Shadow of Fear

I know it's been awhile. I have several posts that are half written and others that are complete and ready to post; yet they are my own personal thoughts that are so deep inside my mind that sometimes I think to myself, "I’m not quite ready to share."

With that said, I think I need to address something that happened a few months back and seems to be a common thread that wraps itself around some of my friends lately. Something that I feel anyone can relate to; not just people who might have lost a loved one. 

Everyone has (ugh I dislike this term so much) “baggage”. Some more than others; but we all have it and anyone who denies having it is lying to them selves. I personally loathe the term for the implications that the events of someone’s life that is out of their control is considered the metaphor for the choices that define who we are and how we react in certain situations in such a degrading term as “baggage”. 

You know, baggage, that thing you lug, shove and kick around when you travel. The thing that gets tossed and stuffed with the awkward facets of our lives and yet we continue to not acknowledge the fact that you can’t keep throwing stuff in there and expect to fit it all into the overhead compartment without sorting through what’s in there. Again; did I say how I loathe the term?

And yet we are defined often times in peoples' minds by this level of “baggage” that we carry around and let be shown to those around us when we least expect it. Now before we go any further, let me state for the record, I am not this person who looks at people and whispers, “oh wow – she’s a you know what – did you hear how she acted when so-and-so did this?” That’s not me. I’ve had too much happen in my life to look at people on such a first blush and make such brash comments. I completely understand that what makes, builds and defines us, can often be the events in our lives that are all to many of the times often out of our control. I watched a mother slowly die and saw in her eyes how the resignation that she would never see her son marry or get to meet her grandchildren become resolute. I watched as her passing brought a tremendous tear through a family.

I’ve seen the implications of a father’s indiscretions effect his son in a way that made him fight tooth and nail to prove to himself that he would be a better dad than his own. When in the end all that was ever needed was just a little more love from a Dad that gave up way too quickly. 

I have observed friends as they struggle to date because they allow their minds to become flooded with memories from their past and find it hard to carry a level of trust for someone that has done them no wrong; all because someone else carelessly battered and bruised their hearts to the point that running seems easier than being hurt again. 

I was blessed with being able to sit back and watch people; to love them for them. To love myself for who I am and what this life and situation of mine has defined me to become. Never judging. Just understanding that the people in this world are who they are based on their situations that have brought them to where they are and will be in their lives. 

And for the most part I have taken my level of understanding others to work on my self and my own level of grieving and (ugh that word again) “baggage.” It’s why I knew from the get go that I needed to go to therapy to work through the demons that presented themselves to my thoughts and work through the grief. I lost my best friend and I needed someone to tell someone I wasn’t crazy and I was doing the best I could, but would also be there to give me the tools to work myself back into the strong woman I once was before cancer entered our lives. And for the most part I have. It’s still something I work on every day. Grief isn't just something that magically goes away. 

No, I will never be the person I was before or even during Christopher’s cancer. Remember when we were kids and maybe you would swing as high as your little legs would take the swing on the swing set? And maybe you even dared to see how high you could fly and jump off said swing? Did you ever fall and cut your hands on the wood-chips? Scrape your knees? Break a bone? Where you the same person when your body abruptly stopped, hitting the ground? 

In that moment when you jumped the world was a spinning kaleidoscope of faces, sounds and colors that made no sense until you hit the ground and realized what had just happened. And even after hitting the ground and knowing you were on your feet, the feeling of knowing you weren’t the same when took flight starts to hit you. You start to see the strides and/or ramifications of what this little jump did and your mind kicks in to tell you that you will never jump off a swing or even get on one for a while. Or maybe it did just the opposite and the thrill of the rush that came over you pulls at you like an orbit to that swing. However so, your mindset from that point on has been altered. 

In that instant, your mind changed the way you thought about swings or how high you would ever allow yourself to swing. You changed and you didn’t even know it (at least not right away). You are still sorta you – just that little part of a daredevil has either buried itself or grown ten feet taller.

