't mind us, just two people out for an evening stroll.  Oh, even better, the stone pillar will make it super easy to get over the fence.  

Sam was convinced she could help boost me over.  I was convinced that I would die, skewered on the fence spikes she kept warning me to be careful of. We shoved the paper wish lanterns and my jacket through the fence. Just as I was about to attempt to launch myself into the headlines ("Nanny Loses Limb on Cemetery Fence"), Sam decided to check out the third side of the fence perimeter.  She came running back, "We've got kickass angels watching over us, T.  There's a whole section of fence missing back there, with just caution tape on it. We don't have to climb anything!"  

So there we were, stepping over the caution tape and skulking through the treeline, with me following Sam's example and smoothly ducking into the trees whenever a car would pass on the road.  Sam's commentary continuing, "What's this little building, there are probably cameras near the building, we should stay near the trees.  But there's no lights or cars here, so that's good.  Who the hell closes a cemetery anyway?  What if you had a really shitty day and just wanted to come hang out with your dad or your grandma or whoever after work? These lanterns are really white, easy to see..."  and we slipped the lanterns under our coats.  

I was feeling pretty much like a criminal mastermind at that point.  Totally badass.

And with that, we made a beeline for Ryan.  A little difficult in the dark, but within a few minutes we were there. 

It's tricky, to ask someone to join you at a child's grave.  It is awkward for most people, and that makes it uncomfortable. I think it is hardest for those who never had the chance to meet or to know Ryan.  But Sam...she handled it with an easy, loving grace that I suspect is born of her own experiences with grief and loss.  She understood and embraced the idea that Ryan was there with us in those moments.  She helped battle the wind as we lit the paper wish lanterns, scolding and encouraging as if Ryan himself were the one making mischief and creating difficulty in getting those things lit.  She let me babble on about how he used to stand on his rocking horse, and about how he died the day before I was supposed to leave for Spain (but I'd cancelled my trip just three weeks prior), about how Little Litigator and the Twincesses asked to come have picnics with Ryan.  And we sent off those lanterns...the first one took flight swiftly and easily.  The second one bobbed and weaved and tilted to and fro...and Sam gasped, "Oh, he's DANCING!"  

He was.  And so was my heart, though still grieving...forever and always grieving the loss of that sweet, funny, vibrant boy...dancing with what I'm sure was Ryan's spirit, laughing at his old nanny for thinking she was going to die on the graveyard fence, knowing that we'd find an easy and safe way in if we just paid attention and trusted that he had it covered for us. 

As lonely as grief is, as isolating as it can be, I'm convinced the only relief from it is community with others...even when community, like tonight, is just one friend in the dark of a closed cemetery.  A friend willing to risk sitting beside me in the backseat of a patrol car because she knows how powerfully a nanny's heart loves, how shattered that heart is by loss...and how healing it is to not be alone. 

It may well be that tomorrow our faces show up on the evening news under the title "Women wanted for questioning in graveyard break in" and turn us into fugitives.  I'll look pretty shitty in prison orange, and I'm sure I'll have to make up some story about some vicious and heinous crime in order to avoid becoming someone's prison bitch once I'm convicted, unless Samantha is willing to run rogue with me and drive across the country, evading capture like Thelma and Louise.  But until then? 

I'm really grateful for criminally minded friends who shine the light of their compassion into the darkness so that I can find my way out. 

I'm forever going to love that boy.  As hard as it was to lose him, as horrific as it is to be witness to the indescribable grief of his parents and family, as wretched as my own grief can be, I am forever going to love Ryan James Miller and I'm forever going to be so thankful that I was blessed with the opportunity to know and love him for all of his seven years. 

And I'm confident that, even if the lights in the darkness tomorrow are red, blue, and flashing, there are plenty of people at the ready to post bail and help me pull myself out. 

Thanks, friends.  Your light means more than you know.





 

Retro Post: Do you think he'll call?

I originally wrote this as a facebook note in 2009.  Mock away. It is also the piece which birthed the name of this blog.

I don't date often.

