Ambulance

Today an ambulance pulls out of a medical clinic. The emergency vehicle is right in front of me and travels at normal speed. This is the same clinic where, when Colby was about nine, a doctor called an ambulance when Colby was having an asthma attack.

Then, Colby had been to see a doctor several times in a ten day period for an upper respiratory infection. It turned into strep even though he had been taking antibiotics and, as was typical whenever Colby got sick, his breathing deteriorated. I called his regular clinic and they were closed as it was a weekend. They suggested we try a walk-in clinic. We did and while there, Colby's breathing went from bad to worse.

After the examination the doctor stepped out of the room. A minute later we heard sirens and the doctor explained he had called an ambulance. The clinic was not equipped to treat Colby in his current state. This was certainly not our first trip to the hospital due to asthma, but it was the first time Colby had gone in an ambulance. I followed the vehicle, which was driving without sirens at normal speed, to Vanderbilt Hospital. Half way there the lights and sirens came on and my heart jumped into my throat. A block later the flashing and noise stopped and the driver later explained to me they were "playing" at Colby's request.

That trip resulted in a several day hospital stay and I think of that time now, as I follow this ambulance for a mile or so. I hope whoever is being transported will be okay. And I hope whoever is being transported is well enough to "play" with the lights and siren.

First Year

As I approach––as we all approach––the first anniversary of Colby's passing, a therapist suggested I compare Colby's first year on Earth with mine. It's an interesting concept and was quite an eye opener for me. I had never thought much about my first year. However, as my parents split around the time of my first birthday, I realized for the first time that there could have been a lot of fighting. I know the house we lived in was tiny. How much of the yelling was I able to hear, to process? As an only child, it would have been just my parents and me. I believe my dad traveled, so my mom was also probably often overwhelmed in caring for a newborn by herself. For better or worse I will never know how that all affected me, although I am sure it did. After my dad left my mom and I moved in with my grandmother. My mom lives in that house still today.

Colby's dad, on the other hand, left when Colby was just five weeks old. After that it was just Colby and me, and fortunately for me, other than continual resperatoy infections, Colby was a good baby and a good sleeper. When Colby was six weeks old I found a job. Despite my wanting to stay with Colby during the day we had to eat and have shelter and the only way that would happen was if I worked. So, I placed Colby in the daily care of a wonderful grandmotherly woman who had nine grown children of her own. There was only one other child there, a girl who was about six months older than Colby, so he had someone to play with and watch and learn from during the day. In the evenings he and I did "babycizes" (baby exercises), which were in vogue at the time. Colby had excellent athletic ability and hand/eye coordination throughout his life, so maybe some of those early exercises paid off! We also read in the evenings, as I imagine my mother read to me. Colby and I lived in a mobile home in the country and the home was probably a little larger than the one I lived in my first year.

So, my dad was around my first year, Colby's was not. I stayed at home during the day with my mom while Colby was in the home of an older caregiver. I was not around other babies while Colby had an older child to play with. I probably experienced some fighting. Colby and I led a quiet existence at home.

What this all means, I do not know, but I do know that I will think about it. I am sure most of us rarely, if ever, have tried to visualize what our first year was like. It is an important year that shapes us in many ways. Thinking about those first years has given me empathy for my mother, and also empathy for myself. It is not easy to care for a baby no matter what the circumstances, but I believe every mother does the best she can. I know I did, and then some.

Religion

From the time he was small Colby was interested in world religion and over the years he studied many different forms of worship. The bulk of his personal library was filled with books on Christianity, Hinduism, Buddism, the Jewish religion and others. I remember when he was about fourteen he was so excited to discover that all of the religions he studied had one thing in common: a rule that you should "do undo others as you would like others to do unto you."

Recent studies have shown that those with schizophrenia are often very interested in religion and a 2002 study found that 80 percent of people who are severely mentally ill in North America use religion as a way to better cope with their illness.

I am not sure whether Colby's interest in religion had anything to do with his mental illnesses. I do know that Colby found this prayer several years ago, and it often brought him peace. It is an old translation of "Our Father" from Aramaic to English, rather than from Aramaic to Greek to Latin and then English.

Our Father

O cosmic Birther of all radiance and vibration!
Soften the ground of our being and carve out a space
within us where your Presence can abide.

Fill us with your creativity so that we may be
empowered to bear the fruit of your mission.

Let each of our actions bear fruit in accordance with our desire.
Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share
what each being needs to grow and flourish.

Untie the tangled threads of destiny that bind us,
as we release others from the entanglement of past mistakes.

Do not let us be seduced by that which would divert us
from our true purpose, but illuminate
the opportunities of the present moment.

