Tethered to Today

Five years ago I thought this day would get easier. I pinned my hopes on that thought, clutched it tightly to my fractured soul and used it to mop up the tears seeping down my face.

Five years ago I would never have been able to comprehend the fact this day wouldn't just mark the end of your life, but would also mark the birth of the brother you never got to meet, the son I didn't yet know existed.

But here we are.

It's been five years.

It's a difficult day, to mourn the loss of one son, while celebrating the birth of another. It is a day that can never completely be one son's day, a day where joy tugs with sorrow and my heart is ripped to shreds all over again and I stand breathless against the tidal wave of pain while clinging to the love which surrounds me in the hopes this day will get easier.

I see you sometimes Bug. Standing there in the sunlight, with your head thrown back, laughing. I see you in your siblings eyes, reflected back to me in their big blue eyes. I see you sometimes in the way your little brother holds his head against mine when we cuddle.

I feel you everywhere.

I wonder who you would have been if you had survived. It haunts me. I wonder who Jumby would have been if he had been born to me? Or if I had found him sooner. Haunted.

I wish upon a thousand stars I could make things right for both of my boys. That neither of you had to suffer the way you did. That I could make you both whole, heal you with our family's love for you. That I could have saved you both.

Sorrow clings to me like a second skin, itches like an ill-fitting sweater.

Five years ago I was lost.

Five years later I have a reason to celebrate this day.

It's not enough, it's too much, I'm grateful for this new love, I'm broken for my lost love.

I never thought I could love someone this much. You did this to me. Both of you. The four of you. I'm who I am today, all  joy and pain and heartbreak and hope because of you. My children.

I'm so lucky to have had the chance to love this much.

I will light a candle tonight for one son as I help another blow his out.

Happy birthday my sweet Jumby.

You are missed my sweet Bug.

You are both so very loved today and everyday to come.

The Steel-Toed Boots of Motherhood

One of the joys of raising children is dealing with medical issues. Snotty noses, vomit and explosive poops visit every kid with no exceptions. Add a dash of childhood communicable diseases like chicken pox or the measles, a touch of the flu and a pinch of ear infections and at one point if you have decided to raise smalls you are going to find yourself sitting in a germ infested doctor's office, surrounded by contagious curtain climbers.

It's all part and parcel of the parenting package. My grandmother used to tell me I haven't met motherhood until I found myself in an emergency room, worrying myself sick over a broken bone or stitches or worse.

Oh Grandma. I've met motherhood. We were introduced and then she hit me over the head with a wooden bat, bent me over and repeatedly crammed her steel toe boots up my arse. We are on intimate terms now, motherhood and I, by your definition.

Between the normal health concerns of my eldest children, followed by the medical crises of my youngest children, I'm pretty sure my tax dollars have paid for more than one doctor's college education fund. If I were given frequent flyer points for all the times I've sat bedside next to one of my children as they were poked and prodded in a hospital or doctors office I'm fairly certain I'd have earned several round the world tickets by now.

Yesterday, in my quest to spend as much time in the local children's hospital as possible, I took Jumby in for a small medical procedure.

I was having the kid shot full of Botox. Because nothing quite says love like injecting a large amount of the botulism toxin into your child.

Jumby is now wrinkle free. I, however, am not.

The stress of raising a medically challenged child has started to catch up with me.

I keep telling myself parenting is supposed to be hard, whether it's done in a hospital or at home.

My head knows this, but my heart is a little weary at the moment.

Self-doubt plagues me and every milestone Jumby doesn't reach makes me question my effectiveness at being his best advocate. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, love simply isn't enough, as any parent who has lost a child can attest to.

With Jumby's development, both physical and mental, there hasn't been a huge growth. My son will be seven soon and there are babies less than a year old more functional than my child.

It's hard not to hold anger in my heart at his biological parents for dooming my son to this life of pain and delay.

My child is irrevocably broken and all the love and botox in the world will never make him into the man he should have been.

