Confession

Editor's note: This post was written in the wee small hours of the night, listening to Jumby's sick ragged breath. I wasn't going to post it, because it is raw and scattered, but I made a promise to myself and my children that this blog be a record of the good, the bad, and the ugly. Feel free to skip it if you are looking for something light and fluffy because that isn't on today's menu.


There are moments, no, days really, when I feel wholly unprepared for this mothering gig.

Today is one of those days. It has in fact, been an entire week of these days.

When Bug was alive, I was younger and infinitely more naive. I didn't or couldn't comprehend the enormity of the task I faced, raising a disabled child. Fric and Frac weren't hurdling towards independence with an alarming alacrity and my husband still crawled into bed with me every night.

Three and a half years later and it feels like I've just blinked and the world has spun into something I hardly recognize. Suddenly I am alone most days and almost every night, with no husband to talk with, or to share the burden of child rearing with. Grief spun it's magic on Boo as well and his life - our lives- went in a direction I could have never had foreseen.

My husband, sweet Boo, finds peace stretching his intellect in a job that takes him away from us for more time than any of us care for.

Fric and Frac bounce towards adulthood with every breath they inhale, eager to shed their childlike skins and stretch their boundaries of independence as far as the elastic of youth will let them.

And I found Jumby, sweet Jumby who is everything I hoped for and inspires my heart to grow Grinch-like, with every laugh, every cuddle he awards us with.

But in the background of this new life I've worked so hard to build is a shadow of angel wings, hovering over my head, reminding me of how fragile all of this, this life around me, really is.

My naivete has been stripped away leaving me struggling with the hard truth that at any moment life can change and the magic of these moments I wrap myself in can swiftly turn to dusty memories as I once more swim in the quagmire of grief.

It is hard to admit and it shames me to say it, but I'm scared.

I'm scared of what the future holds for my son, my forever boy, the child brought to me by fate and luck and determination. Jumby's battle for life has been hard fought and too often he walks the precipice of death for my comfort.

I am imminently aware of how quickly his life (and mine) can go sideways with one infection, one bad swallow, one breath.

With Shale I knew this too. But it wasn't a reality, it was a concept floating at the peripheral of my intellect. Surely he could die, I'd think to myself, but so could any of us. You never know when a bus is going to come out of nowhere and mow you down.

I understood his body was wrong, built differently and more fragile than his siblings while he was waiting to be delivered from the harness of my uterus. I knew Shale was medically fragile but he was strong. Resilient. Until that very moment when he ceased to be.

My child's death has brought with it a clarity of just how very real death can be, and I look at Jumby and I worry. I worry that I will make a mistake, not notice his resiliency slipping and I will lose the boy I never thought I could love this much until I held him in my arms.

I worry for my older children and the scars they now sport through no fault of their own. I wonder who they would have turned out to be had they not had to bury their little brother at ages eight and nine. I wonder if my grief has added more crisscross scars across their hearts.

They laugh at me when I question them, gently prodding at them to reveal their feelings. They kiss me on my forehead like I'm a dotering old woman and squeeze my hand while assuring me they are fine, they will be fine, they have survived. But it is then that it strikes me, they have survived.

They're children. And they are survivors. The only thing children should ever have to survive is a fruity old aunt with bad breath pinching their cheeks too hard and the teen aged scars from middle school.

Yet my children, all of my children have survived tragedy.

Fric and Frac and Jumby, enduring perhaps the worst tragedy of all.

This scares me and I wonder if I'm the mother I can be, the mother I should be to these three precious gifts I have been blessed with.

I'm so scared I'm gonna screw it all up.

While other parents dream of empty nests and weddings and graduations, when I close my eyes each night I dream of just one thing:

Having another day with each of them.

Purging

I haven't been blogging much.

Nothing like stating the obvious, eh?

Everyday I sit down and open my laptop and start writing a post to publish here on RMN. And almost everyday, without fail, I scrap the post or save it to finish another day.

I haven't been able to write what I want and I'm feeling bound and gagged like my husband tied me up with soft purple satin strips and walked away while leaving the ball-gag in so he could go get something to eat.