For you are the ground and the fruitful vision,
the birth, power and fulfillment,
as all is gathered and made whole once again.

Caring

I'm not sure when I stopped caring about, well, a lot of things. I only realized it when another grieving parent in a support group mentioned that she just didn't care about anything any more. The house was not clean? So what? She was late for an appointment? Big deal. I, too, find myself feeling the same way.


Not that I don't care, intensely, about other things. The oil spill, endangered species, my friends. But the fact that my tomato garden has weeds has no meaning for me anymore. My counselors say this lack of caring is another side of grief.

Studies at the University of Western Sydney in Australia show that the grief of parents after the loss of a child is more intense and prolonged than that of any other loss, and follow-up studies show that anxiety and depression may last four to nine years after the loss of a child. When a child dies suddenly, as Colby did, parental grief may become complicated by post traumatic stress reactions, so that the parent has to deal with the interplay of both trauma and grief. There is just not room in the human brain for all the thoughts, feelings, and emotion so some of them have to go. Like caring.

Maybe someday I will once again be bothered by weeds or the fact that I am late. Maybe I will once again care about the dust bunnies under the couch. Maybe someday I will wake up and realize that it no longer hurts to breathe and the hollowness that permeates my insides is gone. Maybe. Someday.

Movement

I have a new "yard guy." My mailman is new and the neighbors behind me have a new dog. Colby has not met either of these people, or the dog, and that is another reminder to me that life for those of us who are still here goes on. There is movement in the progression of life and that movement does not include Colby. That thought makes me incredibly sad.

Every day I am reminded that Colby is not here, at least not in physical form. I pass his favorite drinks at the supermarket and put several in the basket . . . and then take them back out. My cable provider requires me to install new converter boxes, something that is not one of my strengths when it comes to skill sets. Colby could have done it when he was four--and that is not an exaggeration. I, meanwhile, will most likely spend and entire frustrating day and still not get it right. I find (yet another) pair of his socks (in a box), wash them and begin to put them in his sock drawer. Then stop.

Counselors say that the mind of a grieving parent is overloaded similarly to that of survivors of post-traumatic stress syndrome. That's why we "forget" our child is no longer here, why we have trouble focusing or remembering to do things we've done every day of our lives. It's one of the many reasons why we eventually turn into different people than we were "before."

That change, or the evolution in our stages of grief, is another movement away from our beloved child. We must go on without them, yet every time we turn around their absence is a gaping hole in our lives. I greet the new yard man. Wave at the new postman and introduce Abby, my dog, Colby's and mine, to the new dog behind us. I do all of this in a wave of grief, for they are more reminders that Colby has really and truly moved on.

e e cummings

Colby liked the poet e e cummings, mostly, I believe, because cummings wrote many poems in lower case and with little, if any, punctuation. Colby hated punctuation. He felt it was limiting, and who is to say he was wrong? Words aren't always for the writer to convey. Sometimes they are for the reader to interpret.

Here's the beginning one of Colby's favorites:


why must itself up every of a park
why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?

Here's a favorite of mine:

i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Snoqualmie

 Colby on his 4th birthday. Snoqualmie was 28.

Today would have been Snoqualmie's 49th birthday. Snoqualmie was the horse I had as a child, and then was Colby's horse when he was small. The bond I had with her and then that Colby had with her was amazing. I never had a moment of worry or doubt about Colby's safety if he was playing with Snoqualmie. He'd climb up her mane and ride her in through the pasture with no halter or bridle, just guiding her by pulling left or right on her mane.

Sometimes they'd amble along, a Civil War soldier and his horse coming home from battle, complete with cardboard guns and a military cap we found at a thrift store. Other times they'd gallop thrrough the field, a pirate ship and her captain escaping the enemy (which was sometimes our dog, Dexter, or less often, our cat Bootsie).

Colby never fell off. Snoqualmie would never have allowed it. If he got off balance, she shifted underneath him and gently slowed. She was quiet and patient with Colby, but she knew he was important to me and took good care of him.

Snoqualmie passed away when Colby was six and she was 31. She'd had a stroke a few days before and finally got down and could not get back up. One thing she loved to do was eat, so as I held her head in my lap in a field of trees as I waited for the vet, Colby went to the barn for the grain. For once she could have all she wanted. She licked handful after handful from Colby's little hand and when it was time, I sent Colby to the house. She is buried there, underneath the trees. Even after we moved away from that house, Colby and I visited her at least once a year.

Today I like to think that they are together, galloping off to new adventures in heaven. I had each of them with me for 23 years. First Snoqualmie, and then Colby. Each was my best friend and I miss both of them more than words can say. Happy Birthday, my Fat Girl.

