Peace for Liv

We’re struggling over here.

Three days in a row I’ve arrived home to find Olivia in tears.

She’s obsessed with death and her fears of my death and her dad’s death and her Gram’s death and Alyssa’s death. She wishes God would let us see heaven without having to die.

She asked me if some people choose to die.

I try to answer all her questions honestly but I also want to answer them in ways that are appropriate for her age and maturity.

It breaks my heart that she’s so sad.

She asked me if crying is the best/only way for a person to release pain in their heart.

Yes.

I told her that crying is absolutely the best way to release pain in your heart. I am not going to tell her that there are people who cut themselves because they say it releases emotional pain. OMG. Can you imagine? I mean, I already put nine Band-Aids on her fingers every single night so that she doesn’t lay in her bed and pick at her cuticles until they bleed. And some nights, she takes the Band-Aids off after I’m asleep and picks anyway. So…yeah.

I’m so glad she’s talking to us. I’m glad she can verbalize her pain and share with us what triggers her. She says she misses Auntie Nell. Nell is the only person she’s been even remotely close to who has died. She was so sad for Nell to have died and left everyone here. I told her that it’s okay to be sad for herself that she misses Auntie Nell but Nell is as peace. She’s no longer suffering and she’s happy in heaven with her daughter and her brothers and sister.

When I tucked in her into bed on that third night of jagged crying and near hysterics, I prayed over her. I prayed aloud for God to heal her heart and for the angels to come and give her peace.

I also ended up upping her dose of Lexapro in hopes of calming her anxiety.

We went to bed early that night in hopes that a decent night’s sleep would help too.

If you’re the praying kind, please add my girl to your list.

Ramen and Toilet Paper

So… corona virus, aka, Covid 19…

Yeah.

Ohio schools have closed at least through April 3. The situation will be reevaluated at a later date to see if they’ll close longer than that.

Oh how I laughed at Tom when we found out he’ll be stuck in a house with Olivia for three weeks.

And yet…damn.

I mean, sure, I get it. We need to slow this thing down. Social distancing and all that.

We currently have plenty of toilet paper, in case you were worried about our butts.

Alas, we’re down to our last package of ramen. Think there will be some when I go Walmart to buy groceries on Saturday?

I’m taking bets here.

See, I don’t even plan to go in order to ‘stock up’. I just need to buy groceries, which is what I do every Saturday. But we are low on ramen. And since the girls will be home for three weeks, we’ll need soup and Spaghetti-Os. Ewww, but still, a child can’t live on ramen alone.

Let’s not forget the macaroni and cheese.

It will appear to the average shopper (me) that I’m stocking up and perhaps even hoarding and that’s okay.

I took Alyssa to the doctor the other day for her sports physical. I felt a vague sense of guilt for taking a perfectly healthy child to a germ-infested doctor’s office but she needed that physical in order to participate in track meets. She can practice without it but she has to have had the physical in order to compete.

She’s fine, by the way. I know that shocks exactly no one.

But our doctor talked to us a little about covid-19. He said that the panic amongst the medical community is due to the unknown. They just don’t know what this virus will do to people, not really. It’s spreading so fast and making the elderly SO sick (or, rather, KILLING them) and there simply are not enough tests in this country to stop people from spreading this stupid virus.

So we have to slow everyone down.

I mentioned SARS and Zika to my doctor and he seemed surprised that I remembered them. They were flashes in the pan, if you will. He said he hopesCovid-19 goes the same path but no one knows for sure that it will.

It might become more like influenza, which still kills tens of thousands of people each year.

He pointed out that the flu killed more people in the late 1910s than bullets did in WWI. So…yeah, that’s depressing.

But we’re hopeful. We’re rallying. We’re staying home and washing our hands and not licking the handle of the shopping carts.

And…some of us (not me, but some people) are buying ALL the toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I just hope there’s still ramen available the next time I go buy groceries.