(Not that he'd ever do such a thing. Really.)

I could tell you I'm weighted down with grief as of late and I'm having a hard time finding my joy. But that would be lying. 

I could say I have been so busy sitting around doing nothing I haven't had time to compose anything worthy of publishing. But one look at my daily twitter account would betray that falsehood quicker than when the kleenex I used to pad my bra in tenth grade fell out at the feet of the cutest boy in my class.

(It is a mystery why I was such a geek back then when I am the epitome of coolness now. Hmm.)

The truth behind my spotty posting as of late is more complicated than the gossamer weavings of a spider's web tucked up high in the corner of your ceiling. 

I'm pissed off. 

Okay, so it really isn't that complicated. I'm mad as hell and I'm tired of muzzling myself. I'm tired of not being able to sit down and compose a post about what happens when you grab your husband's package while on a six-hour road trip only to hit a pothole. Hint: eyes bulge out and expletives may be uttered.

I made a promise to myself when I started blogging I would focus on the funny. If it didn't bring joy or wasn't about remembering how to find joy, I wouldn't write about it. My life has enough drama filled moments I don't need to fill my time trying to recapture them.

For the most part, I've held true to this promise with few exceptions. I've never felt stifled by that decision. Until now. Now I feel as though there are things I need to get off my chest so I can resume my routine of focusing on exaggerating and twisting my daily life for the sheer pleasure of knowing my husband will read this and wish he had remembered to wear a rubber one fateful night long ago, thereby escaping a shotgun wedding and an eternity tethered to me.

So I'm going to stray off the beaten path and do what I never do. I'm going to dump all my pissiness at your proverbial feet in hopes you'll understand why the bee has been trapped in my bonnet as of late.

Deep breath. (Stay with me peoples. It'll be quick and painless. Like having sex while intoxicated.) 

I'm pissed with the adoption process my husband and I have been traveling for almost two years now. I'm tired of running along side him in this hamster wheel of bureaucracy and being bound by legalities (and a healthy fear of retribution) to not speak about it.

One day, though, this path will end. I will climb the highest mountain and shout my story for sherpas and villagers everywhere to hear. Or I'll just open my laptop and press publish. That day cannot come soon enough for me.

Bureaucracy can suck my big hairy toe.

I'm pissed with the anonymous trolls who have nothing better to do in their lives than to mock my parenting, my dead child and me. I won't lie and say it hasn't destroyed a bit of the joy I have found in the community of the blogosphere. I prefer my naive belief that as adults we can all agree to disagree and if you have nothing nice to say keep your big fat yap shut.

I have walked through the shadows of hell, holding my children's hands tightly within mine, to ensure we all survived our unthinkable tragedy as unscathed as possible.

It wasn't easy and it wasn't fun. For any of us. For people to diminish my loss and the loss of my children pisses me off.

I don't write about my son, Shale, for entertainment. I certainly don't write a post about him to earn money off the revenue I make running ads in my sidebar. I write about my son to help remember him, to preserve the memory of his tiny chubby hands laced with calluses and covered in drool, or his curly blonde hair always sweaty from exertion or how he'd throw his head back and laugh when he did something he deemed extraordinarily funny.

I write about my son so my children will one day understand why I am the person I am today. How his life and his death so deeply impacted my very being and how I struggle to stay aloft the despair that threatens to pull me under every day I live, knowing I will never watch my youngest son grow to be a man. 

I post ads on my site to create revenue so that I can donate money in his name to the Stollery Children's Hospital. I wanted to be able to do something personally, to show my gratitude to the hospital that fought so hard to keep my son alive for as long as he was. Every damn cent I earn off my words goes straight charity. 

I'm pissed off that my new puppy eats more scat than puppy chow and insists on kissing my face with her shitty breath. And I'm pissed off I'm dumb enough to coo over her and let it happen. Repeatedly.

I'm pissed off I am a damn klutz and am now paying the price for attempting to clean my house. This is just further proof no good can come from household chores.  My twisted knee and myself are proof of this.

