Ten Years and Counting

Who would have thought that I would ever find myself here? I certainly would have never have considered that I would grow up, get married, and have children I would outlive by decades. It’s old news that we have moved on from in the passing years, but this year hits especially hard. It’s been 10 years since that awful day that changed the trajectory of our lives. The day no one saw coming and that shattered our world in more ways than we can count. It left us fumbling to find our feeting and taught us to lean into our Lord and Savior more than ever before. Today was hard, because the reality is Jaydon has now been gone longer than he was here. I never fathomed that as a mother I would outlive my child. No one can prepare you for what it feels like to loose a part of you. No one can comfort you in your loss, not even someone who has been through it themselves, for everyones journey is different. It’s hard to move on because there is always curiosity for what could have been. It’s hard to let go, because you know they were real. Even though time passes and days become normal, there is always that part of you that remembers. The details of the days leading up to the accident, the day of, and the day after are permanently ingrained in our memories. Even ten years later, I could tell you nearly every detail of those days. They are what I hold on to and what I treasure as blessings from God. The Lord knew I would need those memories and to treasure the time I had with him in the days leading up to his loss. I am grateful for those memories and I am grateful for what the Lord taught us through this tragedy.

Today, I wrapped my arms around an amazing man who has made this journey with us. Our dear friend was also a part of this story, and I praise God every day that we have been able to walk this journey with him. Where many people try to lay blame and sever ties, we chose to look beyond what happened and realize it for what it was… a horrible accident. Instead we have grown closer and we share in the loss together. We have provided grace, empathy, and love, where guilt already resides. I firmly believe that it is how we have survived. We never showed anger, we never gave into hate, we just simply leaned into each other and embraced each other’s love. I know that is all God could have ever ask of us, and I know He has always been in midst of it.

Instead of dwelling in the past and letting the memories drag us down, we find ways together to commemorate Jaydon. His legacy is interwoven into the fiber of our being. From Jay Days to Green Fridays, to drives in the Mustang, his memory is never far from our thoughts and actions. Jaydon’s loss made us stronger, it reminded us that days are short, and life is fragile. It taught us to love bigger, give more, provide grace before judging, forgive rather than hate, and to see this world in a light not many would comprehend. It is an experience I am grateful for and I can only thank God for supporting us through.

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Woven Into Our DNA

The hard part about grief, you have to let go to move forward.  What is even harder is when you are finally comfortable enough to let go, and you realize that the monumental days creep up on you without much feeling behind them.  I have finally reached the point where I have to remind myself…Oh yeah!  It’s Jaydon’s birthday.  This is good, because I know I have healed but it also stings because it reminds me that he’s been gone long enough that I’ve let go.  

It hurts to feel like you have forgotten your own child.  But then I have to remind myself that I haven’t forgotten him, I’ve simply moved forward. Jaydon will always be a part of me.  His DNA literally woven together in the fiber of my own being.  And on a day where his birthday is also shared with Father’s Day, I must remember that Jaydon is still a part of his daddy too.  We have both moved forward together and what a miraculous thing that is in itself.  For when the world tried to tear our family apart, we still pulled each other close and held on.  

That includes our daughter as well, whom I know sometimes feels like Jaydon still robs her of the light, but she too is a miracle in many ways.  She’s a survivor, a sibling and an only child all wrapped up in one.  She is the best parts of both of us but will always be her daddy’s little girl.

A visit to the cemetery where Jaydon is buried next to his Grandpa also reminds me that my husband is a part of his father, a man who many admired and of whom is a big part of the man I love.  He taught my husband to stand by his family even in the difficult times and I’m so glad he did.  I too am a part of my fathers and I am grateful for who they made me as well.

So today I think of many wonderful men,  (Even though it seems strange to call Jaydon a man, he would have been 19 today) and  I am blessed by each of them. To all the men in my life, I love you.  Happy Birthday Jay Boy!  Happy Father’s Day My Love!  And Happy Father’s Day to all the men who have been dads and grandpas to our family.

The View From Here

There are many times I have wished that this wasn’t the view, but I am grateful that we live close enough now that I can sit in peace here and think of you.  As I sit here I can hear birds chirping, I can see the leaves turning green, and I can feel the warm sunshine as it peeks from behind the clouds.  It’s a place for quiet reflection, a place to let the memories fill my mind and to know that even though you aren’t here, you are near.  I will never get over loosing you. It is simply a pain that never leaves, but as a family we are survivors.  We have taken your missing piece and made new space in the world where we have found joy and goodness.  This world keeps on punching backing but we keep trudging on knowing that our ultimate place is to one day be near you again.  

