Healing through doing...

“Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.”   - C.S. Lewis

How true these words are. Physical pain is something that can be treated. It seems there can be a fix or a remedy for what ails one or a treatment plan can be put in place. If one has a broken bone, surgery or a cast is usually the next step. 

But what about a broken heart? There is nothing that is guaranteed to work. There is no prescription. There is no over the counter medicine. Not even an old wives' tale that will cure this ailment and sometimes the symptoms can't even be expressed. 

Last summer after July 4, I can remember feeling everything made me sick. To look at anything was nauseating. To set up and see the world going on around me was terrifying. Loneliness filled my days and fear stole my sleep. There were times I wouldn't even want Noah's name said or any reference to him. Just the slightest memory of him overwhelmed me. And the future. What future? I couldn't even fathom a future. It was literally, at times, hour by hour, even minute by minute.  "I feel like I am the sickest I have ever been and nothing in the medicine cabinet will help me" are words I recently found scribbled in a journal from last summer. 

14 months later and I find myself still with that exact same feeling. It truly is like an amputation. I will never not feel like something is missing. 

Because something is. Someone is. 

All this love I have for him just didn't go away on July 4, 2012. His death didn't stop me from being his mom. The need to do something for him is still there. The desire to talk about him, the stories to share about him are as present now as they were July 3, 2012. 

I've caught myself, a few times, reminiscing with others about Noah and his antics and realize I think I just told this story a few weeks ago. To others the stories will be the same ones over and over as the years go by. 

To me, they are all I have. 

His memory is what I hold onto to...I guess that's why I'm always reminding others he lived. Stories of how he was all boy. How he was so fun. And he was mine. 

So....I look for ways I can do something, anything for him now, and I know it's not really him I am doing it for. It's for me. It's helps me deal. It helps me cope. It helps me heal. 

Noah loved being outside. He would have rather been outside playing, biking or on the baseball field than anywhere else. He also took up gardening and landscaping those last few months. He was slowly learning to see and appreciate God's creative beauty around us. 

Often he would surprise me with flowers and be so gentlemen-like when he presented them to me. Look at him in this picture. He has the best hair. He has the brownest eyes and had the tannest skin. Had/has. Which do I use. If only I could go back to this minute...this moment....

Actually being outside with him, watching him play, watching him work are some of the last memories I have with him. 

A few weeks ago his headstone was installed. Finalizing it had been a long, emotion filled process that took so much energy, time, consideration and prayer.  But it kept me occupied. It forced me many times to search for verses that, not only displayed his faith, but would sustain us in years to come and remind us of Noah's life and His promises. 

But the mother in me still wants to be able to do something for him.  So recently, as I sat looking at his and Nate's completed monuments, I felt a desire to beautify the earth surrounding the distinctive stones just as Noah had beautified the flower gardens in our backyard in the weeks before he was taken away.

So we cleaned...

And we shined...

And we (ok, they) prepared the ground.

And we mulched and planted... 

And, in doing something that Noah had come to enjoy, we helped each other heal. 

And there is still much to be done...luckily. :) 

Makeshift Backyard Memorial

Last year one of my fresh start goals for my kids and me was to enjoy the great outdoors and the nature that surrounds us. The first step, for me (with help), was to start with our very own backyard. Noah LOVED anything that had to do with the outside so I was eager to help start anything that might be of interest to him. So, we (with guidance) started our own little garden that Noah Dean enjoyed so very much. 

He loved planting. He loved watering the flowers. He just loved being active outside and I loved watching him immerse himself in the upkeep of his house and watching him learn. He even bought this little lighthouse (that now lights up my front porch) from Cracker Barrel for decoration in his garden. 

The summer, that was upon us, held so much promise...or so we thought. Who knew, at the time of this picture, we would only have Noah Dean just a few more months.  

A few months ago we came up with the idea of doing some type of garden in my backyard as a quiet, peaceful place to be able to sit, reflect, enjoy and even to cry. We didn't really know where it would be or what it would look like and I was still so hesitant about doing anything in my backyard so we just held onto the idea till we knew what to do. 

As we prepare for Noah's headstone to be put in place and as the holiday decorations have come and gone, we took some of the older items from his gravesite home with us. Those things were given in such love and I spent many moments gazing at those items, with so many feelings, as they adorned Noah's final resting place, so we were not quite sure what to do with them once we got them home. Something else we just held onto till we knew what to do. 

On Noah Dean's birthday, one of my good friends, Buffie Simerly gave me a beautiful white hydrangea in his memory and we just recently planted it. And then everything just came together for a little memorial for Noah. The idea of a garden and the items from the gravesite, both of which we had held on to, and then the hydrangea. 

Noah LOVED my dad and LOVED that my dad gave him matchbox cars and a few dollars every now and then so he could buy, for himself, the candy I would hardly ever allow him to have. I brought some of those home to relive the joy he felt when he received something as simple a few dollars and a couple cars. 

Last spring Noah and I attended the Chik Fil La Mother/Son Knight Event. He presented me with a Spider Mum. We took it home, put it in a vase and he was so proud of it. That flower was so beautiful and seemed to last forever. 

