Joel's Garden: Pictures.

Today the weather was good, and Steve was not subbing.  So we bought a few more flowers and took them out to Joel's grave, or Garden.  As I like to see it.

I think it looks beautiful, and hope as all gardeners do that today was the day it looked it's worst, and that it only grows more beautiful in time.  So here are the pictures of it.  Isn't it amazing, the difference from the last time you saw it to now?  Green grass and flowers.  I LOVE it!!

I cried when I planted the flowers, but this is really not a "sad" place for me.  It is a remembering place, and remembering brings tears.  But I love these flowers, for not only are they beautiful, but they are ALIVE.  And I remember that under this patch of ground is a husk, a shell, that enclosed my son's life.  He has abandoned that shell now, but the living part, the seed, was transplanted just like these flowers.  And my son is blooming somewhere else.  These flowers are a reminder of that truth.

Still, I miss him.  Two years is such a short time to hold such a small little person...

Joel's Garden, Continued.

Hey, thanks for all the supportive comments, people!  I'd like to respond to each one, but I'll never get to it.  I'm just going to mention one of my favorite comments lately was the one from the person who lost a child and had a quilt made out of the clothes.  It was my favorite, because the mom told me that she couldn't cut up the clothes.  She had Grandma do it, and it even took her a year to be able to do it.  It was my favorite because I knew this lady really understood so exactly how I feel about putting a scissor to Joel's clothing...

Still, I'm going to do it, one of these days.  When I'm ready.  I do want it to be me...  I don't know why, but if they are to be cut up, I want it to be my hand, and my tears as I do it.

Further on how difficult it is to tell people how I am doing:  I realized that one difficulty is that my days are all so up and down.  But I can't say that I am having a "bad" day or a "good" day.  Because those qualifiers are highly inaccurate.  I have hard days.  Sad days.  Crying days.  And I have easier days.  Lighter days.  Laughing too days.  But I can't say that any of them are "bad" or "good."  Just easier or harder.  For the sad and crying days have their own good in them.  As long as I keep God near, I find them all so, though some days I would not go where I must to get through.

If I can find purpose in my day, then surely what it brings has some good.  And I have found that when I bring my day to God, purpose is revealed in it.  But sometimes purpose is painful, tiring, or difficult.  Yes.  But this is not evil.  It is purpose through pain, weariness or difficulty.  That is something else altogether.

These are just side notes.  I wanted to talk about something else.  Though that something IS related to purpose. 

I wanted to write about Joel's garden.  Though this is a second garden I'm making as well as the one on his grave.  I have dug out my front bed and started to plant it with flowers.  So today and yesterday were happy days for me.  And in this bed of flowers, I am spelling out Joel's name.  Well, I did spell out Joel's name.  But it's going to take a bit of time before you can see it.  Not all the plants are flowering, and of course, they need to grow a bit.  So right now it's more a jumble of green with some flowers here and there.  I'm hoping it will look better soon, and that not too many will die, as it was a hot day, and some of them look a bit wilted.

I have also purchased a few flowers for Joel's grave plot, but I'm not sure the topsoil is on yet.  I hope to go out there soon and start planting that.

And all of this had me musing... about "doing" things for my son, and why it is so important, and why it helps me, and all of that sort of thing. 

I can no longer really do anything for my son.  This is the truth.   I want to hold him.  I can not.  I wish I could give him something.  I can not.  I wish I could make him feel my love.  I can not, and if God does this for me, pass along my love I mean, that I can not see.  So there is nothing I can really do for my son now.

So why do I "do" things with him in mind, and why does it mean something to me?  I have said before that it's "in honour" of Joel.  I'm not even sure what that means.  But I have realized something.  It means something to me, not because I think I am doing something for Joel.  It means something to me, because it is an outlet for my love for him.  A positive outlet.  Something beautiful comes where my love is spilt out.  A beautiful garden.  Singing to God.  Maybe passing along some love or encouragement to someone else, when I do it "because of" Joel's impact in my life.

For not only do I long for my son and wish so much I could have him near.  Also, my love for him overflows in my heart, but he is no longer there to receive it from me.  It builds up, in frustrated abundance and pressure.  And so, it helps to find a place, a useful place for it to run into.  And it helps me to do these things "in his memory" because it allows me to say, even if only to myself "I LOVE MY SON!"  And being able to show or say "I LOVE JOEL," is a very meaningful and joyful thing.  Even if it is only I that knows what I am saying.

