My first Mother's Day alone. To be strong or to mope?

I didn't realize it until a couple of days ago, that I would be spending Mother's day alone.  I really don't know how tomorrow will go.  Brandon my living son is in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec on his Basic course.  He's a grown man at 22 but yet I miss him terribly.  I am glad he has joined the military.  Finally. He will be home in 3 months but in a few weeks he will have the weekend off so hopefully he can make it to see me.

I am settled in my new place.  It has it's good and it's bad.  The goods being it is a new place for me and I don't have the constant reminder of my losses.  Zachery for one.  My marriage for two. I am renting and living on post, so it is half the cost and half the size to clean.  Oh, and it is 2 minutes from work, not even.  The bad, well there is not a whole lot of bad.  The only bad is I don't feel Zachery near me here.  My old house I could feel his presence everywhere, every room I was in and every breath I took.  I could still smell his sweet baby smell everywhere.  I really neglected my gardens after I lost Zachery.  I neglected everything.  I saw no happiness and no point in life.  I remember I used to look out the backyard and it was like a movie playing in my head, us out in my weedless, perfectly manicured garden, the pond, the pool.  I was so happy.  I look back and took that happiness for granted sometimes.

I am happy, somewhat, don't get me wrong.  I am able to work, go to the gym, do things that once upon a time, I found no happiness in.  I went from finding and using every bit of strength to get out of bed, then get dressed.  I remember just doing that felt like I had run a marathon.  Literally.  Only to make myself down the stairs and flop and mope on the couch and reach for the converter and flip the tv on.  I did that many days, calling in sick to work, and just sleeping away my days.  I slept and slept and I slept.  I slept so much because it was my only escape from the sheering pain that was ripping my heart apart.  Even to breathe ached, my whole entire body felt it.  There were so many dark days, I felt what is the point?

The point was, that Brandon who was 15 at the time, still needed me.  And still needs me.  His happiness was more important than me escaping my pain and ending it all.  As painful as it was, I made it through and am still here.  It wasn't easy let me tell you. 

I had many days that I contemplated taking my own life.  It was every other day.  Or sometimes it was a bunch of days, and many times in those days put together.  Driving my car off the road.  Parking my car in the garage and leave it running.

I will brief about this.  I had come very very close one day.  It was about a year after. I had been on Oxycontin pain killers for my 2 herniated discs as well as Percocets.  I had a full bottle.  I thought I just can't hang on to this string anymore, I can't do it.  I poured the almost full bottle of Oxycontins in my hand which was about 80, 20mg pills and poured a glass of water.  I was just about to open my mouth and put the pills in and swallow them.  But for some reason a light went off.  I thought, OMG, Brandon is at school and will come home and find me.


I put the pills away and never really thought about it again.   What I thought after that and every day after was, how am I going to cope, how am I going to hang on to this string?

Getting posted to a new unit helped, I met new people.  I met a guy who is now one of my best and closest friends Alex.  He has got me through some of my toughest days. I also met someone online.  He was a good online friend and is in the American military.  He helped me through a lot of dark days, mostly just occupying my time by talking to me.  Sometimes for 5 hours.  We haven't talked in a year and I often wonder if he is ok.  He deployed to Afghanistan last year.  I am and was so grateful for those two people in my life.

So tomorrow, I might just drive to Caledonia and visit Zachery.  Sometimes long drives with loud music will drown out my thoughts.  My mom Mary Anne passed away when I was 14 months old of a brain tumour and my (step) mom who felt like my real mom as she is the only mother I knew, passed away 11 Nov 2000.  So, it is not like I can go visit them and bring them flowers and stuff.  My step mom's ashes were scattered at the family home in the garden as she wanted.  My mom is buried in Burlington at Holy Sepulchre cemetery.  It is strange, I look at her pictures and hear stories about her.  Strange, strange that she is my mother and I don't have that "connection" I should have.  I don't know her.  I will never know her.  I feel guilty.  Guilty because I don't think about her that often.  I should.  This is my mother.  A mother who chose to have me rather than surgery to take her tumour out.  She had 5 children.  I am the youngest, and knew my dad since they were both 14 or so.  She was 41 when she passed away.  I posted her picture on one of my facebook's (I have 2, one for friends and angel parent friends and the other for friends in case you have come across both and wonder) and have had a couple of people tell me I look just like her.  I always thought I looked like my dad.  But looking at her picture every day for the last week made me realize I am the spitting image of her.

I know this post is a lot of muttering back and forth and jumping from one topic to to the next but, it has helped me decide that tomorrow I will be productive and go do something like go the the gym, shower, hop in the car and visit Zachery and my mom.

