8 Years

July 25, 2012 was a Wednesday. The middle of the week, an ordinary day. Two months earlier on May 25, 2012 we buried my Mother in Albuquerque after a fatal motorcycle accident. She died on a sunny Sunday afternoon, two days before my 30th birthday. I can recall exactly where I was on the sidewalk outside the hospital, when I got the call from my sister telling me our Mom was dead. Friends and family had been trying to reach me for several hours, I had had my phone off to enjoy dinner with friends who had come to serve at The Ronald McDonald House where we were staying across from Cook Children's. Shock and dismay immediately took over. For a moment, my world stopped right there on that sidewalk in Ft. Worth Texas. 

The last good photo I took of my Mom. 

On July 24, 2012 I sat by my daughter's hospital bed and pleaded with God not to take her, not her, not now. This isn't the way our story together was supposed to end. He had already taken my Grandma Juanita in March, then my Mom in May, and now this, it couldn't be happening, this couldn't be God's plan. Eight years later, and I can vividly remember those desperate moments and pleading prayers. Jesus was there, telling me I could go on, because HE lives. Those intimate moments with Jesus by my daughter's deathbed help me keep my faith on my darkest days. 

 I remember our Pastor Daniel,  holding space with us, never leaving our side. It was Daniel's birthday the night before, if I recall correctly. I remember when we went into the tiny private family room in the cardiac surgery area. It was only Amos, Daniel, and I. This is the room they take you in away from anyone else, if its serious. Of course at that point in the morning, there were no other families around anyway, but it was a private room to give us some sort of solace and rest, a simple kindness. We sat in that small space, covered in off white hospital blankets, the kind they stick into the warmers and give to ER patients. We sat, each in our own chair,  into the wee hours of the morning, as they made a last ditch effort in the Cath lab, to go in and break up the clots in Koralyn's heart that had been killing her over the last 3 days. 

I can still feel the weight of Dr. Roten's hand as she took mine, and told us it was time to stop and let Koralyn go. I had asked her to do that a night or two before when we first realized there was a problem, but weren't sure what it was yet. Dr. Roten had been at Koralyn's bedside in cicu performing a sonogram, and I asked her to tell me when Koralyn had no more brain activity and it was just time to stop all efforts. She was true to her word, gentle, and kind, in that unforgiving moment for us both.  Her, as our dedicated cardiologist who fought for our daughter to the very end, losing the war for this patient and all who loved her. Me, as Koralyn's mother, fighting this same war, and losing my daughter in this last awful battle. 

The last picture I have of my Koralyn Marie.
She is already swelling and uncomfortable in this picture.

Eight years later, and I can remember how my legs felt like they wouldn't carry me out of that hospital building without my baby. The silent drive home with Amos in his truck, as friends followed behind in our Traverse. Getting home and wondering what we were supposed to do now. Home, but at the same time, a foreign country we didn't recognize, hostile to all our senses. We collapsed and cried on our bed until we fell asleep, later waking up to realize I was still wearing the blood soaked clothes I had been in for two days now. Koralyn had bled all over me as I held her to say our last goodbyes. A medically fragile death is not pretty, or without swelling and blood loss. I remember thinking I didn't want anyone to see my baby all swollen and bruised the way she was, it was horrific, and I didn't want everyone to remember her in that way. Eight years later and still so vivid and fresh in my mind. Just so many memories that will never ever leave me for as long as I live. I can see God's grace and provision in each one, but that doesn't cancel out the hard harsh reality of death and dying. I don't think its supposed to, God never ever promised us easy while on this earth. 

The last few months have been hard, I know they have been hard on us all for many reasons. Covid-19 and all the unrest has taken a toll on us all in some way. I hurt for all the people who have lost loved ones during this strange time. All those unable to be at their loved ones bedside to say goodbye, adding insult to injury, and grief. Being able to say goodbye is a beautiful, painful gift. So many haven't been able to have closure, and grieve together properly. Its gut wrenching to think about what all of this means for each and every person grieving during this time. Hard, hard realities that I fear will drown many people in complicated grief. 