And this made me think and understand something new.  Or something old, in a new way.  Jesus said, long ago when on earth, that if we gave a cup of water in His Name, we would not lose a reward.  And once, a woman who was known as a "sinner" anointed him with oil out of love.  Some criticised her for "wasting" this oil, which could have been sold and the proceeds given to the poor.  But Jesus said that we'd always have the poor among us (what an indictment!) and that she'd done something so special for him, that it would be always remembered. 

And I realized what the Lord wished from us, in all of that.  Yes, we do things "in His Name" to give Him honour.  But there is so much more to it.  We no longer have HIM here with us.  We can not anoint his head with oil.  We can not bandage His wound, or cook Him a nice dinner.  We can't give Him a warm blanket or a hug.

But what that should create in us is a painful overflow.  There should be an almost painful pressure in our hearts, a yearning to show Him whom we say we love, a yearning to demonstrate our love for Him.  And as He is not here with me, in the same way my love for Joel "spills" out all around me, finding places and ways to declare "I loved my son," so my love for Jesus should be doing the same thing.  And when I do these things in His Name, it should be saying, or shouting, into my heart and out into the world "I love Jesus."

There should be a "garden" all around me.  There should be flowers everywhere, from the love God has filled me with spilling out.  And this should give me the same sort of joy that I have when I plant Joel's gardens.  Beautiful actions should surround me out of the overflow of love in my heart.  Beautiful gardens, for remembrance of Joel.  Gardens, "gardens," everywhere, in remembrance of Jesus.

Here, I am giving you a seed.  Now you have it.  Please, take this seed if you love the Lord, and go out and plant something beautiful, watered with the love for Him from your heart.  May gardens abound.

Quilt

I have been contemplating an idea a friend has given.  You see, I have quite a few items of Joel's clothing... more then could fit in the size of memory box I was planning on.  And I am finding I have a great reluctance to give any of them away.  They are so much more tangible, as reminders of my son, then just a picture.  Not that pictures are not super or precious.  I'd never give one of the pictures up!

But clothing can be held and felt.  There are memories in it.  But I know in my mind that a box of clothes just sitting in a quiet corner is only taking up space, getting musty, and it's not something you are going to pull out every day for the rest of your life either.  It's not practical.  Not that I think practical is the be all and end all of things.  I can be very unpractical.  Still.  It's a lot of clothing that I can't seem to get rid of.

In fact, I am resisting the urge to ask some of the people whom I gave/lend Joel's clothing to, to give said clothing BACK.  I had some really amazingly nice and cute clothes from his first year of life, and I (maybe wisely) made sure to lend it out as soon as I could.  Most likely the said people don't even have the clothing anymore, most likely they in turn passed it on, or can't remember where it is, etc.  So I am trying to not even GO there.

My friend gave me an idea.  It is a good idea.  She said she knew someone who made a quilt from her child's clothing, after he died.  Now that seems like a perfect solution.  A quilt, which could wrap around me and be felt at any time without sitting in an awkward box.  Useful, and sentimental, all at once.

So I am mulling it all over.  There are a few slight difficulties.  First one being that I'd have to steel myself to cutting up Joel's clothing.  For some reason, this seems hard.  Taking a scissor to his jammies.  It's a point of no return.  Points of no return are hard these days.

And Joel being so small and so young, his clothing is small, and covered in small child stuff.  Dinosaurs, cute aliens in spaceships, cars, and Cookie Monster.  I want it to be MY quilt.  But I sure do want to keep these emblems of my son's baby/childhood.  So this quilt would not too likely be a real "display" sort of quilt.  But then, not sure I want to display it either.

And the colours.  My favorite clothing is red, brown, black, green, and many shades of blue.  Not too sure about the final colour scheme there. 

Or how to work it out practically when some of the clothing is small, and some is larger.  So I'd have make some squares out of two pieces of fabric... and though I thought I had a lot of clothing, when arms are too small to provide fabric, and sometimes legs too, in the end, this quilt might NOT be that big.

But I think the result might be worth it... and maybe cutting up the clothing would be worth it too.  I'm pretty sure I'd be crying as I chopped up the pieces with my scissors.  That sounds painful.  But not necessarily bad.  Sometimes pain is what you go through to get a beautiful and meaningful quilt.  Just like sometimes pain is what you go through to get experience, compassion, and memories.  No love without pain.  No quilt without cutting.  So it is.

