Because Of You

Dear Cancer,

You entered my life through the back door. Creeping up on us, silent and unknowingly. Had we known you had been there hiding - you would have been eradicated. Were you there hiding at our wedding, our trip to New York, when we went down to New Orleans? I guess it doesn't matter where and when you hid from us, you did what your goal in life is to do.

Because of you, I became scared for the life of my son. You took his grandmother and his father and I thought in my heart the next on your list of destruction was my muppet, my Ethan. Well I hate to tell you - he's not, I'll make sure of it. See the thing you didn't count on, is the fact that he was made from the purest form of love. He has my will, his daddy's determination and our combined faith in hope. You messed with the wrong family this time. I know more about you than I ever wanted to and I will use that to my ability to fold and twist you into a paper doll. I know where you hide and I will be looking for you. I will teach Ethan to look for you too. You just happen to piss off the wrong Mum this time.

I learned the hard way of your process. Yeah, I cried every night in my sleep. You made me watch the one I love die. You made me want to forget every painful detail. You made me ashamed of my life because it felt so empty. You made me afraid and retreat in my shell. I hid the weakness in my eyes, force a smile, faked a laugh and lied to my self that my heart couldn't break any more than it already had. You convinced me that this life was what I could look forward too again and because of you, I convinced my self that there was nothing to look forward to in anything. You took my light and snuffed it out as if was just a dimly lit candle.

In this year, I've reaffirmed that family doesn't have to be blood bound. That the limitations that I placed on my self in my mind are just that - in my mind. I have found comfort and friendship in those I thought I never would. And it was one friend that taught me how to smile again and what the phrase "strength with conviction" means to me. This year has been the largest roller coaster I've ridden in my life and there where times I wanted off so I could puke my guts out and wave a white flag. But I didn't.

Any while this weekend was harder than most milestones so far, I've broken through my confusion. I have seen the good, bad and all the things in between. Pretty soon your ego will catch up with you - and I will be there, with one eye brow raised, ready and waiting to kick your little ass - so brace your self. I will not make the same mistakes we did before, I've learned my lesson. You come around here and you're gonna see what it means to be "thunkerstruck".

Know this. Christopher put up the most amazing fight and while he is gone; he is still mine, Ethan and other's hero. His story will live forever; while in the future yours will be a brief memory. One that we will find a cure for and your life will become all but a helter-skelter memory. You have no control over me, Ethan and my family.

May peace be with you,

-d

Thunderstruck - AC/DC

It All Started With A Phone Call

A year ago, Saturday, I knew something was not quite right. Christopher's work had called me and ask that I pick him up; he was in a daze, running on auto pilot and just wasn't him self. When I asked him what was wrong he told me he took his pills out of order (which if he did - would cause him to be sleepy). The next morning I got up and let him sleep in; praying that whatever was facilitating all of this would be able to be slept off.

He woke up around 1pm, thanked me for letting him sleep so late, but that I should have woken him up so he could spend time with Ethan and I. I could see in his eyes that something was wrong, but what - I couldn't put my finger on it, nor wrap my head around it. After making us some lunch we sat down to eat and Christopher took one bite from his sandwich and told me that he was tired and was going back to bed. Bells, alarms and being on the cusp of panic I let him go back to bed, but knew that I had to start forming my strategy quickly - I knew in my gut something wasn't right.

As soon as he was asleep I put Ethan down for a nap and raced straight for his pain medicine, taking two and three stairs at a time and if I was playing out some bad made for TV movie scene. I was sure that I had determined the crux - he was/had overdosed on his pain meds. It was the only thing I could think of (or that my mind would allow me to think of at that moment) - why would he sleep all day and not have a cohearnat thought? I looked at the label - refilled 7 days ago - 60 pills were missing - holly effing crap! I told my self over and over again not to get overwrought - there has to be other pills in his pill case that he carried around. There is no way he took almost 10 pills a day - he's only suppose to have 2-3 a day.

I dashed like mad to his pill case; there was only one pain pill in there. All sorts of expletives came to mind when the mental math, plus the overall visual of Christopher and knowing that one pain pill was like taking a hit of heroin came crashing into my head in one of the most vicious collisions I have mentally allowed my self to have. I called the doctor to get his thoughts on the matter and of course I get the - "leave a message and someone will call you back". I wanted to scream - "you a$$! what did you do to the one I love!" Instead, I left every detail twice and my number three times. I then hung up and called our neighbor to watch Ethan - I knew for sure in my mind's eye that he was going to have me take Christopher to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. I just knew it - I still had hope.

Right as the phone rang, my neighbors came knocking at the door and as almost planned down to the second by God. I got the news that literally dropped me to my knees and ripped my hope that had my knuckles white from holding on to it so tightly in those few minutes from my heart, mind and soul. The strength that had keep me from losing it the past 16 months was thrown out the window as if it was in some bad mob movie. It was as if a weight was placed on my shoulders and I didn't know what to do with it. So I let it crush me. I let it consume me for that moment. "You let 5 seconds of fear in - because that's all you need to give you strength - any more than that and it will drown you with it."

