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!