Because of You

As it approaches the holiday that reminds us how thankful we are for the lives we live and the individuals that surrounds us, as parents we have learned this year more then ever what life has given us.

In the article about the gifts Angelina gave us Karina quoted me,  “The loss of our child has been devastating. Still, our life is full. We can’t dwell on our loss. We can only celebrate what we have.”

I have to remind myself of this often. Reminding ourselves to be thankful for the moments we had, the feeling that for 60 minutes we had all 3 of our children living and breathing in the room with us. We are thankful…. So as we reflect on the holiday we hold on to all of the gifts that Jody gave us. We are new people, with softer hearts, not afraid to show emotions for people and situations. But most importantly we are thankful for all that we have in our lives… We leave with the reasons we are thankful for Jody, one of our greatest gifts…

Because of You
Because of you I appreciate the sunset more than before.
Because of you I stop to look up at the moon and wish upon a star.
Because of you I look forward to hearing the birds sing in the morning,
and thank God for their beautiful songs.
Because of you I am more understanding of others and accept people for who they are.
Because of you material things do not matter.
Because of you the touch of someone you love is more
precious than any gift you can receive.
Because of you I have a broken heart but I thank God for sending you to me.
For there is no stronger love than I hold for you.
Until we meet again…

We will sift through the holiday season standing tall knowing that an Angel carries us through each day.

We are also reminded that we are thankful for each person that walks with us. Yes it has been almost 8 months, hard to believe. But we know that our broken heart will only mend with time, and the love and understanding of others. We are also thankful for YOU….

7 Heavenly months….

Dear Jody,

You would be 7 months old little big man! For Mommy and Daddy its hard to wrap our heads around, your not being home tucked in your bed as I write this. You know your alive in our house even though your not here. We just got you the most beautiful chest for all of your belongings, it sits in the family room just where you would spend most of your time. In it is the softest blankets, the most precious teddy bears, mementos that we will always treasure.

This morning I was laying in bed thinking I wish I could turn the clock back, to just have five more minutes of time with you. To hold you and be enveloped in all your sweetness would be heavenly. I could tell you I would give anything for a few moments with you.

Last night Daddy and I were looking at pictures of you, what a treasure. We found one of the most picturesque images of you. I laugh at something Grandma Terian had said about the day you were born, Angelina was taking pictures, all she remembered was hearing click, click, click. At one point she thought about all the famous people and the paparazzi. Then she thought “he is such a very important person”. Through the series of pictures we could see nurse Jen checking your heart beat, she completed and then she bent to kiss you. Grandma was holding you, and you look just so beautiful.

For today we will take pleasure in our new picture, and remember you through smiles not tears.

Loving you always,

Momma

Just for today….

Just for today I will try to live though the next 24 hours and not expect to get over my child’s death but instead learn to live with it one day at a time….
Just for today I will remember my child’s life not his death and bask in those treasured moments we shared…
Just for today I will smile no matter how much I really hurt on the inside for maybe if I smile a little my heart will soften and begin to heal…
Just for today I will reach out and comfort a relative or a friend of mine for they are hurting too and perhaps we can help each other…
Just for today I will free myself from my self inflicted burden of guilt. For deep in my heart I know if there was anything in this world I could have done to save my child from death I would have done it
Just for today I will offer my hand in friendship to another bereaved parent for I do know what they are going through and how they feel….
Just for today I will allow myself to be happy and enjoy myself for I know I am not deserting him but Living on..
Just for today I will accept that I didn’t die when he died that my life will go on and I am the only one who can make it worthwhile…

As time goes by

As time passes us by it seems like we have done an amazing job at keeping busy, and not letting our minds rest.

This morning, I have no earthly idea what my issue is. Or why sitting here at my desk the tears start flowing as I sent another mom a message of support. I told her in just 7 days it would be 7 months since we lost Jody.

I think recently I hit that point where things are not as easy, thinking about things are not as simple anymore. Yet again we have retreated to our safe place, home. Where we have every rite to be sad, where no one judges us for it, no one looks and does not understand why we just cant “get over it”.  At home it’s easy, comfortable, and defiantly not threatening.

One might ask why??? Why are you so sad? I cannot explain it. We have these moments that span out to weeks, and although you think you are moving past the grief, it hits you like a ton of bricks. I recently gave Joe an analogy that he did not understand until I demonstrated it for him, someone gave it to me a long time ago and I have always remembered it.

“Sometimes trying to get people on the same level is like standing on a chair and pulling their weight up to stand next to you.”