And to all the Angel parents and BLM, I will be thinking of all of you tomorrow.  Here is a song for all of our children that have went before us.  If only they could have lived.  Never mind 100 years

It's almost time

I haven't written in a while, I always want to but then I am to tired or busy or it's to late, but I am dreading this coming week.  It's when my house closes and the new people move in.  There are so many emotions going through me, knowing that someone else and their baby are going to move in to my house, the house that my sweet baby boy Zachery lived his short 2 yrs of his life in.  I really don't know how I am going to do this, but I will write more later as the day approaches -- and not only that but his anniversary of his death is 10 days later.

I'm Moving.....again.

I haven't written lately because I have been super busy with work and life. So, I have been dreading this day.  Dreading the day that the Army moved me away from this house in Caledonia, the house that I have been so emotionally attached to because this is where Zachery's home was.  I got the call at work on Tuesday from Kim and she said the offer is no longer conditional they have sold so everything is firm and final. Your house is sold.  I didn't know whether to smile or cry.  I think I did a bit of both. But once I got off the phone my eyes were still watery and one of the higher ups who is new to our unit says, "what's going on".  She knows that I lost a son nearly 5 yrs ago, I told her I sold my house.  She says that's awesome, I said yes and no, no because that is where my baby lived, that was his home.  She said that is just a house, he is right there and pointed at my heart.  I said yes, but you just don't understand.  She said what, how long has it been now? I said 5 years.  I forgot how she worded it because I have never had anyone be so abrupt about having a child pass away, more or less I should have moved on by now.  I wanted to scream at her and tell her that if it was 30 yrs ago it will always feel like yesterday.  I really wish people would think before they speak sometimes.  I told her I will always grieve for my baby and that his room is untouched, I told her I have gone in there to try and pack it up and I break down.  I told her this move to Borden will be for the better and she said you will get closure. Some people have experience a death of a parent or sibling, but let me tell you, that the death of a child is a thousand times more painful.  It feels like someone has reached into your chest and ripped out your heart and then stomped all over it and then proceeded to punch you in the stomach and chest, then cut off the oxygen that you breath. 

Sunday was a hard day, I had to go through the garage and get the Christmas decorations out of there and organized for my ex's parents to come and get. I gave them everything that I bought the Boxing Day prior to Zachery passing away.  There were lots of decorations that were still in the boxes, because I just don't feel like celebrating Christmas anymore, and they would be a constant reminder. Zachery's daddy forgot them when we separated and I wanted to give them back to him because they are his, whether he likes or hates Christmas.  Thank goodness they are good people and are still good to me. So Sunday I packed everything up and came across decorations that were mine before I met him.  The whole passing of my son Zachery has so consumed me these last 5 yrs that I almost forgot the life I had before I was married and gave birth to him..  Losing a child affects EVERY aspect of your life.  

Another dream, another broken me.

Being on leave all week has let my mind wander of course.  I guess too, it being Halloween next weekend, thinking what costume Zachery would have wanted at almost 7 yrs old.  I still find it hard to hand out candy but have managed to do it the last 3 years, the first two, I was in bed.  I awoke this morning in such a rush, thinking Zachery was alive, again.  Being a grieving mother, it happens, bad dreams more so than the nice ones. But last night I dreampt about him and his Daddy.  Yes, his Daddy will be mentioned in this blog, because he is part of Zachery, whether I like him or not.  I think the dream was very short, because all I remember was Zachery running very fast towards his Daddy, and his Daddy being so surprised and happy to see him. He was about 6 or 7 years old this time. It is not often like I said to have nice dreams about Zachery, they are mostly nightmares of his death, over and over again.  I hate it.  It terrifies me.  For the first couple of years, I had no dreams at all about Zachery, I thought what is wrong with me?  I dream, and dream a lot.  And remember all of them. I can have 4 or 5 dreams in a night and wake up and remember them all.  But this one, was very vivid.  I have also noticed that the more I dream about Zachery, the older he is in the dream.  He still had his reddish hair, and it was getting kind of long on him, but he was running fast and giggling.  Maybe that is what he is doing up there in Heaven.

Facing the Music

Sooooo, I finally have contemplated that I am strong enough to finally blog about the last 8 or so years of my life on a chain. I have never blogged, and I will also say that some of the things you will read in this blog you may not like, or, you just won't get it, unless you have walked in my shoes. I do like to think out loud and by starting this blog, I might be able to compartmentalize the goings on in my life a bit better instead of them being constantly scattered. I won't tell you all about me right away, what fun would that be? I will say that I am the baby of the family and love it. I will also say that I have been in the military for the last 24 years, luckily, I have never been deployed. I never wanted to for fear of being away from my children, I have one living and one that is watching over me from above. Brandon and Zachery, the apples of my eye, my life my world.

Sometimes I wonder why I am in the military. I wish I could be the voice of children that have nothing or that are unloved. I would love to be able to open my door up to any or all of them, wrapping them up in my embrace. There is no love like a mother's love.

I will make my first post short and sweet, one, I want to see what it looks like and two, I need to rack out, long day tomorrow with Kim. Night all.