quote-unquote

"Out of suffering emerges the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars."- unknown

Read this somewhere and thought to myself : "ain't that some shit?"

Letters from Special K

My "son wrote" to me 24 times since the day he was born. He "sent me" email letters every day starting two days after he was born and continued until the day he came home. I have them all saved on my computer to add to his little book and show them to him one day. The letters were all about his progress in the NICU. Every morning, between 6 and 7, I would receive the letter and read it off my phone. Sometimes it was the highlight of my day. Most of the times I knew exactly what they would say because I spoke to the nurse half an hour before I was due to receive the letter, but still... I had just gotten mail from MY SON.

I received my first letter while I was still in the hospital recovering from delivery. He was just across a few halls and we (the parents) could go see him anytime we wanted, day or night! Receiving that first letter was such a happy/frightening kind of moment. The concept of updating the mommys and daddys with babies in the NICU with an email every morning was pretty neat, but the raw truth behind my son's condition was so damn scary. My peanut was just 3lbs 10.8 oz, he was on 25% oxygen, he was being fed through a tube. Get this...: 3ml a feeding for a total of 18 ml for the day.  That was only .6 ounces A DAY.   How on earth can any living thing survive on .6 oz of food a day??
He was also on IV Liquids which obviously helped with the fact that he was on such low food intake.
His lungs were not developed yet. He had jaundice.
 It was the forbidden thought, but I am sure it happened a lot between my husband and I in silence.. was he even going to make it?
The content of the letters were to let us know what,if anything, had changed from one day to next: such as getting off the oxygen, how much weight he gained or lost, etc.

And then, there was a sentence in that first letter... I will never forget it for the remaining of my days living on this earth:

Adios Mommy and Daddy. Keep a picture of me with you so that we can be "together" until I get home. It will make us both feel better!

And that's when I lost it!  I cried... I cried and read the sentence out loud in tears to my hubby who was laying on the chair next to my hospital bed...

How on Earth did we get here.. again? How can this be happening to us.. Again? and by that I don't mean.. How can we be having another preemie; I mean... how can such a painful, stressful, scary thing be happening... again! This time, to our most precious little human being that we had created, to the one who was supposed to bring you happiness and joy and make you forget all the worries in the world.  How can that much more worry and stress and anger and all kinds of ugly emotions come with him? 

The hardest part was by far, leaving the hospital. After 4 days of being there (including the labor and delivery), we left..with a shit load of bags, flowers, balloons, clothes, paperwork, hospital shit you need to get better at home, etc... I mean, we even had help carry stuff out  to the car by a friend who came to visit... Yet.. we left EMPTY HANDED! 

Our peanut was staying behind, for who knows how long.  He was going to stay alone in the long nights, in the dark, connected to all kinds of beeping machines, with strangers changing his diapers and putting his food into a tube... he was going to stay behind to fight his battle...alone.

And us? how about us? how the hell are we supposed to fight our battle at home? without our peanut to keep us going strong?  We had no nurses to assist us or change our tear wet sheets, or cheer us on while we found the courage to even take a shower to go one with our every day lives. 

While most parents go and get things done and come home with their bundle of joy a couple of days after delivery, that wasn't us! 
I passed those mothers every DAMN DAY leaving the hospital in the wheelchairs carrying their own peanuts, while I was coming in to go sit in a chair and put my extremely sanitized hands through two holes in a plastic box to touch my peanut's super little hands. 
I passed the dads everyday in the parking lot who carried the balloons and flowers to get their cars to go collect their wife's with their babies to go home, as I was getting out of my car with a back pack with a bunch of snacks for the day and frozen breast milk to bring my peanut.
I passed the proud grandmas and grandpas in the hallways who came to see their new little sunshine, while I brought ONE person at a time into the NICU to get a good scrub up to their elbows and go see my baby through that clear box. 

Some days I could not even hold my peanut... I had to just sit and wait.. and wait and sit some more.. and just look at him... right there in front of my eyes within arm's reach.. yet so far away! 
Days in the NICU are like endless amount of hours of just waiting, waiting for something to happen, waiting for something to change, waiting for some good news about your baby, waiting to see who's nurse he's having tonight (for 13 hours in a row), waiting for visitors who want to come see the peanut, waiting, waiting... just waiting to wait some more!