There are several reasons for this, although topping the rather long list of "Reasons Tara Does Not Date" is simply the fact that I don't get asked. Guys are visual (so I'm told), I'm not pretty (so I can see), and that puts a wrench in things. I'm not going to hold it against men for not wanting to be the guy who had to settle for the unpretty chick. Plus, given my druthers, I'd rather peel off my fingernails and plunge my raw bleeding fingertips into rubbing alcohol than play the dating games.

I've never been good at the game playing of dating. If I follow "The Rules", I'm supposed to hide the fact that I have intelligence, passions, or opinions until I've got a fella well and truly snared. And, even then, I'm supposed to nod and giggle and behave as if I'm ashamed that I've got a brain.

If you know me, you know I have a genetic inability to smile and nod passively, or to refrain from having an opinion. The things I think of as the good parts of me...my ability to think and my passions...are, supposedly, the very two things which...other than my looks...make me highly undesireable as a lifemate. Dating, I've found, can thus be unpleasant for the likes of me. It should be no surprise that I try to avoid it. I have, however, noticed that dating is a prelude to most relationships, and that a relationship is usually a prelude to marriage and family. Since I'd like to have the marriage and family, it stands to reason that I must suffer through the dating phase of the process.

And suffer, I have.

In the rather recent past, I sucked up my pride and went on a date. The fellow seemed harmless, a decent and respectable sort of guy. They always seem that way, right up until The Date. I did "The Rules" thing and waited patiently until he suggested meeting for dinner. I followed "The Rules" and wore a skirt, even. And heels. I freaking wore heels.

He started off by arriving late. Not very late, only about 10 minutes or so...and I was willing to grant him leeway because, as a single father, he DID have to drop his little girl off at the babysitter's house. He was wearing jeans. And a faded tshirt. Okay, I won't judge that...I just wish I'd known, so I could've worn jeans too.

We get seated, start looking over the menu, and he says "Well, I ate at home with my daughter, so I probably won't really order a full meal."

Wait...whaaaaa??? You invite me out to dinner, eat at home instead, and then expect me to eat while you watch?

I think my stunned expression chastised him just a bit, because he *did* end up ordering a sandwich.

After we ordered, his cell phone rang. I don't blame him for checking the caller ID, after all, it could have been the babysitter calling about his daughter. And, as he answered the call without even a glance of apology thrown in my direction, I figured it WAS the sitter. Then I heard him chatting and realized it wasn't his sitter...it was another family member calling from vacation to chat. For more than 5 minutes he participated in this conversation, even telling the person he was "out to dinner".

At this point, I've pretty much figured this is a no brainer...but I'm too polite to just get up and leave someone sitting there. Plus, I wanted to give him a full chance. We all make mistakes and, let's be honest here, a girl like me really can't afford to be overly picky. So, I waited. And waited. And waited until finally he finished his leisurely chat and hangs up the phone. "That was my sister," he explained. "She's on vacation."

Yeah, I wanted to say, I *got* that because you had a whole conversation with her and, since we are the only two people sitting at this table I had nothing to do but listen to your conversation. Instead, I nodded, expecting a bit more...but no. That was it. Not even an apology. It did not take long to realize that this fellow is not particularly skilled at conversation or social graces.

Anyone who has ever had to spend much time in my presence knows this: I can strike up a chatty conversation with a brick wall. In fact, if some of my hazier college memories are at all accurate, I have done exactly that. I'm sure you can understand my surprise at being completely unable to spark a conversation with this fellow.

"Okay", I thought, "I'm not entirely clueless. The fact that he's more riveted by the baseball game on TV than by my supposed charms most likely means that, well, he's just not that into me. Especially since he's already commented...twice...that the game is a REPLAY of the game he WENT to the day prior."

I probably could have predicted this predicament when I asked him prior to the baseball induced silence, in a desperate and pathetic attempt to get him chattering, "So, what kind of movies do you like?" and his answer was,

"Action."

pause...

*
pause...

*
pause..

Yep. Just that. "Action." That's all. No elaboration. I tried for elaboration. "What kind of action movies?"