I don't know why I like the picture of him with his CPAP machine on, but I do.  It's not the cutest look, I guess, but the sight of him happily drowsy/sleeping with the machine on, the one that let him have such good health and happiness for so long, well, it's a cute picture to me, anyway.

Where I am at, and how I got here.

From time to time someone has mentioned their surprise at how through the life, illness and loss of my son, I have not become bitter or angry...

Of course, that is generally.  For of course I have had moments of bitterness or anger.  But sometimes it gets mentioned with surprise.  Because I think quite a few people expect bitterness or anger.

I have already shared in quite a few other blogs, some of the story of my life and how that has affected me and how God has led me all along.  But I just wanted to touch on it once again.  I might even need/want to discuss it through several blogs.  We'll see.

I know I mentioned that this journey in the land of grief was not my first.  That I had experienced loss before, when I was a teen.  I had several foster-siblings that lived with us for several years.  And then they were moved.  It's still hard for me to talk about.  I like to skirt around the whole story, to be honest.  Even now, years and years and years later, I'm not super comfortable getting into it.

But here is, in general,  the whole experience.  God let something that could only look terrible to me eyes, happen.  Did He cause it?  I've already stated my belief that no, God does not cause every bad thing that happens to us.  But did He allow it?  Yes.  Of course.  For surely He is able to stop these things.  I've seen Him answer my prayers many times.  But this time He let something happen that could only seem to me to be destructive and horrible.

And even now, years and years and years later, I have to say I have never seen anything good come out of that occurrence.  Unless you count the stuff inside me.  There was good that came out of the experience, if by "good" you are willing to admit the result that I learned to rely on God and to trust Him even in the midst of disaster.

I remember sitting in a bush in our yard (yes, I was inside the bush.  Like if you have every watched "It's a Wonderful Life," the part where Donna Reid's character is in the hydrangea bush.  I had this little hollowed out core in one of the bushes on our yard.  That is where I was).  I remember sitting in there and ranting to God or myself or the bugs and leaves, I don't even know now.  I remember ranting about how God had let my foster siblings be moved somewhere strange and unknown to me, how He let them be moved only "God knows where" and then I stopped.  My words silenced me.  And I heard a quiet voice inside say "Yes.  God knows where."

I don't know why that was enough for me at that moment.  Truly, I could still see no good in the situation.  Nothing had really changed.  But I heard God telling me quietly that He did know where my foster siblings were.  And somehow in that moment, it was enough to turn things around in my heart.  Because the voice was quiet, and gentle and sad.  And sovereign.  All at once.

And it turned around my hear and it turned around my life.  Because sometimes you come to a point where the rubber hits the road and a choice must be made.  Follow or turn back.  Trust or check your baggage off the flight.  Surrender your life, or decide you'd rather manage things yourself.

And at that point I had an indication of what I had/was signing myself up for.  Most of us get married and have NO IDEA what we really are signing up for.  Later on we think... hmmm... I really had no idea...  And with marriage, we have a choice to bail out at any time.  No matter what we say "at the altar."  And when it comes to God, yeah, He only wants people who want to be with Him.  So He will always leave the final choices up to you.

In that moment under the bushes, I had gotten a revelation of what I signed myself up for with God.  I realized, through the experience, that praying or "doing good stuff" or whatever it is, is NOT some kind of payment to guarantee God will bless your life (read: let you do what you want and get what you want).  I realized that God is not in the business of raising hot house roses untouched by blemish and unable to grow or bloom unless in a specific, very controlled environment.  And that His process of pruning and trimming, of allowing the elements in to shake us that we might grow strong in Him, I realized that this process might at times allow even for things painful.  Very painful.

C.S. Lewis wrote "We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us, we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be."  And really, that says it all, doesn't it?  God, I know you are only going to do the best, but how much is this going to hurt?  And am I still willing to accept "the best" or do I really want off of this ride, right now!

Does anyone truly stop believing intellectually in God when something painful happens?  Is it not that we become so angry, realizing that God would allow painful things "just" to allow us in turn to be transformed by the experience.  I have heard people say that they can not believe in God, for how could God exist if He could allow these things to happen.  I have never really heard that statement without an undercurrent of anger.  For logically, does the existence of painful experience rule out the existence of God?  Isn't it more accurate that faced with a God who says "I allow this to happen to you, that you might turn more fully to Me, that you might grow stronger in trust, that your character might be purged and refined," we say defiantly "If THAT is how extreme you are about this whole thing, I'm really not interested.  I'm so not interested that I'm going to pretend You don't even existed."

