Footsteps

Insomnia is about to be the death of me here lately, and I’m not one prone to hyberbolic statements. It really ramped up a few weeks ago which I figured was just my brain’s way of dealing with the upcoming third anniversary of Carter’s passing. Night after night I struggled to shut my brain off to allow me to get sleep- any kind of sleep was welcome. I could only get an hour or so before waking up and it then taking 3-4 hours to return to a restless semblance of slumber. Anyone who has known me for any period of time knows that naps are my hobby and I need rest. Like, physically NEED it more than the average person, and it has been this way for as long as I can remember. I distinctly recall playing with my best friend, Paige, one afternoon, and all I wanted was a nap. I convinced her to lay down on her bed and close her eyes for 10 mins. in hopes that she would fall asleep and give me some peace and quiet so that I could do the same. I must have been no more than 5 years old at the time. Who knew that being a kid was so exhausting?

After struggling for a few weeks earlier this month I figured the insomnia would resolve itself and I could get some energy and mojo back after a few good nights of rest. However, here I am…again in the wee hours of the morning with no hope of slumber anytime soon, so I decided to blog. This time is different, though. I usually blog to get the mess in my head out onto a screen to help me process stuff that is really hard. However, I’ve already communicated some really hard things today in the form of a long text to my husband to get him to understand kinda sorta where I am in my messed up mind. He’s no mind-reader, and I’m not a great communicator when it comes to verbal expression, so texting is my go-to when I can’t get words out of my mouth. I allow my hands to speak for me. Therefore, there’s no real need to unload on here other than the fact that I’m so messed up and warped mentally at times that I thought I’d share again in case another person thinks that they are the only one who is screwed up and battling truly horrible things with no hope of it ever getting better. In the vein of Alexander, I had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day yesterday of epic proportions which bled into a night that seemed endless but a new day dawned and I’m here to testify that I made it.

Isn’t that what I’m always saying on my social media accounts? Moments pass. Please stay. You matter. Three short phrases that I picked up after following another grieving Mama’s journey. Her message is simple and it resonates so I echo it often. I had to keep telling myself that yesterday and last night…that as bad and dark as those moments were, that they would pass. I would make it, and this life wouldn’t always be so hard.

We are in the process of moving my eldest daughter back upstairs to her original bedroom. When we built our forever home back in 2015, both of our children had their special space right off of our garage as you entered the door. Immediately to the left was a set of stairs. On the right side was my daughter’s bedroom and on the left was my son’s room (his was more like a bonus room that we had made into a bedroom by adding a closet to the floor plan). Each room led into a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. Caroline, my daughter, was only 10 years old the morning of July 10th, 2017 when I went upstairs to wake my son, Carter, who was heading off to a youth camp for the week with our church. He wasn’t in his bed, and when I tried to open the door to the bathroom from his side of the room, I discovered that it was locked. I immediately went into my daughter’s room to try her side of the bathroom door, not really thinking that he was actually in the bathroom since I had called out for him with no answer, but just trying to rule out the possibility before moving downstairs or looking outside for him. She was awake and sitting up in her bed. Much to my surprise, I found that her side of the bathroom door was also locked. I kept calling out for Carter with no answer. She hopped out of bed and tried to help me as I fumbled with the little mechanism to jimmy the door so that it would open. I was struggling, so she took it from me and her little hands immediately got it to work. Before I could stop her, the door was open and she saw what no person should ever have to see. It’s something I wish so badly I could go back in time and protect her from. If I had any inkling of the horror that was to be discovered in that little bathroom, I would have never allowed her inside. I truly had no idea, and her innocence was taken that morning around 7:30 AM. Her screams still echo in my head, and the look of absolute terror on her face still haunts me as much as the image of her brother’s lifeless body.

When I found out we were expecting another baby earlier this year, the option was presented for Caroline to move back upstairs to free up the two spare rooms downstairs. One was a former office that we had already converted into a nursery for her one-year-old sister, Carlen, and the other was a former guest room that Caroline took over after Carter’s passing that was adjacent to our own. We thought it may be better to have that room for the new baby and give her the chance to move upstairs where she would have her own space and sanctuary away from the chaos of two tiny siblings. We told her we would do whatever was necessary to make her comfortable…no pressure if she didn’t feel like she could do it. Much to our surprise, she readily agreed and off we went to Rooms to Go to order her a new bed more suitable for the teenager she has become. She has spent the last few months preparing for the transition…buying things to hang on her walls and figuring out the layout of her furniture. The bathroom has been the big elephant in the room. She used to not even approach it, and when she had to go up there for whatever reason, she wouldn’t look at it, and the door had to always be open. She did pretty well, however, the other day as the bed arrived and she started moving items into the space. She agreed with her father’s suggestion to have one of his contractor buddies come and help remodel the bathroom…while she needs the function of it, certain elements need to be changed in order for her to be able to accept using it, which is totally understandable. She has spent a lot of hours upstairs the past 2 days and seems excited about it, but she has spent her nights downstairs on the sofa. She’s not 100% “there” yet, and I get it. Nights are very, very hard and a formidable giant to face all on their own.