All this has me reflecting on the last eight years, where I have been, and how far I have come. Honestly I feel more then a bit stuck in many ways. I know I have lived over the last eight years, yet in some ways I still feel like that very broken, and shocked 30 year old girl. The young mom, trying to make her heavy grief weighted legs walk her out of that children's hospital without her baby, without her own mom to help carry her, leaving much of her innocence, and youth in those halls as she left. I guess this is grief, it changes you, and somehow also keeps you standing still in many ways too. 

So I keep going over in my mind, and in my prayers, what I have managed to do during the last eight years. I suppose to reassure myself that I haven't stayed "stuck in my grief" like so many people like to tell anyone who is grieving. Oh, I have for sure had more then a few well meaning people ever so Kindly ask, or tell me that I am stuck, and need to somehow move on. What non-grievers don't understand is that grief has no timeline, and as long as we live in this broken world, grief has no end. It doesn't end because love doesn't end. Surely those who think you should be "done" with your grief after one year, or two, or even 10, must have never grieved or lost. Grief is part of our human condition. It has either come, or is coming for us all, just like death. Grief doesn't even have to be tied to a death to be grief, its a shape shifter and comes for many reasons and always takes up some sort of permanent residence in those it visits. 

 So here I sit over these weeks asking myself what it is I have managed to do, to accomplish, over the last 2,920 days. I have managed to keep breathing. To keep trying. Some days that has been so hard. I have had 3 more babies since burying our sweet Koralyn. 

Getting to ride to recovery with my Abram Jace.
So grateful for this healthy baby. You can see the joy in my face

November 2013, we had Abram Jace, and brought my Dad to Dallas in December 2013, to live and fight cancer. He told us months earlier while I was still pregnant with Abram, that there was cancer in his lungs. The doctors in St. Louis gave him little hope after a surgery to try and remove the cancer failed. We felt Baylor Sammon's Cancer center, and our family, with the help of my Dad's brother, my Uncle Mark, could help prolong things, and hopefully give him a good quality of life. We wanted him to be around family and feel loved and supported as much as possible. So Dad lived in both homes, ours in Midlothian, and Mark's in Mesquite, depending on his treatments at Baylor in Dallas. He lived and fought for almost a year. In July 2014, I sat at his bedside as he lay dying in my Sister's house in New Mexico because he wanted to die at "home" from that cancer overtaking his body. In June his Oncologist was astounded at the cancer retreating from his body, by August he was gone.

In the span of two years I lost both of my parents, one to a tragic accident, and one to the beast that is lung cancer. I managed to survive that, while also having a newborn, and two small boys, soon turning 8 and 5. Even though my past with my dad contained pain,  I am so grateful he was able to come be in my home and make memories with my boys. Asa and Asher still speak of him and their time together. To them, for those months, my Dad was a larger than life old cowboy who loved them much. I am so glad that is how they will remember him, and that I will always have those images too. The images in my mind of my Dad reading to my boys, playing baseball with them, coloring Easter eggs and decorating Christmas cookies; God brings beauty and healing in the midst of unhealed hurts and pain. 

In early 2015, we found out we were pregnant again. We had talked about maybe trying for one more baby to complete our family. We did all the genetic testing and found out early on that we were having a baby girl! I was home alone when I received that call and after crying and hanging up with the nurse I hit my knees and thanked God for allowing us to have another precious daughter. I went right out and bought little baby girl outfits, and a pink rattle with a card. I put them all in a baby bag, and waited for Amos and the boys to get home from take your child to work day. What a joyous and exciting moment that was for us all. 

The day we found out we were having a girl!
 I got to share the happy news with my boys! 

The boys meeting their Tiny Sister. We were all so excited. 