Each Sunday our church has flowers at the altar that families can purchase to remember or honor a loved one. I do this for Noah on his birthday and for July 4. I chose this past Sunday for ours since the Sunday before the church was decorated in July 4 decorations. I didn't make a request for any type of arrangement and to my surprise it was full of Spider Mums and yellow roses (one of Haleigh Raye's favorites.) I took them to the cemetery and brought a few home for us to remember yet another memory. 

For so long I couldn't even walk in my backyard without being emotionally overwhelmed by so many memories. From seeing Noah run around as a baby, to closing my eyes and hearing him say, "I can swing myself, Mommy" to his last days of watching him ride his bike around the house over and over...and over and over...thinking those endless summer nights would never end....

I can still look out there and see him now and if I try hard enough and let myself go there, I can see AND hear him...at the same time. A precious privilege I took for granted. 

This memorial is not right in the middle of the backyard and is not always in plain view. It's off to the side. Just like his memory is to me. Not always seen...but he is always there...just off to the side. 

So, what better place, then my own backyard, Noah's own backyard, to have a small memorial place for him where I can relive so many memories of days gone by and where new memories are bittersweetly being made. 

He will restore the years....

"I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten..." 

Joel 2:25 

This has always been one of my favorite verses. To me, it meant, no matter the strife we face, the hardships we endure, the trials we undergo, they would someday be worth it. We would be rewarded. We would be restored.

This quickly became one of my least favorite verses after last summer. 

What had happened was unimaginable and the aftermath that followed was nothing short of complete devastation.  I didn't want to go through what I was going through. I didn't want Haleigh Raye or my family to suffer through this unthinkable loss. I remember vividly crying out, "please God don't ask this of me, don't ask this of my family." To this day, I can remember calling my dad from the ER trying to tell him to come to the hospital and I have imagined him a hundred times just setting there enjoying his July 4 and then my call came....

After a few months my mind kept coming back to this verse and I couldn't even fathom how, what had been taken from us, Noah, could be restored. There would never be a replacement for him. There would never be a restoration that could take place. 

Reflecting over this past year I feel I have come full circle on so many details about life and have so much to be grateful for. 

I have learned what true friendship means. The friends I have gained during this both near and far, the relationships that have been strengthened, the encouragement I have received. They renew me. 

Slowly and daily I feel more confident in myself. In my ability to "make it" especially when there were those days I just want to "end it." My life. I have made it my own and accepted what it is and what it will be and still have hopes to what it can be. I have reclaimed it. 

My love for Haleigh Raye. Seeing her each day, knowing that she has a full life ahead of her, she needs me, she loves me and I love her and how if I can't be strong for any other reason, I need to be strong for her. I owe it to her. Having her revives me.

 
His grace. It saves and redeems me. Simple as that. 

And His promise of eternity. That...is what will restore the years. 

And in just a moment

And in just a moment I realize his Legos mean the world to me and I wish I had watched all the moments of his little hands carefully working with them.

And in just a moment I feel how precious anything he had last touched becomes like gold to me and I want to run my fingers up and down and all around to try and feel some connection to his skin or maybe some lingering smell.

And in just a moment I can consume myself with pictures that are priceless treasures no amount of money can buy. I obsess over them taking in every expression, every article of clothing and even every little thing that was in his hand wondering where those things are now.

And in just a moment fear can overtake me when I remember something I have forgotten about him, a phrase he would say, a scar on his face, a toy he had and I wonder to myself, "what else about him has left my memory."

And in just a moment I see kids growing up including Haleigh Raye. She's getting so tall and he's not. What would he have in common with her. With other kids. What would he be doing with them right now. What sport would he be playing in. What toy would he like me to get him. Where exactly is he...? What is he doing right now? Right this minute.

And in just a moment I forget he is gone. I call for him. I grocery shop for him. I look for him.

And in just a moment I realize...I remember.

And in just those moments I experience an unexplainable hurt, solitude and loneliness. I know the ache of being torn between two worlds. His and hers. I know the desire to live out life with Haleigh Raye, to watch her grow up, to guide her on this journey but still wrestling with a longing, a want that I have no control over.

And in just a moment it hits me again and again...the moments she needs from me in life are no longer moments I will be able to give to Noah.

He doesn't need me in anyway form or fashion.  He is much better off then any of us here. But it still doesn't make it any easier with the aftermath we are dealing with. I'm trying to understand "the bigger plan." I'm trying to comprehend "it's not for me to know this side." I try to reason with myself. I tell myself I lived 26 years without him and I was just fine. He just was passing through my life and I will be the one who is ok.

And in the next moment, the next breath, still yet, still to this day, there are moments I beg, bargain and barter to have him back with me. With us. It could happen. It's just been a moment. It's just been months since I held him, touched him, texted him...kissed him. Things I took for granted just months  ago which, in a moment, has turned into

a year ago.

And in just a moment it won't be months.  We will add the words I've come to dread to add for some time now. A year.

 A year without Noah Dean.