Joe did not understand it until I physically stood up on the chair and said “I am here, this high… is there any possibility I could pull her up to stand next to me?” His answer was “No.”

It’s just not physically possible for a person to pull someone’s body weight up to his or her level. It was not intended in the sense it has come out to but I think you get it.

Right now I am just not on the level of others, sadness is sometimes overwhelming and people do not understand what happens through the process of losing a child.

Halloween…

Halloween was such a hard day, first to get through the day. Maybe it started the night before when we finally tried to be cheery for the kids and pulled out the bin of decorations, carved pumpkins… and a ton of old costumes. This has always been fun, the kids mix and match all the old costumes, and they love it.

But out popped the little pea pod that Jody would have been… oh Joey was just the cutest little guy in it when he wore it 4 years ago.

Joe and I said nothing other then it would have been cute on Jody. So the next morning I woke up feeling the weight, the weight of our sorrow. Why I NEED to carry that weight I have no clue.

Joe pushed us along and talked me into going out to lunch when I remembered the chest that we had seen while shopping on Thursday. It was perfect for all of Jody’s things, a forever home for the items that were collected in such a short life. So needless to say we went and picked it up. It not perfect, a little scratched and a tad bit blemished, but beautiful just like he was.

Here is the thing I would take a picture to post if I had not dropped my camera in to toilet shortly there after. Is that not lovely? That ended the day, desire dropped to nothing, my only desire was to stay in my comfort zone and not worry about anything else. Needless to say, that is what we did.  Sadly we missed what looks like a fantastic Halloween party that included plenty of fun. But its what was needed at the time. To just “Be” as we say in our family.

Stepping stones

We take small strides each day to do positive things, but being scatter brained and extremely lazy we miss our friends. So we will move on and try to keep pace with life.

Just for a giggle…

Joe was so sweet, he so kindly took a picture of Jody’s chest which I included above. But he also sent me a picture of my camera. Sitting in the ziplock bag of rice, I keep crossing my fingers that it will work. Jody’s pictures are on the camera, ones we took of the beautiful swirl on his head… P.S. the toilet was clean I swear!

Couple of rants and a special excerp from Jennifer

Halloween

It is just around the corner. Alright break it to me, its in 2 days. Being the procrastinators that we are, on top of being ill we just got our costumes today. First question… does every woman want to look like a hooker? Holy smokes, one size fits all fits only women with a B cup, and no hips…. Okay just you wait to see what we are!!! White trash here we come!

New Friends

We have been so busy, maybe a little introverted as of lately. But really we are alive! Yesterday we had Kim & Bobbie over, their Angle Grace was born on Oct. 15th the day after my birthday! So Grace, Joe and I are all birthday buddies… It was wonderful to finally get to spend sometime with Kim and Bobbie, hear them talk about Grace. Kim is such a mom, listening to her talk just made my heart feel humble. Even as a mom to an angel, your mom instincts never change. You want your precious one in your arms.

Precious Jennifer

This morning I should have been in Austin helping my mom get ready for a move, but being sick all week there was on way I would get on a plane. I will help soon, but after waking up from my coma I saw a stack of Jennifer’s school work on the island in the kitchen. I ignored the HUGE red D that stared at me all day. So this evening I started flipping through the work from last quarter and you will not believe what I found. Halfway through the stack I found these two assignments that I wanted to share.

A little something from me!

August 18, 2009

Activity: Write about two time when you have been scared.

Jennifer’s Journal:

When I was in 4th grade on the 2nd week of school my parents told me that my Mom was pregnant. I was so excited, I really thought she was going to FINALLY have a girl! But a couple of months later my Mom had an appointment to see how my baby brother, Jody was doing. Me and my brother sat out in the hall way. About an hour and a half later my parent came out crying. My parents told me that my brother would not live. They said his kidneys did not work and since they did not work there was no baby pee. Since there was no fluid he could not practice using his lungs, so his lungs were not growing. His kidneys also got very large, they were just a few centimeters smaller then a grown-ups. The next couple of months were kind of emotional. Then a month after they were told my brother would not live, my Mom thought she was having contractions. I was thinking that would be the day my brother was born and the day that he would die. But was so re-leaved when my Mom came home. That was not going to be the day.

Then two months later on April 9th my patents went into the hospital at 10 o’clock so my Mom could get ready to have Jody. I was the first person to see him, then my brother, then the rest of the family. He was so beautiful. He passed away at 9:57 that night. It was raining while he was being born and after he passed away.