Since I spend most of my nights awake, I try to take naps during the day when the baby does. My husband, Joseph, encouraged me to do just that after feeding Carlen her breakfast, and since he was home with me yesterday, I took him up on his offer. I hadn’t been asleep for more than 30 minutes when I was jolted awake by the sounds of footsteps above me. For the first time in 3 years, I heard sounds of life when nothing but silence and emptiness had been there. Caroline’s room upstairs is directly above ours, and I woke up for a split second reminded of what it sounded like when she and her brother were up there running and jumping around.  A few seconds later there were sounds of heavy footfalls descending the stairs. Again, sounds so reminiscent of times full of happy memories and laughter as they would chase each other and race to see who could beat the other one. I knew I wouldn’t be able to continue with my nap, so I just got up and went to the living room where Joseph promptly demanded to know why I wasn’t asleep. I said that I heard him moving around and he kind of scoffed at me and said that he was finished for the moment and I could just mosey on back to the bed. He gets so irritated with me sometimes because he can sleep so easily and doesn’t understand why I can’t. This was one of those times. There’s a best-selling children’s book entitled, “Go the F*ck to Sleep” (we don’t actually own it, by the way), and I have a feeling he has said that to me in his mind many times over and probably thought it yesterday as well.

Needless to say, I didn’t go to sleep. One thing after another bothered me. I had been triggered, you see, and when that happens, it doesn’t take much for me to eventually explode. I did late that evening after hours spent being frustrated and hurt by actions and words of the day that normally wouldn’t have set me off but did. It was ugly, and my husband who is normally the calm and rational one, lost it. He was furious, I was sleep deprived and highly irrational, and neither one of us considered that our fussing would lead our daughter to put the TV on mute in the living room to hear what was going on. Soon after, Joseph stormed into the bedroom and told me that Caroline was sobbing on the couch. She never, ever cries. Her tears mostly dried up the morning she discovered her brother deceased. She doesn’t readily display emotion so to hear that we had upset her (primarily me dropping F bombs and losing my mind) was a doozy. I literally started having heart palpitations and cried so hard it was difficult to breathe. I couldn’t suck in air fast enough and finally sunk down on my knees at the foot of the bed gasping for air but not fully drawing it in quickly enough. Soon after my stomach started feeling tight. At that point, I knew I had to get it together. Somehow I did while Joseph went out to explain to our daughter that marriages are hard work and sometimes Mamas and Daddies fight. We try not to do that in front of her, so it’s not something she is accustomed to hearing. We felt horrible. Joseph was worried about me and the baby, and I was scared I was having early signs of contractions so we silently agreed to a truce and settled in for the night.

Well, he did. I was still longing for SOMETHING. Sleep, peace, a break, anything to free me from the hell in my mind. Now the devil was seriously attacking me- belittling me for the failure I continue to be as a mother and wife and reminding me that I’m no good, will never be good enough, and that people would be better off without me. I know why Carter felt those things during the last few weeks of his life because I’ve felt them often throughout mine. I passed my “f*cked-up-ness” to him. As I told my husband earlier today, you’ll never convince me otherwise because even though my son looked identical to my husband as a kid, his personality, mannerisms, and ambitions were all like mine. We were two peas in a pod. So as I struggled last night, I felt compelled to go to his bedroom thinking that maybe I could feel close enough to him being in his space that I could finally find rest.

His room doesn’t look the same as it did, although we’ve tried to keep it as untouched as possible. We’ve swapped out his furniture for what was formally our guest room furniture. His bed is being converted back into a crib for his baby brother, his armoire will also be going in his brother’s room, and his long dresser has already been converted back into a changing table for his sister’s nursery. We wanted pieces of his nursery set in his siblings’ rooms and felt OK with that as long as everything else in his room was able to stay. His bedding, nightstand, desk, toy chest, and storage cube are the same, and all of his artwork, schoolwork, and toys remain in that space. I haven’t brought myself to go through most of his belongings, because I want to still be able to “discover” new things about him…papers that he doodled on, essays that he wrote, etc. are still in piles scattered throughout his room. If I went through it all at once, then there would be nothing new to look forward to, and I need to know that I still have things to look at and see that pertain to him. He’s still alive to me that way.

