January 26th 2013

Almost six months exactly from the accident. I have a new inspiration in life due to Stephanie Nielson. If you haven't read her book or followed her blog you must check it out. www.nieniedialogues.com Today I went to the funeral of a new found friend of mine. Her son just passed away from Leukemia about a week ago. I hurt inside for her. I weep for what she is experiencing and what she will go through in the next 6 months. I hate that I know how to help her and yet I love that I know how to help her. I can help her understand the "normal feelings" of grief. The daily aches and pains, depression, guilt, and regrets. Grief to me is a feeling. It can be more than one feeling at a time. I am still figuring out about guilt associated with death. The "what ifs" of July 27th will be forever unanwered. I DO however understand the guilt assoiated with being happy. I visited my parents a few months after the accident and remember laughing and having fun, then feeling this horrible guilt take over. How am I able to smile? How dare I find joy when my little girl is gone! This is real and getting over it is something that has to be delt with. There is also a guilt that comes with life becoming easier after a passing. We planned a trip a week after the accident to get away from all of the saddness and let the idea of three children to raise for now sink into my conticous mind. We realized we didn't need a car seat, diaper bag, stroller, van, bottles, binkies, and the list went on. Packing seemed easy. There was no need to buy diapers, and I felt awful. The reality is that yes life is easier in a way and much much harder in other ways. So the focus needs to be on realizing that we need to except the bad and the good that goes with it and not beat ourselves up for what we don't have control over. Easier said than done. My dear friends who suffered the loss of their son felt a feeling of releif being freed from the nine month prison of Dornbecers. This feeling shocked them. This feeling is very normal. Yes, you miss your son, but you don't have to miss watching him suffer everyday at the hospital. Now comes the reality of redining yourself. For Shelley her identity as a mother of a sick child, care giver, medic, life-line for her son has all changed. She has lost her identity and I completely understand. As women we tend to introduce ourselves as first a wife, then a Mother, then a runner/gymnast/biker/reader/couponer/desinger or whatever takes up your spare time. Well, to the mother of a sick child your life becomes swallowed up with the health of this child. That is your identity. That is who you are. If that child has any chance on surviving an illness it is because of the late night medical treatments, the handholding during the pain of vomiting, the kisses after injections, her shaving your head so her son wouldn't feel different when his hair fell out, all the encouragement to get well is do to the love offered by parents. How do you find yourself once this is gone in a instant. She is still the mother of three children. One of which is in Heaven and the other two she has the privaledge of raising on Earth. I am and will forever be the Mother of four beautiful children. I'm raising three for now. To hold a lifeless child is unmistakingly difficult. It is amost knumbing to the soul because you feel so broken that you don't know what to feel. I remember in a therapy session we had we were asked to build a building out of legos. I slowly build up a foundation to make a home. We almost had the house finished and I kicked it over. For as silly an exercise it seemed to express exactly what I was feeling. I realized that I felt like my world was just about perfect and then in an instant my whole world came crashing down around me. How do you redefine your life? You start by asking yourself, "who would my child want me to be?" I know who she'ld want me do be and I promised her I would be that person. The sad reality is that we are human and we do fail at times, but what is most important is that we try everyday to become who we want to be and one day we will be that person. Taylor would want a Mommy who is patient. She would want a Mommy who is kind, nonjudegmental, and does what she can to make it to the Celestial Kingdom for us to be reunited for eternity. To one day run into each other's arms and for me to spin her around and to never be separated from each other again. I refuse to let myself miss this opportunity to be a family again. I work hard to teach my other children how to live and to be worthy of eternal blessings such as this. I wait for the fullness of my joy to be found when our bodies are reunited with our spirits in perfect form and pain will never ail us. This thing called grief will be gone. I'm not certain that we won't mourn for those who do not choose to except the gospel in the here after, but I know that there will be peace found in Heaven.