Jaydon, we miss you.  We miss your smile, your frown, your furrowed brows when you were angry, and your contagious laugh.  We miss everything about you and everything we never got to know.  This weekend I looked through pictures of your classmates attending senior prom and wondered who your date would have been, how handsome you would have looked in your tux, who you would have been in that moment.  Going forward I wonder what your future plans would have held as you graduate and head off into the world.  We will always be left wondering.  But I look forward to the day when I do get to see you again and have you can share all the joys that Heaven holds.  Until then, I will hold onto the memories and take in the blissful view from here.

New Normal

“New Normal,”  I hate those two words.  They are the words that have haunted my life since the day our beautiful boy went home.  But in more recent years they have become commonplace for the entire world.  Maybe that’s why their sting doesn’t seem so prominent anymore or maybe it’s simply that for the first time in a long time I finally feel normal again.

The hard part about losing someone so young is that it carries with it a lifetime of joys and hurts.  In the early days of my loss, those hurts came in every single moment.  Then, as time moved forward, dragging me along with it, some of those hurts were periodically replaced with joyful memories.  The hardest part was knowing that someday those memories would begin to fade, no matter how hard I tried to hold onto them.  As time moved forward the memories were pushed aside by the “what ifs.”  What if he were alive today?  What would he look like?  Sound like? Smell like? Act like?  Then one day I woke up and realized that the hurts were fewer, the joys brought peace, and I was simply left with the normal of a new life and a new day.

Now those words don’t come without pain in themself, but in seven years I’ve learned that no matter how hard I tried to cling to the past, time kept moving forward.  The precious part was when I stopped fighting to hold on to both, the old and the new, the future became brighter and the past brought humbled serenity.  That’s not to say that I don’t still miss him, I do, and I think of him every single day.  Instead, I carry him with me, gently nestled into my every day, so much so, that I sometimes forget he is even there.  That’s what new normal looks like, to have your loved one so ingrained into your daily life that on a normal day, no one would know they are there.

As time has passed, it has gotten harder to share our testimony.  People are often shocked to find someone who has suffered such great loss, acting normal.  To them, seven years seems like eternity, and they can’t imagine even a moment, let alone seven years.  They reconcile the thought with believing you must have superhuman powers, that you have the strength of 70 men, but the reality is that when you hit rock bottom, there is no way out but up.  Anyone who chooses to keep moving forward is going to look strong, especially when they’re working their way out of the depths of grief.  

The key is to make the choice, to first take one moment at a time, then one day at a time, and eventually, those days will become easier, and your ability to move forward less forced.  Until one day you look back on it all and realize you’ve found the “new normal,” and you realize this is how it was always meant to be.  Sure, the “what ifs” still creep in occasionally, especially during special events, holidays, and certain times of the year, but they are surrounded by joyful sorrow and imagination that settles somewhere at the back of my mind where reality can never touch.

I found my new normal because I was willing to keep moving. Sometimes that meant I took a few steps back before I found my way forward again, but I set new goals, accomplished new things, and learned that I had to let go and let God do His work.  Normal didn’t come from one simple choice it came from several small moments of surrender.  Seven years is a long time to realize that simple truth, and it is one that I still struggle with today, but it helps when I miss my boy to know that God’s got this, and one day my “new normal” will entail walking into His loving arms and embracing my boy once more.

I miss you so much my Jay Boy, but I have felt your constant reassurance as I walked through these last 3 years.  You were always a fierce cheerleader of whatever path I chose and there is no doubt in my mind that you are proud of my choice to become a teacher.  I have truly come full circle and have found my happy place again.  A place I wasn’t certain I would ever find.  It took seven long years full of decisions, sacrifices, highs, and lows, but I have finally completed the journey.  Now, it’s time for the next one, but this time I’m ready, and I can’t wait to see what the next “new normal” has in store.

A Golden Birthday

Today is June 16th, a day that will live on in infamy for a young boy gone too soon from this precious earth. On this day 16 years ago, I held you in my arms for the very first time. I stroked you face and called you mine. Today I want so badly to see a smile on your 16 year old face, as we toss you the keys, and say, “Drive careful,” but that won’t be happening. It’s hard knowing you missed out on such a right of passage, one for which you always longed. From the day you were big enough to ride the go-carts, it was your favorite thing to do. As a young boy your dream was to be a race car driver, a dream I tried to detour into something less dangerous and more practical. Then it became about engineering race cars, but cars were always in your blood. Today would have been golden in more ways than one, and I can only imagine what this birthday entails on the streets of heaven. I can only hope that God gives you wheels and a long stretch of road. Love you Jaydon, Happy 16th Birthday!!

Remembering A Legacy

So much can happen in six years of time.  A baby can become a child, or a child an adult, and both have happened in the time you’ve been gone.  In this fast paced world we don’t typically realize it until one day we look up and say to ourselves, “where has the time gone?” Time is a mystery, it keeps moving us forward, yet at the same time holds us back. We are in such a hurry to reach a future point better than this one, yet once we reach it we long to return, because in reflection we see just how much has changed.

