A Year of Grief

 Today your grandson was born. Matt's first boy. Your second grandson, and sixth grandchild overall. He caused a bit of drama as he entered the word at 4:58 a.m. But he's healthy. Adorable. Squishy. Sam is doing ok. She's sore. Grieving. Matt's grieving. Moms grieving. We all are. I held little Augie and told him if he every did anything that made me look at him sideways, I was going to tell him that it's something Randall would do.  Your sister's step granddaughter was born today too. Evelyn Francis. It's funny both these babies were born on your dad's birthday. Evelyn even has his middle name, Francis.  Andrew learned to ride his bike today, without training wheels, independently for the first time today. It made me sob tonight that you aren't here to tell him how proud you are. To encourage him. Tell him stories about you on your first bike. I sometimes think if I protest loud enough, if I ask why enough, if I refuse to believe it hard enough, tha...

 I haven't really dreamt much since it happened. Some of that is because I haven't slept enough at a time to really reach dream state, but maybe my brain is just protecting me. The night before last I had a migraine and my tooth was hurting me. I fell asleep and slept hard, but when I woke up just before my alarm, I was nauseous in a cold sweat. The headache was gone but sometimes in the wake of migraines I have a migraine hangover. I feel spacey, sweaty, and a general sense of uneasiness and dread in the pit of my stomach.  This, however, was probably more due to the nightmare that plagued my sleep. I dreamed I went to the dentist where they did xyays. And on the xrays they found bugs in my teeth. If that weren't bad enough, the types of bugs they said they were, was an indication that I had a fatal condition and would die soon. I didn't tell anyone. And instead I set up an appointment to come back to the dentist for them to euthanize me. I drove there in the rain, alo...

Moments that trigger the grief and panic, and how unpredictable they can be. We drove into Delphos from the south so we went past k&m Tire. Where my dad's brother works. And our neighbor is one of his best friends and called him repeatedly on our way to the hospital while he drove us, and eventually had to call the company itself to get a message to my uncle that there was an emergency and that he needed to come to the hospital. Brad met us there a little after we arrived and I'll never forget the look on his face. They weren't super close, but they were brothers. The only two boys in the family. And in an instant you have no brother anymore. Just like I have no sister anymore.

Death is stressful. It's sad. We grieve. But we stress too. Losing a loved one makes us anxious. It makes us think about what ifs. It makes us panic about things happening to other family members, to use, to our homes, to our lives. And, sometimes, death can be traumatic. My dad's death was traumatic. There is trauma involved in seeing your loved one's broken body in a hospital bed. In seeing blood stains on concrete. In listening to your mother scream and scream and scream. In drawing over photos of the house where your dad fell and how he was found, and sending them to a coroner's office for the autopsy.  And then there is the response after all of it. Often involuntary. Yesterday my husband's mom had what we believe is a "mini stroke". She was watching TV and her cheek went numb. Her face drooped. She lost control of her arm. Her speech slurred. She called my husband who tore off and drove her to the ER. When he called me to tell me what was going on, h...

 It feels surreal tonight. I saw him last two weeks ago today. He carried Caroline out like he always did. Buckled her in. Sometimes when we left he would say "love you" or "be good" or "be careful". Often if the kids were being wild he would say "good luck with that!" And duck his head laughing, say bye and go back into the house. I'm pretty sure that Wednesday was a "good luck with that" day.  After that, one laughing reaction on Instagram to a Reel about putting sugar on cereal, a staple in our house as kids.  And then...he's gone. And it doesn't feel real. I can do all the different tasks and jobs and errands that you do after someone dies. And be fine. But while thinking about Caroline, and school, and pickups. He only picked her up once from school. I'll probably remove him from the list sooner than later, just for security reasons. You never know. But that is what broke me tonight. I remember removing Jenny from A...

 To go back to our regular lives is so strange. I don't like it. I feel like I'm walking in mud. Or like I am operating while on half a dose of Benadryl. I don't quite know how to do the things that all came easily to me two weeks ago. I was already prone to overstimulation and now it's unbearable. I have to work, answer phones, make appointments, talk to people...as if things are normal. And they're not normal. None of this is normal. This week I made calls to make sure my mom doesn't have to go through probate to put the cars in her name. Blessedly, she doesn't need to go through the court and can just do it as a "surviving spouse" transfer. It's a surreal call to be making when your mom isn't even 59 yet.  The kids have school. We test drove a car (because right before all this happened, my husband's car was totaled). I'm trying to pick up the pieces of my life that existed two weeks ago and find my way with them again. I know ev...