Missing Jake

It has been 1 year and 29 days without him. That is 394 days, 56 Thursdays. One school year has come and gone and another is about half over,  that's about 215 school days.  For the record, for most of that I had to do some math. However you mark the passing of time, that is  394 days in our home of day to day living; getting up in the morning, eating meals, keeping the house in order, participating in life, doing homework, completing projects, having friends over, getting ready for bed, sleeping, not sleeping, laughter...lots of laughter mixed with a fair amount of tears, all of it, missing Jake.  Every day is different and missing him takes on many forms, but there is not a day that goes by that the gapping hole in our family goes unnoticed.

The one year anniversary has come and gone. The days leading up to it were aweful and intense. Everyday I felt like I was reliving each moment again with Wednesday being the absolute worst, but by Wednesday evening that week, most of those intense feelings of panic and grief had passed for me and an odd but comforting peace carried me through that weekend. The experience was different for all of us and the boys struggled a little more on the actual day and my previous post of it being two different days for me proved less true for some of my boys. We spent Wednesday night in Galveston and went to our favorite place to eat and then tried, unsuccessfully, to release a fire lantern on the beach. The 29th we were surrounded by family and friends. The day ended with more laughter than tears but I think we were all relieved when it was over.  

It has been another 29 days since the anniversary. February is mostly over and we are doing alright. The fog that once again consumed us in the days surrounding and leading up to January 29th have subsided again.  We still have some bad days, mostly bad nights, here and there but for the most part I feel like we are doing well. 

It still baffles me that people are so ignorant about death and grieving.   More than once, I have found myself trying to explain or defend why we "still" have bad days. I'm not sure where it comes from exactly, but there is an overwhelming sense of pressure to hurry up our grieving; that a year is enough time and you can't continue to use his  death as an excuse for bad days.  I think it's even worse for my boys than for me. I have been able to make adjustments to my life and change jobs to better suit our needs, but the school calendar and those demands are not as forgiving. When I have a bad day, I can bring my make-up bag along in the car and freshen up between patient visits. If I have a hard moment I turn on the radio and allow myself to cry.  The boys are at school so on a bad day they have almost 8 hours of putting on a good face to maintain until they get home. Maintaining a good face and not breaking down is exhausting.  Explaining that to people is challenging.  

There are not as many bad days as there were even 3 months ago, but they still happen.  Triggers come out of no where and there is no way to really predict what will cause them or when they will hit.  Just as an example, last week I went to Orlando with Ray and his sister, Layla, to run in the Disney Princess weekend 5 K.  We had a wonderful time. I have never been to Disney and it's been a life long dream to go.  I was like a kid again as we ran (well truth be told, walked) through Epcot Center. There were Disney character scattered for photo ops throughout the park and we stopped frequently to take in the atmosphere. About three quarters of the way through the race, there was a young man dressed in a gigantic Sebastian, the crab from Little Mermaid, costume. I can't even tell you what it was about him, but he reminded me of Jake and I started to cry. It was just a couple tears and an aknowledgement that I was missing him, but in that moment, my mood began to shift. Usually when I go on vacation without the boys, I'm fine.  I don't want to sound like a bad mom, but I don't worry about them when I leave  and I don't miss them much.  I know they are in good hands and I love them more than words can say, but having a break is healthy and greatly needed some time.  I will usually bring back little gifts for them and this trip was the same. Except it wasn't... I was already missing Jake quite a bit when I started looking for the gifts to bring home and not buying him something too was overwhelming.  I was in the middle of Downtown Disney and it wasn't a good time for weeping.  By the time we made it to the airport several hours later, holding back the missing him and the tears was begining to make my head hurt and when we finally made it through the flight to Houston and back to the car to head home the tears could no longer be contained and were streaming down my face.  I usually save my sobs for behind the closed door of my bedroom when I am alone.  I have only broken down in front of someone else on a handful of occasions and it has never felt okay.  In that moment, with tears streaming uncontrollably, Ray looked over and I couldn't even speak to explain what was wrong.  Holding back sobs constricted my throat in such a way I couldn't even form speech. We made it home and I fell into bed too exhausted to do much more than just go to sleep.  Those day don't happen often.

On good days, and there are more of those than not, missing him is subtle. On good days it's little things like running into the store and thinking about what everyone might like for dinner, those mental lists moms make... "Maybe I'll just make pasta tonight- Nate will want straight noodles, Jake will want Alfredo sauce..." He is still included in those lists and on a good day, I may pause and sometimes a couple tears may escape, but I grab the tomato sauce, leave the Alfredo and move on. 

We have a lot of good days and I can't speak for Zach, Ben or Nate, but what I observe is that their missing Jake, though very unique to each of them, is similar to mine.  They have mostly good days.  Days filled with school, homework, friends and social lives, friend drama, and brothers being brothers. They move in and out of their days with thoughts of Jake that are unique to them and their missing him is mostly quiet, with occasional somber moments when I can tell they miss him more than what has become normal.  Other times their missing him is loud and comes with laughter as they remember out-loud and recall an event or story about him. And lately they have been tattling on him more and more, so I'm hearing stories I haven't heard before.  I've tried to explain to the boys that there are some stories moms are really never supposed to know, but they just laugh and continue with the tales.  I love that we can talk about him and laugh and that we have so many wonderful memories with him. I'm glad that only one year out from his death, we are able to laugh and remember the good stories, because that is not the case for every family who has lost a child. We really are doing exceptionally well. 

