Grieving Mothers Club

This is an exclusive club that no one wants to join, ever. Through out my years (before Kai) I have known or come across mothers that have lost a child, even my own relatives. I remember thinking how sad it was and how sorry I felt for them. But now I understand on a different level. It is a rip your heart out, throw it on the ground, grief all the way from your toes, emotional dive!! You should be dehydrated because of the amount of tears you cry there shouldn’t be any moisture left in your body. You quit functioning because how can life even think about going on without this person in it every single day. What do I do from here? Where do I go from here? What happens now? But yet you don’t want the pain to ever go away because that means you are healing, you are moving on, you are getting used to that child not being around, the new normal is happening.

It’s unbelievable to think of how many in my own family have lost a child. My maternal grandma buried her oldest son due to a sudden hear attack, my aunt buried her oldest son due to  tragic logging accident, my uncle buried his youngest daughter due to cancer before she was 30, my cousin lost his 18 year old daughter due to a tragic car accident, these are all relatives from my mamas side of the family, crazy. So my mama has been there through her oldest brother, oldest nephew, two nieces, and don’t forget her grandson, Kai. Then there is my mother and father-in-law….my hubby lost his sister 31 years ago in a tragic plane crash that was avoidable and should never have happened. Here, now, when I think about hubby’s sister she was gone only 5 years when I met him. That is right now how long Kai has been gone and I know how I feel after 5 years without Kai, so now I know how still fresh his family’s feeling were at losing their child. I feel like I was kinda insensitive to that back then, not understanding the volume of emotions a loss like this can have, but heck, it was beyond my understanding of that kind of loss. Now I understand, now I understand completely.

The day Kai was born was a super amazing day for all of us especially my in-laws. Because on that day it was not only mothers day, it was what would have been hubby’s sisters 25th birthday. Yup my little boy was born on his aunts birthday, how poetic. We would always say she was is guardian angel and he had to have had her wings completely worn out and exhausted. He was a challenge to keep safe for sure.

The most memorable time for me coming across a fellow member of the Grieving Mothers Club was when hubby and I were traveling with our RV to visit my brother in Colorado. Kai had only ben gone a year and we decided to do a little trip together and see some sights on the way, Mount Rushmore, and such. Hubby even let me stop by some wineries and do wine tasting on the way! He hates wine, but loves me, so you know. At the last winery we stopped in a lady that worked there asked about the memorial tattoo I have on my forearm. I let her read it and told her it was for my son I lost the year before. She showed me her ankle memorial tattoo for her son that died two years prior, and it was also suicide that took her son. Hubby had to run out to the rig real quick and comes back into the winery to see his wife and some strange lady hugging with tears. That’s the Grieving Mothers Club. 

It is surreal to know exactly, how people feel that have lost a child. It doesn’t matter how old their child was either. I have had several clients that were in their 70’s and 80’s that had to bury a child in their 50’s and 60’s and the pain is just as real for them. It is against all parental rules to bury a child, they were meant to be the ones to bury us, those are supposed o be the rules damnit. 

I wish every day that there never has to be a new member of the Grieving Mothers Club. But since I sadly know there will be, I will be here for any of you with open arms and I will cry with you as I know your pain all to well. Don’t be afraid, the new normal will happen even if you don’t want it to.

Opposites Attract

I met my hubby when he was only 20 years old. I say only because I was 25, already been married and had a 2 year old. To me he was still experiencing life and I had already had so many life experiences by 25. I consider myself a “survivor of my life choices”. In my earlier years I was way better at making all the bad choices a girl could make rather than making good life choices. But dwelling on past decisions will change nothing, right? I tell myself that all night long as I lay sleepless in bed pondering all my life choices. Insomnia and I are the best of buddies, unfortunately both my children ended up with this awful trait of mine. The thing about my hubby at 20 is that he was an old soul. By this I mean he might have been only 20 but he acted like a 40 year old. Many times people were shocked to find out he was actually 10 years younger than they thought he was.

Hubby and I were about as opposite as you could get. I would spend he would save. He has goals I went by the set of my pants. He planned for the future I planned for the weekend. I said white he would say black. I’m a glass half full he says it’s full of piss. I like to be as positive about things as possible he days he’s a realist and can be a “Debbie downer” some times. I could go on and on about how opposite we are. And the big one was our parenting styles. I made him a father at the tender age of 22!! Way to young for him. As we have aged together and gone through the things we did with Kai, he would have been a more relaxed dad in his 30’s. I was the nurturer and the protector from all things bad with the kids and he was the screamer, lecturer, punisher, the kids are lazy, this is not how they should be, hard ass. But also loved and provided for all of us with his whole heart.

