My Grief and My Guilt

When we lost Cale I called only a few people. Miles called the rest and eventually word just got out. I called my parents and they got a hold of my brother who was deployed at the time. I also called my sister Kate, who didn't answer, so I sent her a text just asking her to call me.  When she called she was excited. She asked "are you in labor!?" and I had to tell her that we lost him. That the baby was gone. She cried immediately. She was confused and hurt and I could hear in her voice how very broken she already was for us, for Cale. One of the first people that Kate got in touch with before she flew out to be with us, was her friend Katie. Katie was there for her, she listened, consoled, and was a very good friend to Kate. She even sent us a very kind letter that I still have.

Last week Katie called Kate with the eerily similar and heartbreaking news that this time it was her sister who had lost a baby.

When my sister called me she was so upset. So upset that this tragedy continues to happen, so upset that her friend is hurting, that she knows what she is going through - to not only grieve for the baby, but for her sister as well. She was upset because it brought back so many memories and she was upset because she still misses Cale.

Obviously, I don't like seeing or hearing my sister so heartbroken, but I do appreciate how very real baby loss is to her and how much she loves her nephew.

Kate asked me what they should do. She asked what advice I had for her to pass on to Katie and what she could help with. Immediately I rattled of Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. I told her to encourage them to take as many pictures as possible, to hold their baby (they didn't know the gender at the time, and learned at delivery that they had a baby girl), and just take their time with her and examine every part of her. I contacted Katie and sent her links and blogs and tips without trying to be too overwhelming, though you just want these people, these poor unfortunate parents who are walking in your shoes, to know everything you didn't and to know that you are so very heartbroken for them.

And I am heartbroken for them. It doesn't matter that I don't know them. Because they lost a baby and that alone means I know them better than I ever should.

When you hear of a new loss, you not only grieve for all that should have been for this other baby and this other family, but it brings back a lot of your own grief. It's not like I don't know that I still miss Cale and am still so sad that he's not here, but sometimes these things happen and just remind you how very much you still hurt and how very horrible it all still is. Despite all the good that has come, despite the 20 incredible months we have had with his brother, I still desperately miss my first son.

But along with my grief also comes a lot of guilt. I don't like that I know what to recommend to a grieving family. I don't like that I know how to respond, or have some helpful things to share. I obviously don't like it because I don't want to have the first hand knowledge and experience, but I also don't like it because a lot of the things that I say are things that I didn't do with Cale and things I will forever regret.

The fact of the matter is that I did not do Cale justice when he was born.

I don't say that to fetch for kind words or for anyone to tell me otherwise, because that is just a fact and always will be. I held him for far too brief of a time and I didn't even unwrap the blanket he was wrapped in. We didn't know about Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, but when asked if we wanted to take pictures, I said no. Thank God my nurse took two anyway, but what if she hadn't? It would have only make my grief, and my guilt, that much stronger.

I can make excuses and I know that I was in shock at the time, lost and confused, and how could we have known exactly what to do? But as his mother, as someone who carried him for nine months and loved him and planned a life for him, I felt like I should have, and I could have, done more for him in the short time we had together.

What it all goes back to is that I just wish I took my time with him. I do wish I took pictures - pictures of his hands, his little feet, pictures of us holding him, etc - but I mostly wish that I saw more of him. He's wearing just a diaper in one of his pictures, but I wish that I saw that with my own eyes. I wish I kissed his toes, and dressed him in the clothes that were already packed in my hospital bag. I wish I held his hand in mine and really took a moment to just breathe him in.

I know what I did do when I had him was important. I did hold him, and I did kiss him and tell him I loved him, but that will never be enough. And I will forever wish that things were different.

All I can do now is try to make up for it. To honor Cale and do him justice the best I can. Maybe it's by sharing his story or by helping others. And hopefully in the process other baby loss families will have a little less guilt, because no one needs guilt on top of grief - their grief is already so much.

Please keep baby Emma and her family in your thoughts and prayers. This is a tough road they're walking on.

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Happy 27th, Daren

Today my brother-in-law should be turning 27. Instead, two years ago today we attended his funeral at West Point. We sang him Happy Birthday at the end of the service. It was really special and really, really sad.

As I mentioned on the anniversary of his passing, we want today, his birthday, to be more of a celebration, especially as Finley gets older. So today we ate chicken fingers (Daren's favorite) and we enjoyed an ice cream cake. Even Finn got down on Daren's Birthday dinner - I'm just thankful that Daren's favorite dish wasn't a plate full of vegetables because then we'd have issues!

Chicken Fingers, Fries, and Beer.

 Happy Birthday toast!

This was the smallest cake they had. Oh darn.

