Unnecessary

Dear medical & billing coding persons and/or the insurance industry,

Maybe one day...

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

Eleanor Roosevelt

Things a 6 year old boy should not have to ask.

Jack came to sit with me & then asked me when John's birthday is. I replied to him, telling him the date (its a few months away).

Then he asks 'Can we celebrate daddy's birthday, even though he died? That's ok right?'

The empty space you should be filling

Just another poem that seems so appropriate to my situation.  I miss you so much, John.

I have not felt you
for so many days,
so many nights.
I have sat next to a stranger,
I have held the hand of ghost.
I have kissed the lips of a phantom
And I have put my arm around
The empty space
you should be filling.

- Tyler Knott Gregson

There's someone missing...

I took a picture with the kids yesterday for Easter.  It hurts my heart to take "family" pictures without John.  Its like there is always someone missing from the picture.  I can pretty much just see him right in there, where he should be- next to me.  But there is no John there.  There will never be John there again.  I hate that, its not right.  But I dont want to not have group pictures for occasions, so we took one anyway. 

Laughing and crying

A friend of mine made a post to me today about a memory she had earlier today involving John.  I actually like when people do this- a lot of times they are stories I had completely forgotten about. 

She mentioned that as she heard a particular song on the radio today & it reminded her of a trip we all (John & I, her and her husband) took one night to a casino.  We had a blast, and by the time we left the guys were quite intoxicated.  John kept putting on a bunch of songs and she and I had to listen to those two "serenade" us the whole way home.  The drive was easily an hour and their singing was hilarious- basically like really bad karaoke inside a car.

She mentioned in her comment how this memory made her both laugh and cry, and how people in traffic probably thought she was crazy.

I told her not to worry about it- if she looks crazy, I must look downright insane most of the time, because I do that quite often.

"How are you?" or "How are you doing?"

I get this question a lot.  Its always THE question people first ask me.  I get why, and I understand the question is generic and well meaning...it also happens to be my LEAST favorite question.

You think you know, but you have no idea...

“Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

A friend shared this quote with me semi recently.

And isn't it so true?  Maybe you read it and think "Yeah, I know that feeling." And maybe you do, but I am betting a lot of people who think that- unless they have suffered some of the "earth shattering" forms of loss that would really give you perspective on what that quote really MEANS.  (And if you do know that kind of loss...I am so so sorry for you.)

Maybe you are luckily blissfully unaware of how true this statement can be in a person's life, maybe you've never experienced that kind of loss- that isn't really the point here.

Reminder

John listened to this CD a lot when he was sick, and would cry over it sometimes. He asked me not to listen to it until he was gone. I've finally ventured into listening to it and I see why it made him so sad now. He probably knew I would be a blubbering mess along side him if I had listened to the CD while he was alive.

This song in particular is very hard to listen to, but is also very touching.

The last video I have of John

This is the last video clip I have with John in it.  The kids got an air hockey table at Christmas and John hadnt gotten to play it with them.  One day a couple of weeks after Christmas while in his wheelchair we were able to position him in a way to play a few rounds with our youngest son.  As you can tell, our youngest was very proud to score a point on his dad ;) 

You can see John's arms/hands were beginning to give him trouble (as in he was losing control of them- we knew that would happen from the tumor, per the Dr's, but that did not make it any easier when we began to see it happening).  That really was the turning point for him- his arms began to go out, then within a rapid period of time basically did not work at all.  Within a couple of weeks of the onset of this he had passed.

Even with difficulty controlling his arms/hands and barely able to hold the air hockey mallet, he still played a couple of rounds of air hockey with our boy. I will always cherish these little videos I have of him, especially this one while he was sick and could barely control his arms/hands, but still did what our kid wanted him to do- spend time playing with him.  That's just part of why he was such a great dad- he'd do nearly anything for the kids, even if it was something that he had to struggle to do.  It broke his heart when he lost the use of his arms completely for lots of reasons, but mainly bc it left him much less able to interact with the kids or play with them.  It broke my heart for the same reason, and also because it left him so defeated.  We also knew that the loss of his arms meant that he would likely go downhill somewhat quickly...I didnt think it would be as quick as it was, and I'll never know if the infection caused him to pass, or if it was in fact the tumor, but either way, it was WAY too fast- much less time than we had hoped for when we began this nightmare, but also way less time than we expected once we were told there was nothing anyone could do for him.