Ethan's Turn - A Letter to My Muppet

Dear Muppet,

This week brought a close to another year without your dad. It's so hard to even wrap my head around the idea that he's been gone for two years. There are days it seems as if I am still waiting for the one year marker to cross across my calendar and others where I feel like he's been gone for years. I guess it's just depends on where my mind seems to rest on that day.

Ethan I wish could expound from my heart how this was not the life that your dad and I had planned for you. We wanted you to have the most wonderful childhood filled with a sense of wonderment and joy, and there are days that I feel as though I/we have failed you. As your mom, I want to fill your life with the most enriching things and yet as a single parent I find myself getting wrapped up in the schedule of life. Trying to find that balance of when I can push dinner off for 30 minutes so we can play trains or skipping the one extra bedtime story because it's too late. Sometimes that balance eats at my soul and I think you will be grown before I know it and that I have missed out on so much of your life because there was only one of me.

But it's in those moments when I check in on you at night and take in your loving little smile that seems to never leave your face or those tender little sighs that you are content in your wonderland of dreams - I admire you muppet. Yes, I your mother, not only proud of you, but admire you. In your short little life you have done more than most people could have done for me and your dad in the last four years.

You gave your dad motivation to fight his cancer with the vigor of a thousand armies and yet reminded him how gentle he was. You were buddies, friends, and he loved you Ethan more than any set of words I can lay down here. He lived life to the fullest because you brought the best out in him. You reached into his soul and helped his fire burn a little brighter and made his fight a little stronger. The photo you and your dad "bump'n" honestly expresses the relationship you two had and it makes my heart break that you now have spent more time without him than with him. But I also have faith that our loss is in a way set to mold you or both us for something later in life. God's plan if you will.

Ethan, my little bug, my muppet, you amaze me daily. Through your yearn for learning or how, in the strangest of ways, you do the little things that remind me that you are a collaboration of love from your dad and I. Looking at you at times brings me back to him and the way he made me laugh.

You are such a wonderful child Ethan. You are kind and gentle. Caring and loving. You are one of the most compassionate children I know - you don't like to see people hurt and your the first one to help them when they are. When I cry, I love the way you curl up in my lap and hold my face and tell me everything is "gonna be ok - ok." You are so much like your dad. Ethan you are a light that resides in my soul and continues to burn and grow with everything you do. You steal my heart and take my breathe away when you yell and yet whisper "I love you".

You're everything to my everything. It warms my heart to feel your little hand reach out for mine and give it a little squeeze when we walk across the school parking lot and I do everything in my power not to burst into tears of joy when we race to the car in the afternoon and you turn back to see who's winning with that laugh that resides in your belly. My heart sings when your voice echos my name and you gave me the purpose and drive when I needed it the most. You help me find my way back to sanity when I feel as though I have none and even when I don't know what to do when I get there I just enjoy sitting there in your wonderland of imagination and creativity.

Yesterday we went to the fair and seeing you break out of your shell and share with the world your personality almost brought me to tears. You rocked those pictures and they will mean more to me than any other photo that ordains my walls. They are you - the budding artist, avid musician, the free sprit that encompasses my life and the lives of those around us. People can't help but look into your loving little eyes and get lost in your little laugh and the faces that make every one smile from the inside out.

I love you muppet more than you will ever know and I will never stop reminding you how much you mean to me. I know as you get older it will be "un-cool" to hang with your mom or snuggle up in my lap. But I will always be there by your side, admiring how much you have grown and how much you're daddy would have been proud of you.

Love you always,

mum

October 12th - A Letter of Love

To my dearest Love,

Yesterday completed yet another cycle to this situation of grief, life and learning. Two years ago phone calls were made, people were informed, and so began the deep stabbing pain that surround my heart. Life changed that day in so many ways. I sat staring off into space trying to figure out who would I turn to now to make my side-slightly-sarcastic peanut galley commentary to? Who would I call at the end of the day to say I was safe at home? How was the garage door going to sound now it wasn’t the sign that you were home?

All these things flooded my mind as if I stood face on and accepted whatever tsunami was coming towards me. This has been a path that I wish on no one and yet one that I think has taught me so much about life, love and the overall pursuit of happiness. I never took the little things in life for grated; however, I could never being to think about how much those little things meant to me and how in the months and years after your death I missed how those moments were erased from my life. There is something to be said about waking up in the morning and seeing the way the sun glided over your face and the peace that seemed endless in those moments before you would waked. Those were my favorites parts of my day.