I'm pissed my son is eleven years old and still has to be reminded to clip his own damn toenails. Those suckers are like sharp little crack nails and he doesn't even seem to notice.

Hell, I'm pissed my left boob is noticeably bigger than my right one. I feel lopsided and uneven. I know I'm not alone in this. Women everywhere have uneven boobs. But why don't guys have unevenly sized testicles? What's the deal with that? And why don't bra manufacturers make bras with different shaped cups so one boob isn't squished and spilling out while the other cup is almost so empty you are eyeballing a box of kleenex like you did in junior high.

But mostly I'm pissed off that people just don't get it.

Life is short. There is no such thing as tomorrow. Tomorrow is a promise not always kept. I speak from experience. Why do people waste any second of the spun gold known as time as though it's a renewable resource?

I want to teach my children to focus on finding joy and learning to be amazed with whatever path they choose to travel. To always aspire to be better not bitter.

That's why I blog. I just needed to remind myself of this and expectorate the pissiness.

Like a cat after coughing up a hairball, I feel much better.

Care to share? Purge your pissiness. You'll feel better. I promise.

Birdbrain

I have a morning routine that I like to follow religiously. I get up, I yawn, I go to the washroom, I get my cup of personality (some people refer to this as coffee, I like to think of it as a life-saving elixir) and I sit outside on my deck to breathe in the fresh air and centre myself for the chaos that will inevitably follow with two preteens in the house.

There are mornings I can't do this. Three mornings a week. Three whole mornings when my routine is shattered because my daughter decided to join the school volleyball team which is coached by the anti-christ. (Albeit, a fairly young muscular, if-you-squint-he's-kinda-hawt type of demon.)

This anti-christ insists on scheduling morning practices at 7 freaking a.m. Which means I have to drag my arse out of my bed at an ungodly hour, before even the sun rises to squire my bundle of love as she bounces around in the back seat and chatters as only a fresh faced youngster can and bite my tongue until it bleeds to ensure I don't rip her face off from my crankiness. All before I can have the first sips of my morning elixir.

To say I dread these mornings would be a wee understatement. I'd rather have my pretty private parts chewed off by a rabid wild animal than get behind the wheel of my car before I'm fully awake and centered. Damn. If only I had thought about this reality before deciding to live my life out in the boondocks of Alberta. It would be much easier if I we lived in town and I could just yell at her to wake her sorry butt up and walk herself to practice.

I never was one for forethought and planning.

Earlier this week was one such joyous morning. I was cranky because I forgot to set the coffee maker the night before and didn't have time to brew a fresh pot before having to drive Fric to practice. I was tired, cranky and not fully awake. How safe is that? A grouchy, sleepy redneck behind the wheel of a speeding vehicle. Good times.

After dropping her off I went home and headed straight to the coffee pot. As I waited for my magical elixir to brew and inhaled the sweet intoxicating aroma of coffee, I walked over to the pantry to give Nixon, The World's Greatest Dog, EVER, a morning treat. While in the pantry I spied the bag of bird seed and reminded myself to fill my bird's seed dish.

This is normally a chore I pass to my children; not because I am lazy, but because I am scared of my lovebirds, Abe and Lester. They are angry little fackers who take great delight in biting off hunks of skin as you try and wrangle their food and water dishes out of their cage. They hop around the bottom of their cage and cackle at you maniacally while they peck at your fingers looking to draw blood.

Yet, despite this annoying blood-thirsty habit they have developed, I love my birds. They soothe my soul with their birdy tweets and sweet preening. I can overlook their vampire tendencies because they are so darned pretty.

Reaching into their cage, I braced myself for the onslaught of carnivorous bird beaks on my bare hand. Except there was none. Weird. That's when I opened my eyes fully and realized something was wrong. Horribly wrong.

My beloved Abe and Lester were dead, on the bottom of their cage, snuggled so it looked like they were eating out of an overturned food dish.

I immediately started to hyperventilate. Dear lawd, I hadn't even had my coffee yet and here I was in the middle of a morning tragedy. I didn't know what to do, so I backed away from the cage, shaking, and headed for my coffee pot.

