What They Don't Tell You...

I wish that grief came with an owner's manual and anytime I faced a difficult situation I could go to the index, find the particular thing I'm looking for, and be told just how to handle it. Unfortunately, there are so many things that nobody ever prepares you to handle. Everyone always tells you that things are going to be different, that holidays are never going to be the same, that you'll look at everything in a completely different light. That is all a complete understatement! What they fail to tell you is how your heart will be ripped out on Mother's Day, how you'll never get to watch your child's preschool graduation, how you will have to watch everyone else her age going to kindergarten when she will never get the chance. You go on family vacations with a stand-in. You watch your infant son put his hand on her picure and coo like he knows exactly who he's talking to. I suppose I should perhaps put some background to all of this...

Brandon, Jasper, and I took a road trip last week to South Dakota and Denver. It never felt right to be taking a family trip without Kerrigan with us. In her stead, we carried a Pillow Pet bumble bee (Background: That was the ONE thing she had asked for at Christmas...she so desperately wanted a bumble bee Pillow Pet. As soon as he felt up to is, Daddy went out and bought her one for her room. We soon found that they make miniature ones, so we bought one to place in her memorial when it's complete, and another to carry with us whenever we felt so inclined.) One of the reasons we went that week was to avoid being in church over Mother's Day; the primary children singing, seeing all the happy mothers with their complete families was just too much for me to even think about handling...needless to say, I did not want to celebrate Mother's Day at all without the child who made me a mother in the first place. We went to dinner at Olive Garden, and to top off an already stressful evening (cranky baby), the waitress slipped a small "Happy First Mother's Day" card into the billfold. That was it for me. I hated people thinking that it was only my first Mother's Day...it was my fifth! I would receive no handcrafted present from preschool, no pictures scribbled in crayon, no plaster cast of little hands, no "I love you, Mommy!"...instead I proudly wore my new pendant with her footprint and birthstone. Nobody ever tells you how to control the feelings that swell through you on a day celebrating mothers when the person who gave you that title is gone. It's so hard to look into Jasper's eyes and not see her...not see her staring up with me with big, bright blue eyes and knowing that I was her Mommy.

Nobody tells you how to sit on the sidelines and watch Facebook posts from your friends with children her age being so excited about registering their children for kindergarten and glowing with pride as their children hold their preschool diplomas. I will never see my baby girl in her cap and gown, with her hair all curled and her black Sunday shoes shining, singing the songs she learned in preschool and bursting with excitement at the prospect of going to the big kids' school next year. And she was SO excited about kindergarten. She couldn't have been prouder to be going to the school where Mommy went and possibly having the same teacher that taught her mommy. I couldn't have been more proud to have her attending the school where I went, learning from some of the best teachers I have ever known...I was practically bursting at the seams at the thought of walking her across the street to school. Listening to the school bell and hearing the kids screaming at recess will never sound the same to me again when I remember that she should be out there with them, screaming right along with the rest of her classmates.

There are so many, many things that you never think you have to be prepared for..but I truthfully hope that as each difficult day passes, we remember how to handle it for the next time it comes around. One day at a time...each day a little easier than the last...