"Just...action."

Swell.

I should give him some credit, though. He certainly was able to talk about his former wife during the commercial breaks...and her heroin addiction that he never noticed until she overdosed. Seriously? I mean, I'm not an expert...but if you're living with someone, and married to them, and they're caring for your tiny baby...how do you MISS a heroin addiction? How do you not put together the missing items, missing money, neglected infant who was born with drugs in her system, and track marks as, you know, CLUES?

He was also able to cobble together enough words to ask me, "So, how much money do you make?"

Honey, there's a lot I'll do on a first date...but telling you my income is *not* one of them.

Mercifully, the arrival of our food helped dull the ache of the missing conversation. As we finished up, I figured I could put us both out of our misery. "Oh, wow, look how dark it has gotten outside, I wonder what time it is? Wow...it's getting late...probably time to get going!"

You know, in a normal life in a normal world that statement would have been answered with, "Wow, yeah, you're right. Geeze, I need to go pick up my daughter..."

But, this is MY life, which never, ever, ever, EVER goes simply or according to normal. Rather, he looked at his watch and said, "Well, actually...we can stay for another hour or so before I have to go get my daughter."

I wanted to cry. In fact, I think it shows remarkable growth and restraint on my part that I neither cried nor mocked him for that. At least, not to his face. Because in my head I was snarkily saying, "Well, thanks be to God for that, because I couldn't bear to miss one second of your wit and articulate views on the world."

I mean, come on. REALLY? He shows up late for a dinner date, having already eaten his dinner, dressed sloppily, is alternately distracted and inarticulate thus giving the impression that he'd rather be oh, I don't know, clubbing baby seals rather than suffering through my company, I give him the easy way out of this disaster and he says, "No, let's stay?" Really? REALLY?! That's just craptastic.

And, were I as suave and sophisticated in real life as I am in my imagination, I would have coolly said, "Well, enjoy the rest of the game. I've got a busy week ahead of me and need to get going. Nice meeting you." Then I ever so gracefully would have walked out.

This, I did not do. Instead, being me, I just nodded and said, "Um, yeah...okay" and put my keys back into my purse. I could probably say I was trying to hide my intelligence, as per "The Rules" but, quite frankly, I really am that stupid.

When it was finally, finally, acceptable to him for us to end the farce, he glanced at the folder with our bill in it and said, "I guess we should probably pay now." We? WTF, WE? This is a DATE. YOU asked ME. But I reached for my purse anyway, clear on the point that I'm paying for my own meal when he very deliberately pulls one...and only one...twenty dollar bill out of his wallet and flicks at it just to make it obvious that he's only pulling that ONE bill out. Just in case I didn't quite understand his intent he added, "I'll need change, I think," as he slid the bill folder over to me so I could see what I owed. I mentally calculated my portion of the bill, plus tax and tip, and pulled out the appropriate amount of cash silently thanking myself for stopping at the cash machine earlier in the day.

He carefully counted out what I had put in. He counted it again. "Did you add tip?" he asked, "That's less than half the bill."

Can I just interject something here? I overtip as a rule. I overtip even more when I've been taking up a table for an extended amount of time. So to be asked if I'd included tip or paid enough was salt in the bitter wound of an unhappy evening and I had pretty much lost all patience.

With a cold, chilly, deliberately measured voice that clearly indicated my extreme irritation I said, "Well, if you add the cost of my meal and pop together, you'll find I put in more than enough to cover my share." At his continued confusion, I added, "Your meal and beverages were more expensive than mine, and I did not factor those into my portion of the bill." The unspoken "Jackass." ending to my words was unmistakeable, I think, and he let it go.

He did, however, walk me to my car. This is supposedly the sign of a "good guy" who just might be "into you" but all I could think as we made our way across the parking lot was "I bet Ted Bundy walked women to their cars, too."

Thanks for walking me to my car, but...too little, too late.

Jackass.

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.











 

Red, White, and a tiny bit Blue

 It was the plastic star spangled tablecloth that did me in.