A little over a week ago we completed the CrossFit Hero WOD that was created for Daren. Miles has done it before, but I never have - I've never really done a CrossFit workout before that was longer than ten minutes and oh. my. goodness. this was a total smoker. Here's the workout normally:

"Hidalgo"

For time:
Run 2 miles
Rest 2 minutes
135 pound Squat clean, 20 reps
20 Box jump, 24" box
20 Walking lunge steps with 45lb plate held overhead
20 Box jump, 24" box
135 pound Squat clean, 20 reps
Rest 2 minutes
Run 2 miles

I obviously had to scale the weight back a lot. A whole lot. And it still was exhausting. Oh, and did I mention that you are supposed to wear a 20 lb weight vest for the entire workout! Yeah, I didn't do that. Roscoe ran the first two miles with me and we had a lot of great friends come out to complete it as well. The gym that hosted it raised donations for Daren's Memorial Fund and they had a great turnout of people (probably around 40-50 total) who didn't even know Daren, but who wanted to do the workout in his honor. It was really great to see.

Happy Birthday Daren, we love you.

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February Pinterest Projects

Here's the my roll  up of February Pinterest Projects, or at least the ones I remembered to document:

Long Distance Hug Valentines
I thought these were super cute and simple and best of all, I actually got them mailed in time to both sets of Finn's grandparents. We traced Finn's little hands and then cut ribbon the length of his arms.

Roasted Brussels Sprout Side Dish
I pinned this because it looked delicious, but when it came to making it, I actually just winged it and threw in whatever I thought would be good which ended up being the roasted brussels sprouts, a cut up and roasted sweet potato, soy beans, feta cheese, craisins, pecans and and avocado all lightly tossed in balsamic vinegar dressing.

Pretzel Buttons
Mmmm. Who doesn't love a salty and sweet combination. The ones shown were made for Valentine's day, but I actually made these a couple days ago so just used regular M&M colors which may or may not have been left over Halloween candy that's been sitting in our garage (because if it sits in the pantry, I will eat it all. Fact.)

Strawberry Basil Sangria
This is one of those dangerous drinks that is so good, you'll find that you've finished off half a pitched in no time. And by half I mean whole.

I made this sangria when we had friends over for dinner, which was another Pinterest Recipe, Chicken Chimichangas. I didn't take a picture of them, but they were pretty delicious.

That's about if for things that I got directly off Pinterest. I did make a few other recipes that I didn't take pictures of, but here are a few other things I made:

Almond Butter
I copied my friend Brandy on this one and followed her tutorial which is pretty much the following - buy almonds, blend them. You're done.

It tastes great with apples, but for some reason both Miles and I keep expecting it to taste like peanut butter. This is a much healthier alternative though and when I made another batch of the No Bake Energy Bites I made last month and used half almond butter, half peanut butter. I think I'll make this more often, especially when I attempt to go Paleo for a month.

Gender Reveal Cake
This wasn't actually a gender reveal cake as my friends had already learned a couple days before that they were having a boy. But, because I was going to see them a few days after they learned the gender, and because I love cake, I decided to make one for the heck of it. The pennant says "Baby Boy" but if it were to be used as a gender reveal cake it could have said something else like "Boy or Girl?"

Furniture Redo
Diane was my biggest furniture project this month, but the set she came with included a nightstand and a tall dresser. I didn't do anything special to these - just painted them a grey color that came out more light blue looking that I thought it would and I replaced the hardware. I'm sort of meh about how they turned out. They are in our guest room now, but will eventually be the furniture Finn uses when he transitions out of his crib (which isn't anytime soon - the boy can rack out in there, so I'm not messing with it, we've got a good thing going).

I had intended to share the quilt I'm working on for Finn, but the month got away from me before I finished it. Maybe next month. Anyone have any good projects from the month that I can copy?


Recap:
January Pinterest Projects

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Diane the Distressed Diva

I could have waited to share this with the round up of the rest of my Pinterest projects for the month, but I think it deserves its own post and quite frankly, I took too many pictures and made too many collages not to dedicate one post to this particular project.

A little background first - I have never liked the TV stand we own. I had the same problem Brooke did, where we didn't need a new one, but I just hated how it looked. We bought it from Target when I was living on my own in South Carolina for a course and Miles was on deployment numero dos. I knew one day I'd redo the guest room furniture we owned (which we inherited free from Miles' parents - score!), but figured I would only re-paint it and still use it as bedroom furniture. We had three pieces - a tall dresser and a nightstand, that I'll share later with the other projects from the month, and a long dresser with a mirror attached to it. One night while Miles was away, and I was up until midnight working on whatever random thing I do while he is gone instead of going to bed at a reasonable time, I decided that the long dresser could become our new TV stand. So I listed our old one on Craigslist and decided that if it sold, I would be justified in turning the dresser into a TV stand. Well as luck would have it, this puppy sold two hours later.

I was so happy someone wanted this that I didn't really think through how I would get it in my car considering 

Miles wasn't home. But somehow I not only lifted the TV to the ground, and it's a 57 inch screen mind you, 

but I also moved the stand into the back of my car. I'm pretty much the strongest woman alive.

A friend watched Finn while I happily met up with the buyer and dropped off the TV stand (in a public place

and I had another friend come with me as well as Roscoe - because people can be creeps).

So then began the project of redoing the dresser, we'll call her Diane the dud:

Diane had a lot going for her - she's made of solid wood, has lots of space, and no major structural issues.  But she just wasn't too purdy.