Auntie Nell

My mom and her sisters all had their children very young; as in late (or in one case, early) teens.

As such, they didn’t seem old enough for us (me, my brothers and cousins) to bestow the titles of “Aunt” or “Uncle” upon my mom and her siblings.

So they were just Dianne, Grice, Janet, Evelyn, Nell, Keith, Debra, Lorry, Ronnie, Eleanor and Rodney.

But then we, the next generation, started having kids. Most of us waited until at least our mid-twenties if not early thirties to have kids, which made the Aunts and Uncles that much older.

So when I’d talk to my girls about my mom’s sisters, they became Auntie “Name”.

When I got home that Friday afternoon and told Tom that my mom’s sister Nell had died, Alyssa said with despair, “Oh! But she was my favorite.”

That’s not to say she’d have chosen one of the others to take Nell’s place even if she could. She was just saying she was going to miss our Auntie Nell.

And we do miss her. We miss her laugh, her ability to tell it like it is.

She was so honest, so real.

She was also the auntie that my girls saw the most because she, like us, lived fairly close to my mom, so it was easy for all of us to drop in for a visit.

I can’t count the number of times the girls and I would show up at my mom’s house and Nell would be there. Or we’d be there when she arrived. And it was (still is) a given that my mom would have tea ready for Nell, Cherry and Olivia.

For what it’s worth imma pass on the tea, thank you very much. Blech.

But yes, she was the favorite. She didn’t try to make anyone like her. She just let people be who they were. I think that’s what my girls love most about her. She didn’t pretend she was there to visit with me or them. She was there to see her sister. We were just part of the package. My girls are reserved (at least around most people, including family) unless they see you every single day, or at least several times a week. It’s just part of their personality.

I don’t know where I’m going with this. I just…her death has hit me hard. We knew it was coming but kept hoping she’s bounce back. She had a hard life. The beginning was really hard.

I just hope…I pray she’s a peace. I pray that she and Amy are laughing and loving and watching over everyone.

Midnight Thoughts/Prayers/Wishes

Sometimes I lie awake at night and worry about how my family, my daughters especially, will deal with my death.

I truly believe that death isn’t the end. But I also acknowledge that if I’m dead, I’m not here, physically with them anymore.

They’d be on their own, the girls and their dad, trying to make it without me.

My sweet Livie. Oh how I don’t want to leave her.

I know Alyssa will miss me but I also know she’ll make it. She’s so strong, so resilient. She’ll be so sad and I don’t want her story to have the words, “I lost my mom when I was…teen years old.”

But Livie, oh it breaks my heart to think of her losing me. I know that sounds really conceited but that child and I…we have the bond that only parents of special needs children can understand.

At the one and only 5p- conference we attended, the moment that sticks out to me the most happened in the New Attendees meeting. We were all sharing a little about ourselves and one dad brought most of us to tears.

He admitted that, though he’s ashamed that he feels this way, he hopes he outlives his son. He is not wishing his son dead but he knows that no one will care for his son the way he and his wife do.

No one will love Livie like I do. Yes, her dad loves her. Her Gram loves her but I am her primary caregiver. I do so much for her and when I die, she’s going to miss that.

I hope to not die for a long, long time. But having fought cancer, I can’t help but think that my time is limited, like, really, truly limited. Will I still be here next year? I hope so. I pray that I am.

A few nights ago, I prayed to God to let me live to see Alyssa graduate from high school. I know if I get to that point I will ask for more time. I want forever with my sweet girls.

I’ve had my mom for 48 years. I want that for my girls. I want them to have me well into their adulthood because I think they deserve that. We all deserve that. I’m a good mom. I want to continue to be a good mom to them.

Sigh.

This is nothing more than any other mom wants for her kids.

I know that. I know that I don’t love my kids more than most moms. I know I’m not any more special than any other parent.

But I still want to be here. I want to continue to watch them grow, to guide them, to care for them.

Please.

Please God, let me stay here, let me mother my girls.

Please.