The injustice of this weighs heavily on my soul and I'll spend the remainder of my days trying to make his life better even if it means bending over for motherhood to cram her pointy boots up my bum over and over again.

Because that is motherhood. Putting ourselves out there for our kids even when it hurts.

And today, it hurts a lot.

The Dragon Slayer

I used to be a dragon slayer. It was years ago, back when I had to shove spagetti arms into coat sleeves and chase small children into shoes so we could spend time outside.  I'd follow Fric and Frac about as I pushed Bug about in a stroller or a wagon, watching them trip over blades of grass and pull up fistful of dandelions with their chubby little hands to proudly give to me.

As my kids explored the Great Outdoors I'd weave grand tales about invisible fairy worlds, where dragon flies were the Royal transportation for magical princesses and beetles the bus for the commoners. Entire communities would live in the reeds of our slough and wild mushrooms housed irksome gnomes. I took my cues from the nature around us and I spun stories so fine that Charlotte's Web looked like the ratty tapestry of a blind person learning to knit.

My kids would spend hours hanging on my every word, entranced with the fiction I concocted for them and I soaked up their joy like a sponge does a spill. I knew my time as their dream weaver and dragon slayer was fleeting, for soon they would find their own dreams to weave, their own dragons to slay. They would be pulling on the reigns of freedom to find their own and create a world I would never fully see.

Eventually, the day finally came when my children clumsily stomped out of my fairy world and into their own; preferring to create their own fiction with their friends rather than be enchanted with mine.

I miss those days. I miss being their invincible dragon slayer.

Those were the days my kids were innocent and untouched by the grim realities of life. Before they understood disabilities and disappointments; before they met Death and felt his presence in their young lives so vividly.

I wish desperately, I could bundle up Fric and Frac and now Jumby too, and wrap them in the innocence of the fairy tales I spin to keep them safe and warm and away from the harsh embrace of Life.

Death dissolved any traces of pixie dust my children had. I've fought hard over the past four years to reintroduce the magic of life to my children, to show them that life goes on and wonder continues. But it hasn't been easy. I can't erase the past and give them back their childhood innocence, no matter how silly I am, or how many times I make them laugh.

But I try.

There isn't a day that goes by in which I don't question myself and wonder if I'm failing them.

I couldn't protect Fric or Frac or Bug four years ago, nor can I erase the pain Jumby experienced at the hands of a violent man. All I can do is love them and try to give them the tools they will need to flourish in this new life we have all found ourselves in while promising to protect them forever.

Two weeks ago, that promise wasn't enough. Life once again banged on my family's door and took yet another sliver of innocence away from my children.

A stranger altered the landscape of our family once again.

There is nothing I can do to erase this pain my child now harbours, nothing I can do to wipe this foul memory from existence.

It's a terrible feeling to watch your child suffer and to wrestle with the what-if's. What if I didn't leave this child alone? What if I had my cell phone on? What if Boo was home?

I failed my child, if only by not preventing this tragedy. I failed to protect my child.

For two weeks I have now seethed and raged at the world, angry my child has to bear yet more scars from a childhood trauma. A trauma which should never have happened from a man who should have known better.

Once again, I feel helpless, wandering around this vast wilderness of parenthood and wondering how I can put the pieces of my child together again.

I am tired of tragedy bleeding onto the pages of my family's history and I'm scared to turn the page to find that I have yet another dragon to slay. My armour is threadbare and falling off these days and my vulnerability is exposed, an open invitation for the next monster to bite into.

So I continue to do what I have done for the last four years. I wrap myself around my children and whisper stories of courage and strength into their ears and hold them tight when the monsters invade their dreams at night.

I can't undo dead brothers or battered babies or grown up atrocities, but I can love them. I set the example of rising above, meeting the challenge, while shining a light on the scary things that threaten to undo us all.

My arm is tired from waving around this heavy sword while battling life's injustices on their behalf and I worry I will falter and once more fail my children. I fear my children will see through my facade and see me for who I really am: Just a woman who loves her kids, not the dragon slayer I tell them I am.