Each pregnancy since Koralyn, has come with much baggage. We have to be extra cautious and get lots of prenatal testing done for the entire pregnancies. Its emotionally and financially draining. We also had people question why we would ever try to have more babies after what happened to Koralyn and knowing I have a known defect. Feeling judged as a grieving person and a pregnant mama is very hard. So we never went into any pregnancy lightly, but with much prayer and faith, as well as science and discussions with my OBGYN and our Cardiologists. So I guess I have managed to survive three more pregnancies since having my heart baby. That last surprise one really knocked me down for quite some time. 

 I have moved two times since 2012. Maybe in the back of our minds, we thought moving might help us start fresh, only to find we are the same people, with the same hurts no matter what our address is.  I miss my home in Midlothian, I so desperately thought moving from that home that held so much sadness and death for me would help. I was having reoccurring nightmares of finding Abram and Karis at the bottom of our pool, and having to choose which child to save. I was so relieved the day we moved, now I miss that home, with the pool and the shop, and enough rooms for our family of 7. I especially miss being close to Koralyn's grave in the Midlothian Cemetery, and all the friends and memories the kids had established there. We have lost money and sleep over all these moves. Live and learn, hindsight is 20/20 as they say. I have to trust that God is Sovereign and uses what we think are our mistakes and failures too. These moves didn't come without much consideration and prayer. 

I have struggled with anxiety, ptsd, and depression. The ptsd, and depression became evident to me in 2016, about a year after Karis was born and a few months after we had moved to Red Oak,  from Midlothian. One day I realized everything felt so hard and overwhelming. Everything felt like treacherous and scary work. I was always exhausted and sad. Just the thought of the laundry or the grocery shopping would make me want to curl up and not get out of bed. Overwhelm, just complete overwhelm at every task. I wanted to do a good job, but felt like I couldn't. My mind, heart and body just felt complete overwhelm about every single thing. I knew I needed help. I sought out both counseling and medication to try and help me overcome this darkness. We had all received excellent counseling from our beloved Ms. Jackie after Koralyn's death, but I had stopped going when she moved. Amos and the children had been released from needing to go at that point. I found a new counselor and started going weekly again, I also asked my OBGYN for an appointment and a prescription to help me. 

We moved again in 2018 when we realized we couldn't keep sustaining sending our kids to private christian school. Financially with more babies and medical bills we had used all our savings to pay for Ovilla Christian School for Asa and Asher. We knew we surely couldn't afford to send the rest of our children. So we moved even further away from our friends, and Amos's work to try and find a house in a small, safe school district. I never dreamed I would be sending my kids to public school, that had never been a part of my plan as a mother, but here we were. I had tried twice to homeschool both Asa and Asher and felt like I had completely failed even though I have a teaching degree. In April 2018 we moved to Patriots Outpost, Asa completed his 5th grade year, and Asher his 2nd at Millsap Elementary. Asa has since been diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety, and our Asher James has had to work through some anger and trauma as well. We decided they both needed to receive more counseling to help each of them through. 

Then the summer of 2018 shortly after moving here to Weatherford, we found out we were pregnant again. Surprise right? We sure were, we were not expecting to ever be expecting again! I was so shocked I told no one for an entire week. I kept thinking those positive pregnancy tests had to be a mistake. Around the time I was shocked to find out I was pregnant for the 8th time in my life, I lost a friendship I honestly thought would last my lifetime. She was a dear friend who had been there through all my ups and downs with me since our oldest boys were just babies really. I considered her a sister really, and was so grateful, and truthfully dependent on her friendship and support. She had been right there while my baby was dying. She was one of the first persons I called when my Mom was killed. She had been right there to celebrate Abram and Karis with me, and had done so much to support and love me well. Losing her friendship was a complete gut punch to me. I was devastated and so confused. To me, it felt like another death or divorce. Asa really took it hard because he lost one of his best friends as well, when she decided she was done with me. There have been many nights he has come to me in tears over the loss of this friendship. It stings to the core. I still have days when I want to text her and catch up, when I want to ask her what exactly went wrong. Fear of more hurt and rejection keeps me silent. So I managed to make it through that and have a healthy baby boy in February 2019. 