I have worked on myself for years to get to a place where I felt like I made it through the jump, the scrapes and cuts have healed and left little scars on where I landed. While I have told myself over and over “the swing doesn’t scare me”...well I was wrong.

A few months ago the Music Man got into a car accident. Let me start off by saying, in the end, the wreck wasn’t really bad at all. No one was hurt and other than some body damage to both cars the only thing battered and bruised was possibly the ego of the other driver for causing the wreck.

However, as I got tiny snippets here and there of the events, my mind was divided. I knew at that moment what it was like to have the feeling of ying and yang going on simultaneously in your body. I understood the madness that Dr. Jeckyll had for Mr. Hyde. Bruce Banner had nothing on my version of emotional transformation. I found my mind and soul residing in two completely different places and yet trapped like a bee in the jar of my own body trying to find an out only to hit the invisible wall that held my emotions at bay.

I sat at my desk at work telling myself “he’s ok” over and over again. Then feeling those dark recesses of my mind start to form and take shape into images that made me feel a level of vulnerability that hadn’t been felt for over 4 years. The circle of thoughts in my head swirled erratically painting a picture that used the colors of my heart, the canvas of my compassionate soul and the composition of my past to hang a gruesome portrait in my mind that couldn't be taken down no matter how hard I tried. 

I tried to squash those monstrous thoughts with “it’s a fender bender, d, get the hell over yourself.” Which lead to more visuals that drew themselves out in my head in pictures and sounds that were clear as day. Days like this are days that I dread being a creatively thinking person; because, while my imagination was a powerful tool that got me where I was in my career – it was also being allowed to take my already mangled thoughts and throw them into a gory graphic novel that you can’t put down and yet scares the shit out you. And know you should drop it before your nightmares start. 

I spent most of the day fighting a David and Goliath-esqe war in my head. The giant of my over active imagination against the pebble of my meek positive thoughts that tried to take them down; unfortunately my David was losing this battle. Quickly. 

That night while taking to the Music Man he asked me if there was anything he could do to prove that he was ok. He repeated it over and over and with each blanket statement of “I’m ok” came the mental image of Christopher sitting in a hospital bed telling me that he was “ok” even though a doctor hadn’t left long enough for the smell of his after shave to leave the room and the words “cancer” echoing through my mind as if it was shouted into the Grand Canyon. 

I said to him, “Someone else told me the same thing and he’s not here anymore.” Then I stopped. My eyes froze and welled with an overwhelming sadness. All these years of working through grief I somehow, somewhere over looked this scar. It wasn’t hidden; it was always there. Almost as if it was in plain sight. Yet, I never saw it. Or maybe I chose to never look at. Never examined the ridges that sat so perfectly across the soul of my heart. 

I had allowed myself to care about someone else to the point that the news that they might or might not be hurt dug into that scar and left the weapon of choice lodged into it and it was bleeding at level of pain that I vowed to myself I would never feel again. No matter the bandage I tried to tell myself I couldn’t control the pain that I had opened myself up to. By caring about someone else I tore down all the walls that protected my heart from being hurt and here I was; in battle with my own thoughts and no fort to hind behind for protection.

I went to therapy. It helped. A little. But not in the level that I needed it to. I was still at war with my own thoughts that were now creeping into my dreams at night. I had all but almost given up hope that I wouldn’t be able to move through this part of my life and mind again. All my hard worked seemed flushed in one foul caring swoop.

Then a week later we had a nighttime 5k race (the second one of the year for us). We made plans of where we were going meet after the race and I even excused my self from our conversation so I could zone out on my music and try to pump myself up considering that part of me that had allowed my monstrous thoughts to take life were now telling me that I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t make it through this run. It was pointless to be there.