Every summer, for the past 5 summers, the tiny people and I have thrown a "Red, White, and Blue Playdate Party."  It started our second summer together as a themed excuse to have lots of friends over all at the same time.  I thought it would be a one off, but the children had other plans...and thus, a tradition was born.  We've had plenty of other variously themed playdate parties, but one thing has been constant:  Every summer, some time near the 4th of July, we host this one.

This year, there was a niggling bit of sadness tucked into a corner of my heart as we planned our party, our fifth...and final...Red, White, and Blue fiesta.  As we sorted through Pinterest for the children to choose which colorfully themed snacks, games, and crafts we'd have I was awash in memories of past parties:  The year the Twincesses had just learned to walk and spent most of the event fighting over a wagon (it made for adorable photos!).  The year that weather sent us scurrying inside and the children all picnic'd around the area rug in the den, unfazed by the dark clouds outside.  Two years ago, when I taught all three (then ages 3, 3, and 5) to recite a portion of the Declaration of Independence.   Last year when, for the first time, Little Litigator took a seriously active interest in every detail of the party planning. 

This year has memories just as sweet.  The day was a whirlwind of preparations, people coming and going, a backyard full of nannies, moms, kids, sprinklers, water balloons, beach balls, and the noises of happy, frolicking children. 

After the last guest had left, as I began to clean up the detritus of devoured snacks and of crafts we never got around to doing, I silently congratulated myself on simply enjoying the fun of our guests rather than allowing myself to get caught in the grief of remembering that this is a "final memory"...the last of its kind with these particular children. 

And then came the tablecloth.  It was one of the last things to clean up...a cheap, plastic, flag looking tablecloth that we've used for a couple of years now to cover one table or another for this party.  On this day, it was covered in crumbs and candy sprinkles.  Instead of wiping it down so it could be folded up and used next year, I began to fold it around the mess so it could all be thrown away at once.  "We won't need this again," I thought.

And that was my undoing.  

I don't know if I thought the tears just weren't there yet or if I thought I could  hold them off until August, but what I do know is that I didn't expect them this week, and I certainly didn't expect the crumpling of a cheap tablecloth to be the catalyst that brought them.  While I am blessed beyond measure to already have my next nanny job secured, and to know that it is a position I will love just as much as this one, it doesn't change the fact that I'm dreading having to say goodbye on our last full day together in August.  In fact, I think the only thing that keeps me sane about leaving is knowing how much I'm going to love and enjoy being nanny to the next family.


I let the tears fall and, when they were done, I wrapped up the sadness and put it in the trash with the tablecloth.

I suspect there may be many more unexpected moments this summer where some small random act throws reality into my face and calls up the tears that I don't want to shed.  But, as much as I can, I'm going to wrap myself and these three precocious, funny, compassionate, imaginative, wonderful little people into a protective bubble of summer fun and fill it with as many loved traditions and sparkling memories as possible.

They deserve that, and so do I.

Bittersweet

I don't like dark chocolate. It's bittersweet...like it cannot make a decision about being sweet and delicious or bitter and startling. It's frustrating. Something bittersweet cannot be sweet.

This Christmas, I find that my heart is in a bitter, bittersweet place. I cannot seem to find a comfortable place between the bitter and the sweet. I bounce unpredictably between the two with no clear place to land.

We found out a week ago that our local district is moving from half-day kindergarten as the standard to full day kindergarten as the standard. This means that, come fall, the Twincesses will join their brother at school all day long...leaving my employers with no need for a full time nanny. We are all sad at the prospect. We knew the day was coming, we just didn't know we'd be forced to it. Without much warning, this Christmas has become our last Christmas together.

There is sweetness to it, to be sure. Watching the children delight in the season certainly brightens the gloomiest of days. This year they've taken to heart the idea that giving is as much fun as receiving. They are forever making cards for people they love and taking into consideration what those people would like to see on a card. Their heartfelt efforts and capacity to love so freely is humbling, awe inspiring even.

I watch them respond to the impulses of their hearts and I am overcome with pride in their sweetness...and as quickly as that swells up in my heart, I am equally overcome with sadness that, in a matter of months, I will no longer be with them to witness their compassion and generosity.