Tomorrow

I will take a few minutes to share the other one tomorrow… the one that just made me tear up. She is precious.

It dawned on us

Yesterday we attended a panel discussion that included nurses from what I believe is all over the valley. We shared our story and answered questions about our experience with Jody as best we could. In that we shared our new blog address with the nurses so that they could read about our journey through the pregnancy with our precious Jody. We shared this new blog address with just one post that I just started yesterday…. Not thinking I have gotten the link to our old blog up, but I am not quite sure how easy it is to use… Visit our old blog to start from the beginning…. www.carlajoe.vox.com

Miles and Smiles…

So we should really post more often… But are living up to being SLACKERS!!!!

But I have got to tell you, we have been busy! Two weekends before the PKD walk last Sunday we held a garage sale, raising just shy of $1,200 for Team Jody and the PKD walk. We were AMAZED! Through the sale we had a big banner “All Proceeds go to the PKD Foundation” people asked we shared.

Generosity again reared it head, we had 9 families donated their things to be sold… we had tables and tables of stuff that people could hardly sift through. THANK YOU to our friends for their help!!!

We placed ads and Joe made some stellar signs that hung throughout the neighborhood. We had folks come all 3 days we held the sale, knowing we kept getting goodies from all our friends!

What touched us was those “garage salers” who left crying, offered us hugs of support, or just said that they would be praying for us. Amazing acts of kindness from so many people, some which are close friends and others who just stopped to offer their regrets.

Walking…

Team Jody at the 2009 Phoenix, PKD Walk

First, WOW….

That was all of us….  The sea of blue shirts with Jody’s picture.  More acts of kindness… Our friend Becky’s brother did the graphics for the shirts so beautifully, and the printing was done by a SUPER nice guy in Cave Creek. We told Matt he could print his logo on the shirt, do what ever he wanted. He did not want credit, he just did the printing out of the kindness of his heart, all that he asked for was a picture of the shirts in action. I will post his company info at the bottom of the blog…

Most people involved in the walk are living with ADPKD, the dominate form of PKD. ARPKD is mighty rare, there are some of us out there… Dean (the guy in the image below) is the walk organizer, we hope to get involved next year with the walk and continue working with him through the foundation in anyway.

What’s Next…

I thought about this several times over the last week…. What are we going to invest our time in now? Who the hell knows. We like to keep busy and maybe we can attend a few more parties, clean our house (fat chance!) something. We will continue to work with families that contact us through the blog or come to us in another way.

Can I tell you about Kim & Bobbie, there little girl Grace was received into heaven the other day. We had dinner scheduled on my birthday (Oct. 14^th) but Angel  Grace had other plans. We have yet to meet them, but they have been on our minds for days. Soon enough we will get together for the pizza and beer we had planned. Until then we will continue to think of them and Angel Grace. We lit a candle for her on the 14^th after we knew dinner was not an option. It’s a candle I have had for ages… So fitting for a little girl.

Further Reaching…

I have been blessed to be the mom of an Angel, I know that sounds rather positive. But seriously, so many times I think about Joe and how dads don’t quite share the same as mom’s. This leads me to tell you about so beautiful Momma’s that have filled a gap in my heart that I did not know existed. Mom’s that too have been blessed with an Angel of their own. Mom’s that know the ache in the bottom of your stomach when someone asks the questions… “How many kids do you have?” How do you respond? Us in trying to remain positive “Jennifer, 10 – Joey, 4 – and Jody, 6 Heavenly months old”

Yup… I hear you calling me stupid, maybe it is, but Jody is by far not forgotten. Yes it might prompt a question, but we share. He is one of our many blessings…

I am chronic when it comes to digressing…

Back to my point!!!

Right before I was leaving for DC, a beautiful woman Michele suggested to a few of us ARPKD mom’s that we start a Facebook group, website something. Beautiful Kate started the group… Kate and I are meant to communicate. Her daughter lost a 6 month battle with ARPKD on April 10^th. She and Jody were escorted to the next place on the same day. Kate took off running and started the group… if you are a parent of a child with ARPKD you can join..

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=148192719137&ref=mf

On the right you will see a link to the website that I did as well …. It is called ARPKD Angels too! It has a support forum in addition to the group on Facebook. Joe asked me why… My thoughts were “Gezzzz not EVERYONE is on Facebook!” to visit the site please go to www.arpkdangels.webs.com

These moms ROCK!!!

I will leave you with that…