I'm not saying here that there are not people who sincerely question God's existence.  Yes, of course, some of us have these intellectual questions and doubts that deserve some sort of logical reckoning.  I'm talking most especially about people who do believe God exists.  Until something bad happens to them.  And I'm not mentioning them to condemn them in some way.  Because I understand pain.  And anger.  I do.  I have been there, at least in the anger.  And for just about all of us, the question is not if we have been angry at God, but rather, how long we were angry.  Which leaves us pretty much on equally questionable footing, no?

Back to my story...  I found myself under that bush, angry about life, and a mite peeved at God too.  Faced with a choice.  Follow or go my own way.  We used to say at the school I taught in up north that the students came to school cause we were the best show in town.  By which we meant that even though in school the students were disciplined and expected to work and learn and live with authority, they still choose to come to escape the boredom, loneliness, and emptiness of what was going on in life at home.  They might complain bitterly.  But yes, they STILL CAME.

And when it came to God...  it was the same way for me.  Because bad, painful and destructive things happen if you believe in a God who allows them for your growth, or if you believe in a random universe with no anchor or reason or help outside of yourself and a few close relations or friends.  And seeing it that way, what rational choice is there?  And seeing it that way, what warmth or comfort for the soul is there but to just run to the Everlasting Arms that never leave us or forsake us, no matter what pain we are in?

In those arms, I trusted.  In those arms, I made it through the pain and sadness and difficulty.  And I found myself on the other side whole, and not harmed.  I had been hurt, yes.  But I had not been harmed.  Because safe in the arms of God, no permanent harm can come to us.  In this God I had grown to trust, even in the storm.  He has never let me down, even in the illness and death of my child.

This is long enough.  I'll continue it later...

Mother's Day

I wanted to put up a couple of pictures here, but not of Joel this time.  Well, I'll put up a couple of those too, no doubt.  I wanted to put a picture of my Mother's Day gift here, on my blog.  And a picture of my calendar too.  Yeah. My calendar.

I bought this beautiful calendar.  I love it.  Calendars should not only be functional (as the one I have in the hallway phone nook is, complete with whiteboard and space for "planning.") but I firmly believe they should be beautiful.  As the one hanging in the dining area is.  I needed to get two calendars this year, so that I'd have both function and beauty.

And then I take my beautiful calendar, the one with the "ocean motif," and I write a verse or two for the month on it.  It definitely takes it down a notch or two on the visual aesthetics of it.  But it ratchets it up a notch or two as soul food.  And that is very important to me.

So I am including a photo of my calendar and the verse, my apologies for my ugly penmanship.  All my school-hood I constantly heard the same thing about my handwriting/printing.  Here you shall see just what the teachers meant.  But I love the picture, and I love the words.

These are the words for the month of May.  And they seem to go well with my Mother's Day gift as well.  Two Christmas's back, my in-laws gave me a lovely figurine of a mother holding a baby.  And yesterday my husband and son gave me a figurine of a mother holding a child about Joel's age.  Here is a picture of them.

Doesn't that say it...

I carried Joel from his birth until his death.  And now he is carried by God.  And as the verses on my calendar say, God has carried me, in the same way, from my birth until now.  And will carry me, even to grey hair!

The figures make me sad, because there won't be a new one for me to add.  My carrying Joel is over.  Yet the figures give me joy too.  And I remember how it felt, to carry my son in my arms in just that way.  It was very beautiful.

And now for some pictures.  I will try and include one of Joel in his favorite place, my arms.  He had trouble really sleeping through the night with out his night time meds.  But he also established a clear habit.  He would fall asleep almost every night in my arms.  Sometimes he'd be in his bassinet at sleep -time.  Sometimes the meds would work and he'd just drop to sleep.  But most often, he would just stubbornly wait for me.  If I was grabbing a snack or finishing a chore at that time, or whatever.  He'd lie in his crib before or even after the meds and keep awake until FINALLY I arrived.  And as soon as I picked him up, we'd snuggle in.  He'd immediately close his eyes.  And be asleep in five minutes.  It was very beautiful.

Guilt & Regret.

...  Yup.  That says it all.   ... There have been a few things I want to "say" on this blog.  But I haven't really gotten that "right moment" to do it.  And then when I do get on here, I often feel like I should write something about how I am doing.