I took Finn to Lowe's to pick out a color and some supplies as well as new hardware. I really love all the different hardware options available at Hobby Lobby, but about 90% of their inventory is for knobs, not pulls, and I didn't want to fill in all the pull holes and re-drill new holes (like I did for Gray Gertrude), so I ended up finding hardware at Lowe's that I liked. I got all my supplies there simply because Lowe's has a military discount and I think it's important to support businesses who support the troops.

These are the three main products I used and was very happy with each of them:

I wanted a distressed look, but was very tentative to start because what if I distressed it and hated it and wasted all that time painting and would need to sand it all off and start over, and did I mention I started this about a week before Miles was to return home even though he had been gone an entire month? So anyway, I decided to just give it a shot and used all of Finn's nap and bedtimes to work on it. The entire process went like this: take off old hardware, disassemble mirror, ask nice friends to help you move heavy ass furniture into garage, clean dresser, paint, let dry, paint again, let dry, sand, distress, wipe down, rub stain on, wipe stain off, let dry, apply polycrylic, let dry, apply polycrylic again, let dry, ask same nice friends to help you move furniture back inside, install new hardware, line drawers, assemble drawers, take obscene amount of pictures, share on blog.

Overall it took me about five days from start to finish ensuring that there was lots of time for it to dry in between steps. Here are a few pictures to illustrate said steps showing the initial paint, the distressing (done with sandpaper and 'ding'ing up the wood with a hammer, and staining the piece which just involved wiping the stain on, and immediately off, with a cloth. I used regular wood stain.

I decided that I wanted to keep the doors on, but when you open the doors there are three drawers inside and I'd need to remove two of those to make room for the DirectTV and PlayStation consoles. That was done through the following steps shown below: remove old drawers, remove drawer tracks, get plywood cut to fit, paint plywood, drill holes where drawer tracks used to line up, screw in plywood to existing holes, cut out two holes in back of furniture for cords and cables,  laugh at silly dog who is looking through the other end of the newly cut out hole, give media its new home.

We do not own a jigsaw or another of the sort - so I had to cut the hole out for the cables

 in a somewhat ghetto fashion with the drill, but it worked and it's not like you see it anyway.

Ok, now to the really fun stuff - the before and after pictures, or as I like to call it, Diane the Dud transforms into Diane the Distressed Diva!

Also, I forgot to mention that we had a cheapie bookshelf (also a Target purchase from when we moved in to our first apartment) and it housed all of the DVDs we never watch own. Every. Single. Day, Finn would terrorize the shelf and pull the DVDs down. It drove me nuts. But now they are tucked away neatly in the drawers. He still gets into them on occasion, but it's not as often.

I don't have one particular link or tutorial I followed, but this one gave me the idea for the color (I used Valspar Cafe Blue), other than that I kind of just winged it based off things I've read in the past and tips I've picked up along the way. I had some supplies on hand already that I needed for Diane - the stain and polycrylic finish, but I still needed to buy a few things such as the paint (which was a paint and primer in one), some drop cloths, paint brushes, plywood, and the hardware which was the most expensive. After subtracting the money I got for the old TV stand, the total cost of Diane's makeover was $78.04.  Not too shabby.

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How Precious Life Is

My friend Katie shared this song with me a few weeks ago. She said she thinks of me every time she listens to it and of course it brought me to tears when she played it for me. I promptly bought the album myself and wanted to share. Click here to listen to it.

Before I quit Facebook for Lent, I looked up the singer. I sent him a message and told him how beautiful the song was and told him about Cale. I also said that if he wrote it because of personal experience, I was so very sorry, but grateful none-the-less to have heard his song. He wrote back and was very kind, offering his sympathy over the loss of Cale. He told me that he wrote the song for a good friend who went through something similar with his son and he didn't know how to help, but wanted to do something. I think it's an incredibly kind gesture and I suspect meant an enormous amount to his friend.

How Precious Life Is (Andy Gullahorn):

We moved the desk out of the office
Took down the college picture frames
Painted all the walls yellow
Because it goes with anything
Put those guards on all the outlets
Found a safer car to buy
Did it all for your protection
And your mama’s piece of mind

I couldn't see it ‘til now
You were teaching us then
How precious life is

I saw you in that picture
When they said you were a boy
Though I swore I had no preference
Those words filled my heart with joy
My mind raced ahead a decade
It had us camping near a fire
Where you’d tell me all your troubles
And I’d make everything alright

I couldn't see it ‘til now
You were teaching us then
How precious life is

God willing if we have another child
I’ll see it for the miracle it is
I’ll be hanging on to every blessed breath
‘cause I can’t forget
How precious life is

I thought I knew what pain was
But I really had no clue
Until the hope was disappearing
And there was nothing we could do
I was too tired to shout in anger
Too scared to run and hide
I just stared there at your mother
And thanked God she was alive

I couldn't see it ‘til now
You were teaching us then
How precious life is


For more information on the artist or this particular album you can click here. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have.

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