Alden Jonah is here! 

The Spring after Alden was born in 2019, someone called CPS and reported that I was abusing my older boys. I thought the men coming to my door were salesmen interrupting my quiet time with my newborn, boy was I wrong. I was dumbfounded when they said they were with Child Protective Services and I alone was being accused of abuse. Having those two men show up at my door was absolutely devastating. They came in and interviewed me, took pictures of my kids rooms, my fridge, my pantry, my newborn front and back in only his diaper. It was such a humiliating experience. They opened an investigation on me and interviewed neighbors, friends and my children's pediatricians. They even interviewed Amos alone. Eventually after several months, they declared the accusations unfounded and closed my case. To this day, I am still so shocked and ashamed that anyone would think I would abuse my children. It breaks my heart, and makes me question my parenting abilities that anyone would believe me an abuser. It has made me question all of my mothering abilities and choices. I was reassured by so many that it happens to normal, loving, non abusive parents all the time. I still feel like I now wear a scarlet letter of parenting shame. 

Two days after CPS showed up at our door,  Amos came home early from work to tell me the biopsy his dermatologist had taken showed some form of rare cancer and we had to go see an Oncologist. That day was so hard. Knee buckling and gut wrenching hard. I won't ever forget the look of fear in Amos's eyes and the sound in his voice. My big strong husband, weak and scared of what was coming. He couldn't speak the words for a long time. We both just stood there, him terrified to tell me, and me terrified at whatever he was about to say. Before he could get the words out, I was so afraid CPS was coming to take me to jail, its laughable now, but then it all felt so devastating and scary, because I have never been in trouble with the law before so I was just terrified. Now I think I would have gladly spent a few nights in the pokey to not have heard the word cancer come out of my husbands mouth. After he forced the words out we just stood holding each other and crying. Months and several tests would go by, including a bone marrow biopsy and a call to 911, before a final diagnosis of Cutaneous and Systemic Mastocytosis. Amos is now a life long Oncology patient, but we are so grateful with careful care, and treatment he will hopefully keep going for a long time. We need each other so much to help raise our 5 babies. 

 I feel like I have lived one thousand years in these last eight, while some moments I question if I have lived any moments at all. So much has been clouded by trauma, grief, and exhaustion. I have been striving to make sense and then just survive the next trauma it seems. Trying so hard to make beauty from ashes I suppose. Eight years later and I don't feel I have done much but survive and keep trying. Eight years later and my biggest feelings right now, today and for a long time are exhaustion and regret. I haven't accomplished some great thing in my daughter's honor. I haven't started a foundation, written a book, spoken at large events, anything at all really that one would point to and say, see here, beauty from ashes. 

I guess what I can say is that I have tried hard to keep doing the next right thing. Grief and trauma take so much out of a person physically and mentally. So we have to often focus on just doing the next right thing so to speak. Sometimes the next right thing is something small and sometimes its something big and noteworthy. Most times for the overwhelmed grieving person, the next right thing is learning to breathe and hope again. Learning that grief and joy can and do coexist. Often doing the next right thing when you are grieving is learning to let go of other people's opinions and judgments about your grief and your living with it. Learning to make decisions again and move forward. Learning to honor your grief and your love while continuing to live.

In the last eight years, I know there has been much beauty and joy in the midst of everything that has happened. I have 5 kids and a loving, and wonderful husband that has been with me for each minute of these last eight years. I can say with God's help, that I have made it through each day, sometimes barely, but I have made it. For now, I will keep struggling, surviving, and hoping. I will keep living and trying and putting my trust in a God who knows and sees each tear I shed. I trust He sees our hurts and all of our wounds. I have much to be thankful for and a hope in Christ that keeps me trying.