So I hunkered down underneath a memorial quilt of his T-shirts after turning his ceiling fan on high and tried to sleep. I got about two hours in before I heard the baby crying…she had her shots yesterday and woke up yelling. I think her legs were hurting where she received 3 injections, so I gave her Tylenol and she snuggled with me in her nursery recliner. I can’t even tell you the last time I got to hold her while she was drowsy and sleepy. For the past 6 months at least, we have simply placed her in her crib after our bedtime routine and she falls asleep on her own. Last night, though, was different. I guess it worked out. My husband didn’t have to wake in a panic wondering where I was, I was able to get a few hours of sleep in my son’s bed before returning to my own, and my infant daughter snuggled with me and reminded me that even though I fail as a mother every single solitary day, she loves me anyway and she needs me. She wakes up crying and wants me. She wakes up hungry and relies on me to feed her. She gets a boo-boo and expects me to kiss it. She brings me books and knows that I’ll read them to her. I’m her mother and when she looks at me she doesn’t see all my flaws. She just sees comfort and protection.

As my husband reminded me, he’s not a mind-reader and he never knows when I’m having a bad day if it’s related to losing Carter or if it’s other stuff. I hate being weak and vulnerable and insecure, so when those feeling arise, I either shut down completely or shove everything aside and fake it. I don’t talk about my problems to him. He has enough on his plate and feels so pressured to provide and make us happy that I don’t want to burden him. We’ve been married for nearly 18 years and together for nearly 24. You don’t spend that much time together always skipping on rainbows with unicorns and singing Louie Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” while holding hands and gazing longingly into each other’s eyes. Our marriage is like most- broken trust and vows at times, miscommunications, financial worries, heartache upon heartache, and just a shit ton of poor decisions and lack of maturity. But our marriage is also unique in the sense that we have the added stress of the death of a child. Statistically, we shouldn’t survive this. Our marriage shouldn’t withstand the stress of it. It seems inevitable when the arguments are heated and we want to just walk away thinking that somehow we can do better by ourselves than we can together.

However, my husband told me something pretty profound today as he often does in response to my texts that read more like novel chapters when I resort to written communication with him- he wrote that, “Sometimes it seems too much- we are only 3 steps in to this 50 step journey- 3 years in and 50 to go.” That really helped me put this journey into perspective. We lost a child in one of the most tragic ways imaginable, and we’re just doing the best we can to make it. Our efforts are hampered daily by normal pressures and we can’t always be expected to get it right. We’re both screw-ups trying not to screw up quite so much. Every day is a new day to try and do better and to take another step forward.

Come hell or high water, we’re taking those footsteps together. And that’s how we’ll make it until one day those steps will carry us over into glory where we can see Jesus face-to-face, worship at His feet, and grab our boy with every bit of pent-up longing and desire and squeeze him and love on him for the rest of eternity.

Dear Carter,

Thank you for sending me a beautifully vibrant rainbow today. The last one I saw was on the anniversary of your passing in TN. Rainbows are special. You know one appeared over our house that scorching hot July day when we lost you with not a drop of rain in sight anywhere for miles and miles. We know it was no coincidence.

Daddy and I are still struggling a lot. We had a really hard time the year before we lost you, too, and there were lots of tears and hurt back then. We were on the verge of divorce, but somehow pushed through. I don’t know if you ever caught on to how bad things were- we tried our best to keep it from you. You were always so tender-hearted that we didn’t want you to worry. If we had ended things that year, I don’t know that we could have borne the guilt of such a decision in light of your suicide the following year. We would have always blamed ourselves for the break-up of our home being the catalyst for your death. It’s hard enough to bear the guilt that we do anyway- that would have probably done us both in.

I found a new drawing of yours in your room last night. A hologram Christmas tree with the carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” as the title of it. I can’t wait to frame it and add to our Christmas decor this season. I can still see you singing the chorus of that song in a church Christmas play as a 4-year-old little boy. You concentrated fiercely on belting it out in your little white dress shirt underneath a gray sweater vest with a red train depicted on the front and black dress pants. My sweet, sweet, Carterbug with the voice of an angel. Now you’re singing with the angels.

I also opened the drawer to your Americana nightstand last night while I was in your bedroom to discover not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 gospel tracts inside. You had your devotion book on top. I know you read through it, and it was special to you because you packed it on vacation when you went to the beach with your grandparents. I know that Jesus was in your heart, but what a comfort to see that He was also in your room. There’s no doubt in my mind where you are, Carterbug, because of the faith, hope, and trust you had in your Savior. His Word promises us that He is faithful and true and one day our faith will become sight. The lyric to your favorite hymn reminds us that, “No power of hell / no scheme of man / can EVER pluck me from His hand” and I’m so thankful for the promise of heaven and eternity spent together where there is no more sorrow and no more pain.

Love you so much it hurts, buddy. Longing for you with every fiber of my being and missing you fiercely. Keep singing and praising Jesus. Mama, Daddy, and Caroline are remembering you and holding you close in our hearts and minds, and Carlen and Carsen will always know about their special brother in heaven. Our lives are hard at times, but our lives are all blessed because of you.

We love you, sweet Carter. Forever and a day.

Boop!

Mama