As the race started I did my typical race pattern; weave in and out of people to try and get ahead of the walkers and strollers then find my pace. I listened to my music and tried the best I could to zone out – let the music work it’s magic and get me through the finish line. As I ran I tried to take my mind to places that were distracting and ignore the thoughts that wanted to sit and use my over active imagination as it’s play ground. 

I looked at the people ahead of me. That just bothered me – this race was at night and people were wearing glow in the dark paraphernalia that made my eyes water. I closed my eyes. That didn’t work; I was bound to trip. I looked to the side of the course; I almost ran into someone. Then I realized my shadow from the streets lights was in front of me. I focused on “chasing it”.

It helped for the most part. My mind started to evict those unwanted visuals and started to get lost in the music that was blaring through my ears. I focused intently on my shadow; trying my hardest to run it down with no avail. Then suddenly I watched that shadow quickly move from the front where my feet ran after it to being behind me. I was no longer chasing my shadow; it was now in a way pushing me forward.

I then found the words of the song pumping through my tiny little ear buds. 

“You know I dream in color, And do the things I want.” 

This song was somehow my internal thoughts monologuing to those fears that were allowed to manifest into the creatures of dark proportions and trying to put them in their place. 

“You think you got the best of me

Think you had the last laugh

Bet you think that everything good is gone.

Think you left me broken down” 

Those scars that cancer left on my heart and forced me to build a wall around to protect what was left were being confronted by that “d” that was tired of the games that played out in my head. 

“Think that I'd come running back

Baby you don't know me, cause you're dead wrong.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Stand a little taller” 

The shadow, which I focus so intently on, was beginning to represent everything that I was going through. My shape. Running. Trying to escape like only Peter Pan could from his own shadow. 

“Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone.

What doesn't kill you makes a fighter

Footsteps even lighter

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger” 

My shadow was my fears. The fear of caring about someone to the point of leaving my self vulnerable to the pain of possibly being hurt again. 

“Just me myself and I” 

Understanding that this new vulnerability was a milestone that I honestly didn’t think I would ever ascertain or work through. I was so determined to never let people in because it was the only way that I knew I could protect my heart. Protect myself from fears that had no name. 

“You heard that I was starting over with someone new,

They told you I was moving on,

You didn't think that I'd come back; I’d come back swinging

You try to break me but you see

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger” 

These no named fears lived inside of my head, hiding, waiting for me to falter just enough to rear their ugly head. But I wasn’t going to let them win. They couldn’t win. They are mere thoughts that only I control. I am the one who has power over them. No one else. 

I am the only one who can fight these fears and force them from the front where I seem to be chasing after them in the hopes that I might out run them to pushing them in their place.

“Thanks to you I'm finally thinking 'bout me

You know in the end, the day I left was just my beginning..... in the end...

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

Stand a little taller

What doesn't kill you makes a fighter” 

I know it will always be a struggle to keep those fears in check and keep them in my past. Letting them be the building blocks to who I am and not the stumbling blocks I allowed them to be. They will still be at my heels always trying to move in front of me as quickly as I pushed them back. I will always be trying to tame my mind from the scars that might be cut and allowed to bleed into my soul. But what helps me keep more focused on this path now is knowing that this sick cycle carousel of emotions will never stop. There will always be that swing set and the idea of flight from it in my head. It’s something that I will encounter over and over again and it won’t stop swinging until I step down from it to understand how to be in control of my own speed. 

“Doesn't mean I'm over cause you're gone.

Just me, Myself and I

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger” 

Sometime life throws us in a direction that at the time makes no sense and we are left to figure it all out. Some of us fly through it. Some want you to think they can fly right through it, when in reality they never process the emotions that come to them. Instead they bury them inside that “bag” in the hopes they can forget about them (out of sight, out of mind). Then the very few who struggle and those events that life brings them leaves them tattered and bruised. The “baggage” of their lives left for people to mock, make fun of and yet those people who are left to mock are never the ones that would take the time to understand the feelings that brought up those feelings; to extend a caring hand. Sometimes people just need to stop and ask “why” to gain just a hint of understanding. This world is often too quick to judge. 