I wrapped their gifts and I was torn between tears and excitement, thinking of how excited they are going to be with their bounty (and bounty it is...it took two full rolls of wrapping paper to wrap everything up!). I know that next year, I'll be wrapping gifts for different children. After 5 Christmases of wrapping gifts for my trio, that's going to be a tough adjustment.

Bittersweet.

It isn't just at work that my holiday is bittersweet this year.

Overshadowing everything is a grief that is still raw, ever present, and...at times...crippling. Just when I think it is easing, it sneaks up on me and leaves me grasping for breath.

There is one more child I want to be buying gifts for. I want his parents to be able to bring him to see Santa and whisper into Santa's ear what he really wants this year. I want his family to be wrapping his gifts, anticipating his excitement. I want them to sit at their holiday table and not have an empty chair. I want them to be able to light off Christmas Eve fireworks in their yard, not at their little boy's grave.

I want all of us who loved Ryan to not have this aching, gaping hole in our hearts.

Every Christmas, my favorite cards are the ones with pictures. I especially treasure the photos of children I've previously nannied...to still see them growing and becoming. I save them all. I come home every day eager to open the mail and to pull sweet smiling faces from the envelopes.

There's one I'll never get again, and every time I open an envelope my excitement battles the grief.


In all the sadness, I am deeply angry. I don't know where to direct that anger. No person did anything wrong. I'd be angry with God (if I'm completely honest, my heart is so) but my head knows that God is not the author of death...He does not cause our suffering or want us to be traumatized. He simply holds us through it, even if I can't feel one whit of that right now.

Sadness + anger = bitter, doesn't it?

There isn't much sweet about that.

I know that in time I will find that place of balance, a place where the grief isn't so blinding and where I can give the sweetness of my experiences the full focus. I will find a place where the bitter doesn't distort the sweetness, but makes the sweetness all that more sweet and precious.

I just wish I had a map of how to get there.

Blackest Friday

Two weeks.

Two weeks to the insanity and deals and craziness of Black Friday. It's never been my thing, to get up at the crack of dawn so I can score great deals on this or that item. Let's face it, it has never been my thing to wake up early, period.

This year, Black Friday is a little blacker than normal.

This year, Black Friday also happens to fall on Ryan's 8th birthday. Or, rather, what is supposed to be his 8th birthday.

It is still his birthday even if he is no longer alive to celebrate, right?

It is three months and one day since his mother called me, asked me if I was somewhere safe ("You're not driving, are you?"), and broke the news that Ryan was gone. My head and my heart have yet to grasp this. How does a little boy die? How does he suffer so excruciatingly much and not get to live as a reward?

How does time keep marching on, without him here?

We don't get to throw him a party this year. We don't get to sing and snap pictures as he blows out eight candles. There won't be any gift wrap detritus to clean up while he explores new toys and presents.

Instead, we can leave balloons and flowers at a snowy gravesite and pray that somewhere, that sweet, brave little boy knows we remember him on his day.

Will you help us remember him? Will you help us to celebrate in some small way?

Friday, November 25. Ryan's Birthday. Do Something Nice for a Child Day.

Anything nice. Big, small, secret, public, for a child you know or a child who is unknown to you. Just do something nice, that you might not otherwise do that day.

Maybe while you are out shopping for deals you buy an extra toy to donate to Toys for Tots. Maybe you drop some children's books or children's mittens at a shelter. Maybe, when your own child does that one annoying thing for the millionth time (leave the lights on? forget to clear their place at the table? forget to flush?) instead of calling them back and nagging them to take care of it, you simply take care of it yourself and take a moment to be grateful for the fact that your child is still here to make those messes. Maybe you let your kids have ice cream for dinner, or stay up late, or make them their favorite breakfast in bed. Maybe it is something else, entirely.

Just something nice...just because they are still here, because you still can.

I promise you, when all is said and done, you will not regret one single loving act or word or moment that you shared with another person. You'll just wish you'd had more chances to share.