Changed Forever In An Instant

Two years ago today all of our lives changed in an instant.

I can still hear the sounds of that night. My calm words as my brain knew what my heart yet did not and I asked my husband to please smile for me, my frantic scream out the door for my mother to come quick, my voice strong and steady to the 9-1-1 dispatch, my tears as I relayed what I now knew to be a certainty even before we'd left the house to my best friend and her calm voice on the other end telling me everything was going to be ok somehow.

I can still see him laying, smiling, on the floor, see the look on my bewildered friends and neighbours as I opened their door like I had so many times before, only this time unannounced and asked if my kids could stay the night as I went with the ambulance. I can still feel the acute pain, the terror, the heartache.

I can still remember how detached I felt as everyone around me at the hospital told me they couldn't believe how calm and collected I was as I was asked to sign consent forms and make decisions as a next of kin like I had many times for my children, only this time my partner, their other next of kin, was lying on a stretcher and the decisions I made were for him.

I remember the arms of my friend Jo strong around me the next morning as she'd started her shift in the ICU and had been briefed on the youngest stroke patient our hospital had taken in since starting their stroke program and then realized she knew him, knew me, knew our kids, knew what was at stake not just in the abstract but on a personal level for our family.

Three months of our lives were spent with him in that hospital, three months of daily visits with my children in tow, of visits home, of learning a whole new way of living.

Visiting with Daddy, I'd often take the kids in pjs because it would be passed their bedtime when we'd get home

Our younger two kids have no memory of Daddy as a fully able bodied person. Our oldest son is still has anger because he does. From totally healthy to hemiplegic in less than 5 minutes, and then back to able to use one limb (his right arm), and then about a month after he came home he was able to walk with a cane instead of a needing a wheelchair all the time, and now he is able to walk independently, albeit with an altered gait. His left arm remains nonfunctional.

Two years ago our lives changed in an instant. Many things about our lives are different, accessibility issues, new specialists, always more testing, work issues, learning new ways to do activities of daily living for James, learning a new way of interacting with one another. Many of the things we have learned and are learning are deeper than just the day to day though. The role of disabled people in our society. The way people view persons with disabilities and the differences between those who have a strong advocate and those who don't. The things those of us who are able bodied take for granted.

It has been two years since James' stroke. I would never have chosen this for him, for any of us, and yet it was thrust upon us and two years out I can look around and see lessons learned that were valuable, relationships made with people we would not otherwise have crossed paths with, gifts in the strangest packages.

James' first night home with us after the stroke was Halloween night, 6.5 weeks after the stroke. He wanted to be able to go trick or treating with our kids. We had a great time. He was in a wheelchair and we had a just turned 1 year old, a 2.5 year old, and a 5 year old with us. We had an amazing time and I won't ever forget the memories we made that night. Next month he and I will take those same kids trick or treating in our own neighbourhood, in the new place we call home. I am so glad he survived the stroke, grateful that we have these memories to make and the hope for many more in the future.

Halloween 2011 <3

Not Just Jam

Today I made 29 jars of jam.

29 jars. Some will nourish my own three children and husband. Some will be enjoyed by my uncles and Gramma. Some will be gifts for those I love.

But today jam was more than just jam. It was wrinkled, competent hands guiding me. It was a gentle, firm voice teaching me. It was laughing and singing songs in her voice that I've known since I was still in my mothers womb.

It was dancing the dance of people who know each other deeply, in a kitchen where so many of my wonderful childhood memories were made. It was hearing stories of her Grandma and wondering if maybe, one day, I may be blessed with a granddaughter to share moments like these with.

It was more than just jam. It was memories. Mine, hers, her grandmothers and on along the women before us and on still to those yet to come, I hope.

29 jars of jam. And love.

A Year of Pain and Loss

On this, the last day of 2011, I find myself thinking back over the events and emotions of the whole year. Unfortunately if I had to sum up the year it would be a year of pain and of loss. Not all of the year was negative of course, but the recurring theme was loss and the pain that comes with it.

As I face the new year I have decided that after spending the better part of the year avoiding the emotions of the last year, as they threatened to overwhelm me if I looked them in the face, that I would give myself permission to vent and let some of those feelings come up and hopefully be released so that I can carry less of the weight into 2012.

I came into 2011 saddled with the weight of postpartum depression and was still finding my footing after a legal separation from my husband a few months before. To say I was emotionally fragile would likely be true although I was doing my very best to refind myself and rebuild myself.

I can't promise this blog post will make sense, and I'm sure it will be long, and I've chosen to divide it by the various events or people that were major points in this year. They may or may not be in chronological order.