And then I think that how I am doing is a pretty boring and redundant topic.  And I don't always feel like getting into a lot of detail either.  But then, I keep saying that I want to be transparent.  And being transparent doesn't just mean only saying things that are real and true.  It also means not deliberately leaving out some of the information...

I am doing ok, as I keep saying.  I AM sleeping well.  I am able to get out of bed in the morning, and I don't even have a huge struggle with that.  Two things that to me seem pretty indicative of doing ok.  I also do take somewhat regular showers, and most days I get out of my jammies. 

All these "signs" are good for me, because the last thing I need is to stress about "barely coping" with life.  And I feel peaceful about it.  I'm trusting God to get us through, and He is.  I don't think I'm going to need medication.  Surprise.  And I don't think I'm going to go to counselling.  Because I think the support of my friends and family and the listening ears there will be enough for me.  But we will see.  I'm not going to rule anything out at this point.

Having said all that, I will admit that as most of us do, I have been struggling with guilt and regret.  It really is a normal part of grief.  I know that.  And it is a pretty average reaction of mothers to just about any negative circumstance in the life of their child.  Terminal illness and death being under the category of "negative circumstance," I guess what could I expect?

While Joel was alive, I tried to live so that I'd have limited regrets.  Always acknowledging to myself that I would not be able to completely prevent them.  And I couldn't.

I work them through, when they attack me.  I go over the little and big "guilts" that I have.  Some of them are silly.  I don't know if it is exactly guilt, but I feel absolutely HORRIBLE about the two times I was holding Joel and one of his bones "buckled."  How I could have seen it coming and stopped it...?  I'm not sure.  But I grieve these moments.

And some of the moments I have to forgive myself for.  No mom is perfect.  Impossible.  And when your child is healthy and grows up to be a happy adult, you forgive and forget the mistakes.  The times you were impatient or selfish fade away.  But when the child involved dies, it makes these sins monumental events...  Strange, isn't, how grief is.  Live or die, your behavior was the same.  But live or die, makes a big difference on how hard or easy it is for you to forgive and forget.

Which brings me to the regrets.  Closely related to the guilt.  But not exactly.  One thing I have been struggling with is two weeks of Joel's three week hospital stay in the fall.  The two weeks where he was kept in because they had begun treating him for meningitis and thus had to finish it.  Even at the time, my emotions about this were difficult.  But life was going on, and now some of those emotions remain, still in the file, waiting to be dealt with.  And Joel's death makes it worse.  I'm remembering being stuck on IV antibiotics and then put in isolation so we could not leave our little cubicle.  And Joel was alert, aware and even sometimes playful during those two weeks.

So, if only.  If only I had insisted it was adrenal and not allowed them to treat for meningitis.  If only I had stayed in hospital for the evenings and nights, so that Joel didn't have to be alone there.  Now I hate the thought of him lying there in the lonely evenings.  As I always did.  But I loved him during the day and then went home to "survive."

Most of these regrets are tied to a ridiculous feeling or attitude.  These regrets about how much I held Joel or played with him or whatever.  When I really examine them.  Because I really want to hold Joel NOW.  I really want to play with him NOW.  But I can not.  So the mind goes to the times when I COULD hold him.  And then finds any time I could have but DIDN'T.  As if I could have somehow "stored up" more holding him.  As if by holding him for 8 hours a day instead of 4 hours a day, then today, THIS day, I wouldn't miss him as much.  It's all rubbish!  Then was then, and now is now.  If I had held him 16 hours a day, I'd still be sitting here now, missing him so and wishing I had held him 18 hours...

It really is just the mind trying to "fix" the missing in my heart.  Trying to come up with a solution to the feelings.  Like we humans do.  What went wrong, so that next time we can do it different?  It's a useful reaction when you have broken your arm and are reviewing workplace safety.  It's not really productive in the instances where things beyond your control happened.  Or when you'll never get that "second chance to do it different." 

And so now, it is a waste of effort and energy.  And also a part of grieving.  Because the missing will come.  And with the missing, the earnest wish to turn back the clock.  And change something, anything to somehow make yourself feel better.  But I know that I lived the last two years well enough that any changes I could make would be small, and pretty insignificant.  And would not, in the end, make this sadness any easier.  There would just be other moments I'd cry over instead.  I know that.  But I still have to work out these feelings...