And then you go home at night exhausted from waiting all day... and all night you wait!
You wait for that letter from Special K!

the skeleton in my closet

Two shirts, two handkerchiefs, a picture, a memorial card, and a newspaper.  All inside a bag labeled dionne-no idea what the name even represents, probably some type of business.  All the items belonged to grandpa. I brought them back with me after flying overseas for his funeral.
I have his picture in my house and other items that belonged to him (which also came back inside the same bag), but these are different.. these are the skeletons in my closet.

I opened my closet everyday to get clothes or shoes.  The bag stares me right in the face everyday and never really bothers me that much, well, at least until I open it.  I have been kinda in a funk lately, so I decided to do some closet organizing (thought it would make me feel better) and the bag needed to be moved to place items next to it.  I sat down on my bed with the bag next to me and for a few seconds contemplated whether or not I should open it.  Well, you guessed it.. and it was a bit of tear fest.

I was four and half months pregnant with Special K when I received the phone call that I dreaded the most.. Grandpa was dead! Just like that... dropped dead!  No signs of illness at all, no foul play, no hospital stay, no warning signs.  Grandpa was just plain dead.

Beyond all the unanswered questions, and all the whys, and all the anger... there was this immense feeling of unfairness.  A feeling of "but there should have been more"...more time, more laughs, more smiles.  A feeling of undone business.  A feeling of UNREAL! This could not be happening, this is all a bad dream... not this, not now!!  But he was maybe a month away from being here with us for Little V's 1st birthday and to meet her... But he was going to be here when Special K made his arrival... He was going to be here for the holidays this year!

I know everyone loves their grandpa and grandma, at least most people do, and their death is always very hard to accept.  Letting go of all the memories you shared is oh so difficult.  I, too, shared many MANY happy moments with grandpa. He taught me how to ride a bike, how to swim, he was there to hand me off to the doctors for my open heart surgery, he was there when I left to go live far away from him, he was there even when I wasn't.  Growing up living next to him was so much fun and back then it seemed so natural and so casual.  We played outside all the time and grandpa was always around, we spent many Christmas together, many Easters, many milestones.

I always had a "thing" for him.  He was so special to me even as a kid, never even knew why for a long time. He just was!  As I grew older and got to know him, to really know grandpa, then I understood.  I loved him for his generosity, his caring way, his ultimate fairness-with Everything and everyone, his cute smiling eyes, his determination, his energy, his work ethic, his smile.. oh his smile, the way he loved, and most of all I loved him for his undying will to live.  His will to live despite the worst of times, the cruelest of times. 

Life wasn't easy on grandpa.  Staying by himself to build a life, at 15 or so when his family(parents and all his siblings) left to seek a better life in another country. He stayed because he loved and wanted to marry this woman, the woman who would become my grandmother.  And the same woman who died tragically at the age of 40, leaving him behind with two kids to raise and his everlasting love for her.  Going through the loss of both of his parents.  Remarrying later to another woman who would give him another child.  That same woman who got sick and who also left grandpa way too early at the same time as his daughter who suffered a stroke at age 51 who is now partly paralyzed and a ton of other health issues, and all he can do was watch in desperation. That woman is my mother.

Grandpa left this world suddenly and in the most fucked up way.  He left behind three children, one of which lost his mom and dad within six months, three grand kids, one great grand kid- whom he had not met yet, one great grand kid who would have been born less than 3 months after he had left us, and yet another great grand kid who will be here soon as well.  He left all this happiness behind for us to try to deal with without him.  He left the happiness we all wanted to share with him so bad.  It was his time to see some good, some joy.  It was our time, after much pain and suffering, to share something so extraordinary.  It was what he always wanted.  But instead, it was just his time... to go.

I am now left with the shirts, the handkerchiefs that have his lingering smell still.  I am left with all the pictures, and other things that remind me of him. I am now left with a child that will never know how truly amazing his great grandpa was.  I am left with a whole lot of great memories... the same great memories that make this that much harder to accept.  Letting go of great memories knowing that the same memories will never be made again.  We are left with the everlasting pleasure of knowing grandpa, to have known such a wonderful person.  We are left with a small glass that he drank his own home-made wine from, probably every single day.  My husband now drinks from it.

I am left with a Ripped Hat that he wore since I could remember as a child... a ripped hat that would have many stories to tell if it could talk...stories I would never get tired of listening to!