People

Today I go to a busy annual event. There are several hundred people there. Most I have not seen for a year or more. I have stressed over this event for days. So much so that I get zero sleep the night before. It is work related. I have to go. Some people know that Colby passed, others won't. But they all know Colby, because for years he used to accompany me to this.

Just as I imagined, at the event I had two kinds of conversations. The first went something like this:

"I am so, so very sorry about Colby. You poor thing. How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but I'm okay." This is my standard answer. People really do not want to know that I cry every morning when I wake up and every evening before I fall asleep. They don't want to know that Colby's absence still hurts with every breath I take and that it is a rare occasion when I can get in the truck and go from Point A to Point B without having to pull off the road because I am crying so hard.

"Really? Are you really okay?"

"Yes. It is very hard, but I am okay."

"Really?"

These people do not understand that I don't want to go into details in this very public setting. I try not to be rude as I turn to find something to busy myself with, or someone else to talk to. But the someone else invariably jumps into conversation number two:

"Hey! Hi! How are you? Long time no see? How's that boy of yours?"

"I'm sorry to say that Colby passed away last July."

"Ha, ha! No, how is he, really?"

"He passed away."

When they get what I am saying, it's a real conversation stopper. That's when they turn and try to busy themselves with something or find someone else to talk to. In either instance, conversation is awkward. I feel like I have the plague as the crowd parts every time I walk through it. Faces turn away. The few that don't are overly solicitous. "Oh, you poor, poor thing," they say as they pat me on the back.

And people wonder why I don't go out much anymore.

Better

Sorry for the lapse in posts and thank you all for emailing me. I am okay, just still very tired. Colby was always the one who could tell from the sound of my voice or the look on my face that I was not well. He saw and heard long before anyone else, including myself, that I was too tired, or coming down with something. Now, with Colby gone, without his eagle eye and keen ear, I find myself doing too much and not stopping to rest.

I feel as if I have not really rested in years. A week or so ago my symptoms had reached the scary stage and I knew I was either sick with something very serious or long past exhaustion. Fortunately, now that I have had a little rest, I believe it is the latter. I am just tired and it is a tiredness that won't go away with a good night's sleep--or even two night's sleep. This is a deep mental and physical and emotional exhaustion that will take much time and rest to overcome and I am taking steps to make that happen. Ten hours of down time every day rather than four, half of an over the counter sleep aid if I can't fall asleep, at least two days off a month.

I have not had a vacation in over thirty years and in past years I have only taken a few days off the entire year. It's not that I am a martyr or a glutton for punishment. It was a matter of survival, of managing my work load, Colby's troubles, and my mom's aging. But, Colby was always there to say, "Stop, you are getting sick." Without that touchstone in recent months I have pushed myself too far, for too long.

The good news is that I am now much more aware of what my body is telling me. I am now feeling better than I have in a long time, although I know I have a long way to go before I am where I need to be. I am fortunate that I am able to rest during the day when I need to. For the most part I can get my work done at any hour of the day or night. In that, at least, I am blessed.

Art

Every year for Mother’s Day Colby gave me something he created. It might have been a drawing, something he made from wood (such as a garden stool), or a poem. A few years ago Colby gave me the painting you see at the top of this post. In keeping with his belief about using everything and throwing nothing away that had any possible use, this painting is done on a piece of cardboard. For this painting he also used paint that was left over from other projects.

The reason I like this painting so much is not just because I think it is beautiful, it’s because the gold in the mountains is paint that was left over from the time we went to Bowie Park in Fairview and gathered pine cones that we tipped with gold and gave to friends as Christmas gifts. The red is from when Colby made a CD storage bin out of popsicle sticks for my mother and painted it. The cardboard is from boxes of books I had delivered for a book signing that Colby helped me stack, and the darker background is paint that was left over from the time Colby and I painted my toy box from when I was a child. The toy box was more recently his, and now resides in the spare bedroom as a bookshelf. Before it was my toy box, it was a storage chest during WWII when my mother was in the Marines.

This is just one of many paintings that Colby did. Most are abstracts and reflect the way he was feeling at the time he painted them. All make excellent use of color and design. Today as I clean out more “stuff” from his room I find his stacks of bare canvasses, his pains and his brushes. In addition to the traditional canvasses most artists use I find several blocks of wood, a small piece of corrugated metal, and two old skateboards—minus wheels. His brushes consist of a small assortment of the usual, plus a number of sponges, table knives, a toothbrush, and a few small scrub brushes. I am so deeply and heart-breakingly saddened that I will never see what work of art Colby planned to create with his collection of “stuff.” I know it would have been absolutely awesome.