I am by no means an expert, but I think part of the reason we are doing well is because I have made time and allowed us to have bad days.  I took 4 complete months off of work and am still not back to full-time and the boys have missed more school days than some people would like. Though there is no handbook on how to handle being a divorced, single mom of 3 grieving sons, I am confident God is directing us through it and I have made a conscience decision to allow myself  and the boys to feel the horrific ache and talk about it.  I have given all of us permission to have bad days.  Holding it  together and putting on good face is appropriate at times and a skill we are all working on, but that is exhausting and will also take its toll if we ignore our grief and just push through.  Taking our time with grieving and allowing time for bad days now is moving us toward deeper healing.  One that will serve us well in the years of ups and downs that are sure to be in our future as we move through life missing Jake. 

My Get Out of Jail Free Card

I had another one of my truly sublime mother of the year moments yesterday.  The kind you have to later send an email for, apologizing for your behavior.  I finished work a little early and was able to get in for a much over due hair appointment before all the kids got out of school. I was just sitting up from my friend and hairdresser washing my hair, when the phone rang. It was the high school.

My girlfriend and I had just finished having a conversations about an issue she was having with her son's teacher, so my frame of mind was already agitated. The receptionist explained that Zach had lost his phone in class today and the teacher had to leave so it was available for pick up at the front desk until 3:30. I was annoyed! I heard he lost his phone and assumed that he had gotten his phone taken away from him and now he was up at the school staying after for tutoring and theater and I had no way to get ahold of him. It was 3:05, so I did the only "logical" thing I could do. I jumped up from the chair with the towel wrapped around my soaking-wet-dripping hair and ran (drove) around the corner to retrieve said phone. Did I mention I was annoyed and agitated??? 

I should have been annoyed with Zach for losing his phone, but instead at that moment that was not the receiving end of my crazy. Me and my towel- wrapped- soaking-head self marched up to the desk and with an attitude of a queen of sass loudly stated that I was here to gather my son's confiscated phone.  The next three events happened just about simultaneously: the three staff members sitting at the desk all stared at me dumbfounded and confused, the receptionist, who had stepped away returned to her desk and Zach's assistant principal, who I had spoken on the phone with many times, but never actually met, walked up.  To make sure you have this scene well imagined remember my hair is soaking wet, dripping down my face and wrapped in a towel, I am also agiatated...remember the poor Waste Management crew from a year ago...yeah, like that!

Poor Mr. Assistant Principal was trying to introduce himself while the receptionist was trying to explain that by lost she had not meant confiscated, but actually lost, like forgotten!  Oh...

What does one do in that moment other than look for the nearest hole to crawl into...and then send an email...

Well that was embarrassing!! Not my best moment!!

As I was recounting the story to a friend today, she of course laughed with me, but then gave me a lot of grace and reminded me that I still have a lot going on. That I was not expected to suddenly have all my stuff together. She joked that she had contemplated having some "get out of jail free" cards printed up for me. It's funny, but also not a bad idea.  I don't at all want to use my grief as a continued excuse, but at the same time I still do at times require a little extra grace. 

There are still a couple areas in which I would like the pass or " get out of jail free card".  Certainly for those towel-wrapped- crazy girl moments! There are also sometimes that by the end of the day I wish I could have the card for homework projects and paperwork for my job.  Church is also one of those challenging areas for me .  I have not been to church since November.  There are multiple reasons. For one this whole Monday to Friday gig is new to me, I'm used to working 3 days a week. Working 5 days is exhausting!! It's also really hard to get stuff done in the short amount of time of the weekend, especially as a single parent.  I have done a fair amount of traveling as well and we have been out of town for a few Sunday's. More than anything else though those things are just excuses for the fact that  I just don't want to go. 

My last good, healthy memory of Jake is him worshipping at church. He sat in the front row and  the guest pastor seemed to be speaking just to him. He told the story of how a 15 year old young lady was able to change legislation, allowing Bible Study in school. He encouraged the young people in the room to not let there age discourage them from doing something big for God. He worshipped that morning, like others before them with hands raised, surrounded by friends.  Sitting there now and singing the songs that Jake loved is painful. There are not words to decribe what it is like to sit steps away from where his coffin sat. I close my eyes and imagine him standing there with arms stretched wide worshipping and think about a time when I will once again be able to see him and worship Christ together.  My faith is strong. My love for Christ unwavering. But being there is hard. 

On top of all that there are people. People who I love. People I don't care for. And people I don't know and they don't know me.  Sometimes their words and actions hurt me.  I'd like to believe they don't realize that they hurt me, but my history tells me sometimes they know and they just don't care. 

Church people are very judgemental, I know because I'm one of them and I have been on the other end of judging someone before. I honestly didn't mean to be judgemental. I really believed that I was "speaking the truth in love". Unfortunatly I realize that while that may have been my intent, mostly I spoke arrogance in ignorance.  

I am still hurt and unfortunately the hurting is not just magically going to go away.  I know it's important to be involved in a larger body of believers, I know there is accountability and safety in the church body and that it's important for the boys to be connected as well. I know that "Satan prowls around like a lion seeking to devour..." But I also know that my relationship with Christ is secure and that my boys have a saving relationship with Him. I know that this is but one season out of a lifetime of seasons.  Healing will come, we just need a little more time, grace and understanding and that "get out of jail free" card...