Whew.  I don't know who is still reading this with me.  Not exactly "fun," eh?  So if you are still here with me, in this pit of sadness, then please climb out, go eat a sandwich and read a book or watch a sitcom.  Lighten up.  That is honestly what I do when my cup of sadness has overflowed for awhile.  I can do this.  And I DO do it.  Also a sign I'm doing ok.

But even more so, that I still take this sorrow and grief, and regret and guilt to God.  I feel it, I think it through to the TRUTH, and then I give it to Him.  Not much of a gift, really, eh?  But still.  I just say, "Here is how I am feeling Lord, and it's so hard and sad, but if You can make anything of this, You are welcome to have it."  And so, I find that while I might feel sad, regrets, pain, and guilt, I truly NEVER feel despair or hopelessness.  I never do.  I'm pretty sure that is God's doing.

Last of all, before I do my favorite thing and put up some pics, I'm just going to say, you don't need to bother writing to tell me what I good mom I was to Joel.  I wish that would do the trick.  But I'm afraid it doesn't do much...  unless you can come over and listen to me share each moment in person.  Because regrets are specific moments, not generalities.

 I DO appreciate your words of encouragement.  I DO appreciate hearing that you are praying for me.  And I ABSOLUTELY LOVE hearing how Joel's life touched yours or how something I have shared means something to you.  So please feel free to encourage me in this way. 

Snow

Today is May 1st, and this morning, yes, as forecast, the ground is once again covered in snow...  ugh.

Today at 2pm there is a memorial service that Children's Hospital puts on to "remember" all the children that they have worked with who have died this past year.  We could have ask them to defer this to next year if it was "too soon" for us, but I really wanted to go. 

Particularly because I will be in a group of people who have at some point this last year or two found themselves plunged into the same county I now find myself.  Even if everyone is too shy or tearful to speak much or meet, I think I will feel a feeling of great solidarity while I'm there.  I know our experiences are all different, but it is a powerful thing, to find people who share such a huge life transformation.

It has been another hard week.  Of course.  What did I expect?  I don't know.  I don't know if I can say this has really been harder then I expected...  if anything, there are some ways it has been easier (that's easier than I EXPECTED, because I expected it to be brutally difficult).  But it has been very different than I expected, though really, most of my musings on this sort of stopped at the point of his death and immediatly after.  I don't think that I could really look much beyond that point, or imagine it or worry about it.

Getting back to it, it has been another hard week.  I won't get into all the struggles and ups and downs here and now.  All in all, I have to say I think I'm doing ok... I'm mostly dealing with this with God.  And when I forget, He's pretty grace-ful to me.  And when I say I'm doing ok, agian, standards are pretty low.  But I think the fact that I can mostly sleep and that I can get up in the morning, and that most days I can even do at least one "fun thing" with Caeden, is, well, good enough for someone who has lost a child.  That I can still laugh, make decisions about cooking most days, occasionally organize or clean, I think that is all a good sign.

In spite of all this, I will say it yet again, like a whiny child.  This is hard.  Yes.  Hard.  So, please remember that May is still drop in month.  It is one of those inevitable things that about 3 people suddenly want to "book" the same day, and then there are other periods of nobody.  So please don't think if you want to visit, but someone else is already, that it means I am overwhelmed by visitors.  It is just the nature of life that it goes in "rushes" and then quietness.

But at this time, I love visitors.  I appreciate being able to work out my grief by chatting with you about Joel.  My precious Joel.

I'm not getting much "done."  I feel bad when Steve comes home from a day of work (for someone has to support us) and ask me what I have done.  I say "not too much."  Which means I did get up.  I did fed Caeden and watch him, and maybe play with him or take him out.  I did do the dishes, and I did make supper.  Then, most days, the day is ended.  And all I have to "show for it" is what most working mothers do when they get home from work...  I feel bad about the days where this is true.  For my work load has been literally cut in half, or more.  And what do I have to show for it?

And I feel guilty that Steve has somehow managed to work all day and earn the wage that pays for me to stay home and be sad, listless, distracted, or restless, and basically unproductive all day.  Why is this grief thing so different for us both?

Sorry.  I'm babbling today.  Mostly this blog is a pathetic attempt, because once I'm done blabbling on and on in what I am ambitiously calling a blog post, I will put up a few more pictures of Joel.

So, here are some pictures.  And I seriously AM going to make up a chart for myself and put in on the fridge...

Yeah, excuse the tape-y face.  Beautiful suit and then tape!  But let me tell you, I hated changing that ng tube so much (Joel too) that I would just keep plastering on more tape rather than risk it being pulled out!