I discovered that I had "baggage". The loss of someone I cared so deeply for left an almost impenetrable wall around myself, until I let one person in. Then the wall that protected me for all these years failed me when I needed it the most and yet with it's failure I have realized where I need to work on myself so that I can continue to move forward in everything that I have work towards these last few years.

Grief is something that truly has no end. It’s something that will always reside in the waiting room of our thoughts. Waiting for the next time it can sneak in and try it’s hardest to damage what we have worked towards. In the end, I have come to peace that grief will never really leave me. It’s home sits in the quiet corner of my heart, but I am the only one that can feed my fears and control the life I have worked so hard to being how you say “baggage free.”

Faith in the Unknown I Don’t Know

About a year ago while leaving church walking blissfully hand in hand with my muppet the silence between us was broken with a question.

“Mommy, when I become a daddy do I have to go to heaven?”

My heart sank. I knew that one-day questions such as these would come from my innocent little boy. I just never expected them to come then or with such forethought that his little tone had put behind it. You could tell that it was something that weighted heavily on his little mind to the point where he couldn’t hold it in anymore and needed answers to the thoughts that bounced around in his head. 

I always knew that Ethan and I were on opposing ends of the grief scale and we would slowly move towards each other at a pace that was comfortable for us both. And at some point our paths would cross and I just prayed that that day would be one where my heart, mind and soul was at a place of peace so that I could be there to answer those difficult questions of “why”,  “why him” and “what about me”?  But this question threw me in a tilter of emotional upheaval. I wasn’t expecting this now at such a tender age.

My child’s mind was filled with thoughts that the idea of becoming a father and raising a child meant death… and that… broke my heart into a million pieces that seemed almost impossible to pick up and glue back together. My eye swelled with the tears of the possible answers that floated through my head – I threw each one out because each one had flaws and I already knew that with whatever answer I could word ever so perfectly it wouldn’t be enough or right for Ethan.

I couldn’t say “No”, because in his thoughts his dad was gone shortly after becoming a Daddy. I couldn’t say, “Yes” because, well for obvious reasons. I thought about saying all families are different, but it never really would answer HIS question.

While my mind quickly came up with answers and shot them down Ethan stopped in his tracks and looked at me. “Mommy? Will I?”

“No” was the answer I choked out and hoped he couldn’t see the tears welling up behind my sunglasses that I have become so good at hiding behind. Then the very next question was the one I knew he would come back with.

Ethan looked at me with those big dark eyes and for a moment I could see through them and into his little soul. So sweet. So loving. He would be one of those men that would make a wonderful companion to someone and an even better, loving, father. Ethan’s soul is one of someone twice his age; so mature and compassionate. And it broke my heart that all these thoughts filled his little mind when it should be filled with Thomas the Train or when was he going to the playground next. Instead he was concerned that if he became a father it meant he had to go heaven and he needed/wanted answers and he was looking to me for them. And I was at the biggest loss as to where to find them.

“How do you know Mommy?”

I paused and looked at the sunset ahead of us. Then without thinking I told him, “Because I have faith in the unknown that I don’t know.”  

Ethan smiled back at me and said cheerfully, “ok.”

Like that answer magically worked. I had found the golden goose of an answer that surprisingly Ethan accepted. There were no more questions that day (or week) about death, Heaven or when he became a Daddy. I sat up late at night pondering over a glass of wine if I really gave him the answer he was looking for or if he just didn’t understand it and figured I took too long to answer the question in the first place that he thought it pointless to ask another one. Either way I spent many a night wondering how he processed that answer; or if he even processed it at all. Did it all just go over his head?

I found my eyes fixated on a photo of Ethan. That little smile, those little eyes dark at night and that warm spirit that seemed so old for such a young little boy radiated from the photo. I thought about how I would give everyone in the world a thousand pennies if I could just have one peek inside his little mind to see how it works.