When it came to the struggles with Kai Hubby finally threw in the towel and said you deal with him I can’t handle it any more. This was due to the fact that I covered for Kai and tried to protect him from himself, his father, and the world. We both did what we felt Kai needed which was the opposite of each other. Rarely did we agree on how things should be handled when it came to the kids. This made it very hard to raise children together. I loved my husband so much and my children so much so that I ended up in the middle trying to make both parties happy. Can you imagine the misery I put myself in? Having two very different parenting styles and both refusing to agree on things it’s surprising we have survived being together for 26 years. We have definitely fought the good fight for all those years and managed to stay together after the loss of our son. We have grown to respect our differences and know where we stand with each other. He treats me like the queen that I am and I think I take pretty good care of him and spoil him pretty rotten these days. 

Even though our children butted heads with their father they truly respected him, especially “Sunshine” our 28 year old. They had it pretty rough trying to get along in her teen years. She and Hubby had a very love hate relationship back then. They loved each other very much but she was never going to be the kind of kid Hubby thought she should be. There was no mold she was ever going to fit in. I wanted her to be a girly girl with the makeup and hair and fashion, what I got, a little girl that played with dinosaurs and hated dolls. Hubby played sports and showed animals with 4-H and FFA all his school years. He was raised on a farm where sleeping in was no such thing and you were expected to get going with the day. Sunshine did a little sports to make him happy and very begrudgingly showed animals and despised every second of it. Mostly because they fought the entire time of taking care of the animals. Even Kai struggled with his father when it came to sports and showing animals. He also did some sports and showed the animals and guess what, there was fighting among them too. Then there would be me trying to be the referee, protect the babies, but yet appease the hubby. It never worked out very well for any of us. Although I did agree that the kids should be involved at school and the animal showing was my idea. We live in such a tiny town with the nearest larger community 35 miles away so we don’t have a lot to do around here. And my kids were pretty lazy and had no responsibilities, my own doing of course. I expected nothing from them at home I spoiled them. 

I have no idea what brought Hubby and I together, there were no stars and lightning etc. We just met and came together as a couple that really could have fun together, we really could. He is my very best friend and would do anything to keep me safe and happy. He put me and my emotions before his own since the day Kai passed. He is my rock. Many couples don’t survive the loss of a child so I consider us very lucky. Don’t worry, we still fight the good fight every now and then and we are till opposite (he still thinks the glass has piss in it) on many things but we have grown over the years to agree or see some things alike. That’s what growing old together is like, right? The big one we agree on is we both miss our son so much. 

THIS IS ME

This is my very first post in my very first blog. Why did I decide to start a blog? After five years of the tragic passing of my 17 year old son Kai, I find myself still grieving and missing him so much. I know there, unfortunately, are so many out there having the same feelings as myself. I decided to share my story and my sadness of this “new normal” in my life as my own way of trying to heal. 

This is me, a 51 year old married mother of three. Our oldest is a 31 year old Princess that we took into our family when she was 17 years old. Not officially adopted but she is definitely ours. Even though I didn’t give birth to her she and I are so much alike it’s scary. My second is my actual first born and the complete opposite of my Princess. Tattoos galore and a septum piercing (thank god that’s it) and has more talent in her left pinky thank I have in my whole body. Sings like an angel, plays piano, can draw like, wow, wrote a book, and loves to shoot her guns. She is my Sunshine. Then there was my baby boy, Kai. Born 5 years after Sunshine when I as 28 years old. My husband and I were not married yet so he was definitely a surprise.

My son my challenge. All we ever want when we have our babies is for them to be happy and healthy. To raise them to be amazing human beings that go forth and conquer the world. Kai was determined to challenge every inch of my desire for the happy child. He had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder). In the last three years of his life I knew I would bury my son. I didn’t know when, I just knew that was my future. “I really, really just don’t want to be here any more, mom!” he would say to me over and over. He was so unhappy in his skin, no matter what I said he simply wanted to die. He did try in his best way he knew how to be happy but by the end of the day he was miserable. It still breaks my heart to this day that no matter what I said to him or did for him he was still so unhappy.

I plan to write about my troubled journey with Kai and all the heart ache he and I suffered together along with our family and friends. Kai would always tell me I would eventually be fine once he was gone, that I would heal and move on. I don’t feel near the pain I did five years ago, but I still have pain. I miss so much, I think about what I’m missing out on if he were still alive. We have found our “new normal” since his passing but the hole in my heart will never heal. Maybe I will find others that have suffered as I have or are suffering right now. Perhaps there is a mom out there that is as lost as I was with a child that wants to die or has the same troubles Kai did. Welcome to my life.

This is me.