Love, you know if I could, I would climb to the clouds and sit outside heaven’s door just to hear you breathing. In life I hung on every moment we had and treasured it. I spent most of this second year angry. Yes angry at doctors that gave you more pain medicine than I thought you needed, angry at cancer, your mom’s doctors for not ever explaining what it meant to have a parent with cancer, and down right furious at those in your life who filled it with pain. I thought I had moved past some of that anger, but yesterday on a run while I thought about during that exact time you were being taken away and I was confronted with people that were just purely toxic. However, in that same run, I left those demons out on the side of the road. They haven’t contacted me in almost a year and to be honest – I wouldn’t have it any other way.

While on my run I went down the trail we used to walk all the time and there among the trees was a little daisy. Just one. Blowing in the wind with all its bright yellow glory. It reminded me of the time you went out and bought my grandmother a Gerber daisy after hurricane Katrina. It was your way of trying to reach out to her and explain in your non-verbal way that even in great moments of tragedy there is also a choice to care and nurture the situation to being thus the beauty of life. She kept that flower living until she passed away. That little flower meant the world to her. And as I passed this little flower on my run I remembered the grace you had with life. It’s what helped me leave some of those demons out there. Yes I will have my moments when I let those shadows enter my mind and dwell long enough for a cup of tea, but trust me when I say I’m working on not inviting them back in.

One of the hardest parts about all of this was we were the greatest team. Yes we were strong people alone – but together we were unstoppable. And it’s taken me a long time to build my self-back up to the person I was. But then again I will never be that person I was. You can never go back when you have experienced something like this. You just have to accept that you’ve changed and pray that those changes are for the best.

Are those changes for the best? Well we will see. I’ve been writing like there is no tomorrow and all I can do is hope and pray that the words that flow across my computer will one day help Ethan in his understanding of what we had in life. And maybe it helps someone else who doesn’t have the love and support that I was given through our friends and family. But then again as you always say – “only time will tell”.

You’re story, your fight, your loving spirit will keep moving forward with Ethan and I. I even debated in a year or so becoming a volunteer consular for those people going through similar situations, but not just yet. I still have work to do to clear out my own mental hording of some things. But you move me to better my self and those around me.

Christopher, you are such a great man. Only a great man could move people years after death to want to better themselves and those around them. You amaze me daily; from the wonderful son we have and how smart and observant he is about the world around him to the little moments in my life when I can feel you standing next to me. You would be so proud of us both.

Love, I am so honored that we had so much time together even though it was cut short. I cherish those years more than you might have even known. You taught me so much about life and myself and while this not-so-new start has it momentary rough patches, I try to remember your love for everything to keep me focused. I know that you will no longer be able to catch me when I fall or keep me from falling, but your memory is what gives my feet the strength to stand up again and face this life with both eyes wide open.

You are the glimmer in my eye when I talk to people who need hope and the shadows on my wall when I myself need comfort. You amaze me love, thank you for everything.

I love you.

d

One Week From Today

In seven days, I will cross a milestone that I thought I would never cross; for during that place in my life, time seemed to stand still. Next Tuesday is the two year anniversary of Christopher's passing. For the most part I am ready to cross this point in my life and yet I have days where I'm grinding my heals into pavement.

Time is one of those things that keeps moving forward wether we want it to or not. Blessing and a curse, if you will. I will admit that year two was harder in ways than to year one. Milestones that I seem to fly through in year one where due to to still being numb from the whole thing and those emotions were expounded on in year two when that numbness wasn't there. But besides all the working through all the emotions that come with another year passing of something so life changing I think I can say, "I'm ok".

Life is still moving forward. Ethan is getting bigger and starts school next fall and I am completely besides myself that all this happens and Christopher is not here is see it. But I also know that he's here in other ways looking down. I'd like to think that some of those "tears from heaven" on the day of the race was him showering down how proud he was.

I've learned allot about life, myself and the things that make me happy. Being a single parent isn't the greatest thing in the world, but I like to think that with each day it gets a little easier for both Ethan and I. I even scheduled Ethan's 4 year photos the day after Christopher's death day - something I don't think I would have done a year ago.

As time moves forward - so do Ethan and I and I'm proud of the strides we made this year.