One glance at how his wheels turn. What goes on in that little mind that makes him seem so much wiser than he appears at times? But God, the universe or whatever it is that you believe in didn’t grant me that wish.

It was shortly after that conversation that I called a play therapist. I knew I was getting to a point in Ethan’s life where I had given him certain tools to understand the situation that was him, I and the life that was set for us. But I was also reaching a point where I felt like I wasn’t schooled in ways of handling childhood grief and it was time to bring in the expert.

I struggled with this idea because I felt like I failed as a mom for not being able to handle my own child’s fears, but as the play therapist told me, I was just the opposite and giving my child everything I could to help him. It may have been a marketing tactic on her end, but it made the choice to send him easier on my mind.

He amazed the play therapist and I by using every second of play therapy to talk about Christopher and the few memories he has of him. He talks about how he knows his daddy is in heaven and he’s happy and looks down on him. They talk about Ethan’s fears and the therapist teaches him the tools he needs to overcome them. His play therapist has been a blessing to both our lives.

Between the work Ethan does in therapy and what she teaches me to work on him with Ethan has gone from being afraid to sleep in his bed to sleeping upstairs all by himself and now even getting dressed in the morning before coming downstairs. He even came to me the other day and told me that he had made some wrong choices and didn’t deserve his iTouch and gave it to me as his punishment (yeah I’m still in shock over that one).

The old little soul I see in those eyes comes out more and more with each day and it warms my heart to see him growing into such a strong and loving little boy.

April 18^th Christopher would have been 37 and I thought with everything that Ethan had gone through it was time he knew this day was his Daddies birthday. See, in the past on Christopher’s birthday I would pick Ethan up and we would go out and have cupcakes with Daddy. I would buy some cupcakes and we would sit out there and eat them and talk about Ethan’s day. I never told him what that day was; I just wanted him to know that it was special and when Ethan was older I would explain.

This year I felt like Ethan was old enough to fully understand what made April 18^th so special to him and me. We sat down and talked about it and I asked him what he wanted to do to celebrate it. His answer? Cupcakes with daddy!

So the Monday before we went Ethan made him a card, necklace and bracelet in play therapy to leave on the grave. It was a very special moment for all of us and I even got a photo of Ethan with his card that we taped to the marker.

That night as I downloaded the photos from my camera I looked again into those little dark eyes that are filled with so much mystery and pondered. Wondered. To only be a fly on the wall that resides in his head for half a second is all I would want. To understand what flowed completely through his mind this day. This day brought him so much joy.

Yet, as I looked at those photos I was brought back to that moment after church when he looked up at me with his questions that I didn’t have the answers to. I still don’t have the answers. But as I told him before, I have faith in the unknown that I don’t know. I have faith that God gave Ethan the skills and wisdom to be the child that he is to understand where it is in everything that life gave us.

To find joy in a day that for him brings joy as his Daddy’s birthday and yet I wish I could see the world through his eyes. For me Christopher’s birthday is one that is private and held in my heart. It’s a day where the man I love(d) no longer grows old. It’s a day that also marks the halfway point before another year he’s gone crosses off my calendar.

The greatest lesson I learned this year with Ethan was on this day. Looking at him so happy and full of joy on this day. It was his Dad’s birthday and one that should be celebrated because without his father he might not ever be there to smile upon that grave and know that his dad loves him, wholly and completely from beyond this mortal plane.

I find that while I was choking on answers to tell Ethan almost a year ago – he was the one enlightening me almost a year later as I watched him through a different set of eyes. This year I looked at him with a stronger belief in the unknown that I don’t know, that all this happens with reason that no one is meant to comprehend, only to believe and find joy in the simple things that life holds within it’s robes that we often look over.

Today is a day special unto itself for the reasons that each of us hold in our hearts. Something we all should remember each day. :)