The rest of the day is a blur. Maybe because I blocked it out - maybe because it was just that - a blur. But out of that day I remember the pain. The pain of knowing that Christopher was going to die, the agony of knowing Ethan was going to grow up without his loving daddy, the torment of how in the hell was I suppose to do this and all the while thinking - "God picked the wrong hero to do this".

Here it is a year later and yet time makes it feel like it was only yesterday and yet also 5 years ago. I've become stronger (even though I hate that word, but that's for another post), I've gone through every emotion in the book - and then some when you look up the word grief. I've also been knocked down a few times, by those that surround me and those that know nothing about me. I have put faith in knowing that this had to happen as odd as it sounds. This, in some sick way, is what will mold Ethan for something later in life. What?, I don't know. Maybe he finds the cure for cancer, because of his dad. Maybe he shares his dad's story with someone who goes through the same thing and it touches them deeply enough to find hope their situation in life. Who really knows. I know I don't. That is the beauty and atrocity of it all - we don't know why and we might never will. And the only person who does know - doesn't often share his ways with us.

So as my process goes - another ring will come off Saturday. I put up my future, to remember my past - one that I will always remember, always love and always have a place in my heart.

Somewhere In Between - Lifehouse

Waging War Against Good and Evil

So recently, my dear sweet, Dublin the dog passed away. The day he passed away one of my friends questioned if this was a set back in my moving forward. I didn't have to consider the answer - it was. Dublin was my furry little guardian, my reminder of Christopher and all of our intentions before we had Ethan and before cancer.

I went to my grief therapist later that week and told him of Dublin's passing. He warned me that I would go through all the same emotions I went through this year again, but in a short time frame and ten times worse being that I was on the cusp of the two months I necessarily wasn't looking forward to.

See, one of the things I never really forced my self to deal with was the idea that my life was just Ethan and I. (And let me say - yes I have friends and family who are there to help when I need them, to which ergo, I'm not really alone in the world. Hear me out before you pass judgment here.) Dublin was my little furry feeling that there was someone else in the house - someone to talk to when I needed to vent at night. Someone who would bark at me from time to time to fill the silence that music and the TV couldn't mask. Now that he's gone I have to deal with the totality of those feelings and being alone. Those feelings were pushed deep down to deal with at a later date and time and well it's later and the pressure cooker has been stewing for awhile.

I left there in tears, already feeling numb (a phase of grief). The idea that I was going to go through what I went through for a year - again - was painful to think about. I sat at home that weekend and thought about everything. I thought about all that had happened in my life over these two years, all that had happened in Ethan's life, I tried see the sun through the trees and when I couldn't - I tried to break my sun into a million little pieces to try to see it better, yet as I tried all I saw was everything that was dark and looming.

I tried to fight it, but that battle was lost. To be honest, I don't like to take about my inner battles in my head where I try to see the positive, the negative, the good and evil of it all. These are my battles - private ones, ones that are for me and me only. But one of the things I do in my struggles to make it through is to get mad and get a hardened shell. Envision if you will, you know you're about to get hit by something - something hard; do you flinch? Tense up? For me I get angry, I look what's coming at me head on and take it. I refuse to curl up in a ball and be hit so I can be hurt.

So to get through these months I've gotten angry. And, as of recent, people have brought to my attention that I'm angry, pissy, and they don't know how to talk to me. Which I have to say, just pisses me off even more, because in the same breathe they tell me I'm not looking at the positive in life and some how make reference to me having Ethan, a house, my health, etc. And YES I HAVE ALL THOSE THINGS AND MORE!!! AND I'M THANKFUL FOR THOSE THINGS IN MY LIFE. I THANK GOD FOR THEM EVERY DAY.

However, there are times in our lives when we need to vent to get it off our chest - no matter what we say or if we mean it, it makes us feel better that we said it. It is that nagging thought that needs to come out and we tell it to our friends because we know that they will not judge us or hold it against us at a later date and time. Alas, in my case - people don't see it that way and well, oh the _____ well.

I have always been the person people came to when they had problems. Why? I don't know, maybe because I'm a good listener or I give good advice? I really don't know, all I do know is I am the friend people turn to - I've been the friend that listen to her friend talk about her marriage being a sham, or the friend who vents about the silliest little things, or the couple who vents about the other to me because they don't know how to communicate with themselves. And I think for once people don't know how to take the "d" that just needs to vent. That doesn't want to be laid back any more, the "d" that needs to get angry to make it through these months.

This is my battle with my emotions and I don't expect anyone to say they understand - because they don't and never will. I will never be able to put into words the way I feel - nor do I really want people try and understand. I don't care what people think their worse situation is in life, because take that and then take your best friend who always knew the right thing to say to make you feel better out of the equation and your spouse or anyone that made you feel better with a hug or that look in their eye, and now add in voices of other people's thoughts on what you should and shouldn't do, add a dash of crazy, a cup of frustration, stir, beat and bake in the oven for 350 until every last nerve is burnt to a crisp. Yeah - it's a little like that.

So let me be angry - I'm that proverbial super hero who at the beginning of the movie isn't the hero (or doesn't know it yet), then doesn't want to be the hero and yet after the most amazing battle and the dust clears - you find them standing, using their anger and frustration over the situation to stand a little taller, gain more strength and kick some evil a$$. I'll make it through this - I always have and I always will.