Caffeine cures all ails, including the shocking surprise of discovering your beloved pets dead in their cage first thing in the morning.

I don't know why they died. Trying to fight back the tears, I did the only thing I could think of. I called my darling husband.

"Hello?"

"Where are you?" I half-croaked, half-whispered.

"What's the matter?" he immediately asked, knowing by the tone of my voice something was very wrong.

"Abe and Lester are DEAD!" I gasped as the shock finally broke and the waterworks began.

"Oh honey, I'm so sorry. I know you loved those birds."

I sniffed, somewhat mollified to have my grief acknowledged. "When are you coming home?"

"I'm on my way home now, actually, love. I should be home shortly."

"Good," I replied. "You can dispose of their bodies."

"No f*cking way, love. They're your birds."

I blinked, not expecting this answer from a man who has been known to dispose of deceased pets for neighbours and friends. "What do you mean? You always take care of the dead things around here."

"I love you Tanis, but I'm not touching dead birds. They could be diseased." And with that, the image of my manly husband morphed into a sissy little pansy, scared of a couple of tiny rotting birds.

"I can't do it!!!" I wailed. "Don't make me do this, Boo. You are supposed to wear the pants in our marriage." (Nothing like playing on his testosterone to force him to do something. Heh.)

"Just toss them in a garbage bag and put them outside," he reasoned.

"No. I am just going to cover the cage with a sheet until you get home," I declared. "And if you don't take care of my birds I'm not above blogging about what a weeny my husband is. There are other daddy bloggers out there who would totally do this for me. Daddy bloggers who love me. Don't make me trade you in for one of them."

Silence. "Wow, you are just EVIL this morning."

"I'm in mourning. And the caffeine hasn't kicked in yet," I explained.

With that he sighed and I knew my tactics had worked. Heh. Sometimes it pays to know someone so well you can play them like a fiddle. (Just kidding Boo!)





Goodbye sweet Abe and Lester. How I loved you.

A bit later, Boo walked into the house and wandered over to see the remains of my sweet Abe and Lester.

"Hmm. I wonder what happened. They were fine last night," he murmured.

"I knowwwww," I half cried, half hiccuped.

"Weird." Taking his finger, he poked at them to see if they were playing opossum. They weren't. "Yep, they're dead."

Thanks Sherlock. I hadn't figured that one out for myself.

"I wonder what they would taste like?" he grinned and started laughing when I gasped horrifically and smacked his arm.

"That's disgusting! And so mean! Don't worry Abe and Lester, I'd never eat you," I assured my birdie corpses.

I stood by silently, as Boo took the cage outside and lovingly stuffed the birds into a bag to go bury out by a pear tree I had planted earlier this spring. I watched him dig a hole and place them in it and when he started tossing dirt on my precious birdie babies, I had to look away.

Poor Abe and Lester. I'm sorry you died, my sweets. But I'm glad you flew to heaven together. And I'm kinda relieved you won't take small chunks of my skin out anymore with your vicious curved beaks, I thought to myself.

Boo came back in and washed his hands and hugged me. "I'm really sorry love," he murmured as he kissed the top of my head. I nodded and buried myself deep into his embrace, trying to block out the image of my gruesome discovery from earlier that morning.

"I know what will cheer you up," he offered. "I'll take you out for supper tonight and we can celebrate Abe and Lester and the joy they brought to our house as they shit and chirped and scattered bird seed all over my floor." (A little passive aggressive I thought, but hey, he was offering to wine and dine me, so why not?"

"What are you in the mood for?" I asked, half hoping he would name my favorite Vietnamese restaurant.

Boo looked at me and grinned a wicked grin and said, "Well suddenly, I'm in the mood for chicken wings."

And that bugger my loving husband did have chicken wings later that night. Every time he took a bite he'd grin and say, "Oh Lester, you taste so good. Abe, I didn't know you were so tasty."

Let's just say the man did not get laid.

And I'm currently in the hunt for a replacement model. Not just for the birds. But for my birdbrained boy as well.