Grandpa
One of the greatest losses of my whole life. On the last Monday in March a part of my world went dark when I found out that you had died. A heart attack. Of course. Although, I say of course but I think those of us who loved you thought that after multiple heart attacks, more than one heart surgery (including quadruple bypass surgery over twenty years earlier), a major stroke, and a TIA, that you would just keep on surviving forever. It was unimaginable that the man who was so full of life and right down on the floor playing with my three babies on Sunday night could possibly be dead Monday at lunchtime. Thank you for loving me so completely. Thank you for your physical and emotional support my whole life. Thank you for stepping up to be a father figure to me as well as a grandfather. Thank you for loving my own babies and being so much more involved in their lives than most great grandparents ever get to be. When I woke up on the morning after your death I couldn't believe the world kept on going without you in it. I couldn't believe I could still breathe, and yet even now, nine months later, somehow I am. You've left a hole that will never be filled. I love you.
Love, Your Girl

Poppa
I'll never understand how it is fair that I had to endure the loss of both of my beloved grandfathers within such a short period of time. One thing your deaths coming so close together showed me was the stark difference between losing someone you love unexpectedly and never getting a chance to say goodbye but also never having to see them suffer vs watching them slowly die over days and having time to say goodbye but also having to know that they are in pain. I am grateful that I got to help you in your journey towards death as much as it broke my heart to know you were going there. Holding your hand and getting to tell you how I felt about you in the dark as I held your hand and said goodbye to you and getting to share what would ultimately be some of your last lucid moments before your death will always stay with me. Thank you for unconditionally loving me. For loving me even though I wasn't your blood and never ever ever making me feel anything less than your granddaughter through and through. I am so glad my oldest son shares your name and that of the other giant man in my heart that I lost this year. I hope he carries the best of both of you and indeed if he does he will be unstoppable.
Love, One of your Sweethearts

aka January
My friend, my love, my soul sister. I grieve for the loss of our connection. The loss of what we were. What I never thought could be lost has fractured and it still leaves gaping open in parts. I never ever thought there would be a time when something major in my life would happen and you wouldn't be one of the first to be at my side even if only in spirit. I wish you well. I wish that I could figure out how the wheels went so horribly wrong or indeed if they ever were on right to begin with.
Love, Me

Malachi
My sweet sweet baby it is unthinkable to me how close we came to losing you this year. Thinking back to those days when you couldn't breathe, couldn't eat, couldn't even be touched without your oxygen saturations plummeting. I am so very grateful that I got to keep you. So very grateful that although I lived my life in fear for you a great deal of this year that you are growing and thriving and are still with me every day. I love you so completely my sweet boy.
Love, Mama

Maddie Rose
Oh sweet girl. How loved you were and are by so many people. You were so precious and tiny. You changed lives baby girl in the very short time we got to share this earth. I grieve for your Daddy, my love for him stemming for my love for your Auntie and the bond we share in loving our baby brothers. To watch him lose his baby girl was heartbreaking. I grieve still for the loss that was you for him and for your Mama, for your Auntie and Uncle, for your Nanny and Papa, for your cousins, and indeed for everyone who loved you. For all of us who still love you. Fly high baby girl.
Love, Alison

Baby G
You were the baby I didn't know I wanted. Indeed, learning of you was a loss of it's own as I grieved the loss of my own plans and control over them. Your Daddy and I quickly grieved our loss and adjusted our plans and indeed made new wonderful plans. We wanted you very much. The physical toll that losing you took on my body was nothing compared to the emotional void that came with losing the reality of another precious baby. Another miscarriage. Bleeding not only from my womb but from my very soul. Tears that could have filled a river. I am sorry my body couldn't protect you. I pray you are safe with Jesus and I am glad there is no pain for you.
Love, Mama

Jonathan
Your Mama and I know each other only online. I prayed hard for her and for you during your journey together. Christmas eve was heavy this year with the knowledge that your pain was going to be over but that it came with the price of your leaving this earth far too soon. You touched so many lives sweet boy and you continue to do so. You were such a beautiful boy.
May your peace be deep, TM

James
This year was a year of rebuilding for us. From our refirst date on Valentine's Day we began to rebuild our relationship and indeed succeeded to a level you and I had never achieved together before. How unfair it seems that at the pinnacle of our healing, as we were reaching such a good place both individually and as a couple that the demon that is stroke had to take a chunk of you from us. Living apart for three months and being torn from hospital to our babies at home was an agony that I never want to endure again. You have made such strides my love and I pray you continue to do so. I am angry at the things the stroke took and still has taken from us. It, like so many things this year, was not fair. But then, as we both know, life isn't meant to be fair. It's meant to be lived. I love you.
Love, Ali

2011 was a year of pain and loss, pain and loss, pain and loss. And yet, in the midst of all of that it was also a year for me of growth. I have grown in myself, in my relationships, and in my faith. 2012 looms large on the horizon and I have no idea what is in store for the next year but I have faith that my God is big enough to carry me if I can't walk on my own. I have my faith, my Love, my kids, my family and my friends. Here we go. I'm going to make it great.

A