For us, the day to day of life has become easy again.  I still think of you nearly everyday, but sometimes I get so caught up living in the moment that suddenly I realize those fleeting thoughts have been amiss, and it scares me. That’s when I start again, looking for your fingerprints on this world, how your legacy has impacted so many, and how your light still shines.

This year that has been a little more difficult. Our world is so different and the struggles of life amidst a pandemic have many times left me with similar feelings to those first grievous days without you.  Thoughts that life shouldn’t be this way or the frustration of not knowing when this ache for normal will end.  The biggest frustration in this year has been hearing those two haunting words, “new normal.”  These echoing words were the theme of those first years without you and a normal I still wish I didn’t know. So to hear these words used in reference to everyone and our entire world has been difficult. I don’t want a world that knows that much pain, but yet here we are living it.

That’s why I believe there is no such thing as normal.  Normal is an illusion, rather we walk precariously through life following the plan of someone much bigger than all of us.  We can never find normal again, because we never had it to begin with.  We simply had a redundant and often mundane routine that changed, and though at the time that change seemed like the end of the world, it was merely a turning page in our story.  A turning page that God used, just as He used His own son’s death, to bring betterment to this world. Six years later our story, your story, continues to play on, and though you are not physically in it, you are still very much a character that lives on in our daily lives.

Jaydon, we miss you so much.  It’s hard to think about the boy we left behind and the young man you should be, but in our minds you will always be that giggly, ornery, techie little boy with glasses.  Though I have tried to imagine a million times who you’d be today, it’s ever changing.  You were a one of a kind kid, and no comparison can every measure up to who you might have been.  Instead we are left with your continued legacy.  A beautiful reminder of the amazing young man you were and the bright shining light you’ll continue to be.

Frozen in Time

It was a Friday five years ago that our world was turned upside down. It’s crazy to consider what has changed but also how the situation our nation is in brings about a familiar feeling. In those first days after the accident I didn’t want to leave the house, I wanted to sleep and never wake up to my true reality. I wanted to go back to the moments before and hold onto to them forever. I wanted to freeze time and never let go.

But that’s not how life works. Even when it slows down it still moves forward, dragging us along relentlessly sometimes. Eventually one day you may find yourself in rhythm with it again, but there will always be those days that sneak back in unexpectedly. No one saw this shut down coming but yet here we are in a place where five years ago, I desperately wanted to be, at a stand still, sitting idle, with time to grieve.

Earlier this week I was caught off guard by a sudden wave of grief. It’s rare these days that something will set it off but in these times of idleness it’s easy for that familiar feeling to creep in. What surprised me about it was the realization that five years later trauma still has its hold on me. Don’t get me wrong, I know that trauma will always be there, but when the day to day has become easier it comes as a shock when that weight catches up to me and I find myself stopped dead in my tracks.

My heart heavy, I began the familiar walk down memory lane. I looked through pictures, watched video clips, smiled and cried. It’s difficult to look back on a face that is frozen in time. It’s even harder when the faces surrounding him have grown older and his face will forever remain the same. My heart longs to know what life would have been like with Jaydon still in it, but I also realize how different it would be if he were here. I have to appreciate the life that has come to be since that day.

The strength in my faith and the bond of family, is what has truly helped us weather our current situation with a little more patience and a lot less fear. We’ve been to rock bottom and know the way out. It takes time, it takes courage and it takes patience, but eventually the climb gets easier and the load lighter. Life hasn’t been fair to any of us but I can tell you that my family is definitely better for what we have been through.

In the process of moving forward, I have let go of dreams and watched new one’s arise. I have walked away from the tundra and have started to see growth in a beautiful spring. Each day I grow closer to achieving my new dream, becoming a teacher. It is a dream influenced by loss and trauma, but one that will also assure that I can still hold onto a small piece of what I left behind. As I look forward I am reminded that this dream was inspired by Jaydon, I dare to consider where it might lead. In the beauty of forethought it starts to appear that it may come full circle and I will have that frozen face to thank for encouraging me to keep moving forward.

I miss you like crazy Jaydon but I am deeply appreciative of the signs that tell me you are still here. Your empathy for others fuels me everyday and I am reminded that if you can leave a mark on so many lives, that still fuels them forward today, I can do the same. I feel deeply blessed to have been chosen to be your mama, even if for a short time and I can’t wait for the day when we will see each other again.

 

 

Making Hearts Grow

Five years later and this time of the year still bares it’s sting.  I don’t know that it will ever become easier but each year I feel a little more joy for the season.  A big part of that comes from the projects I put together that remind me what this time of year is really about.  Yesterday in my Facebook memories I came across a post from a few years ago.  It was a post regarding something special to my heart that assisted myself and my family in our early years of grief during the holiday season.  It was a post about a project that over the last several years has morphed in many ways to become something new and different yet still special.  The first holiday season without Jaydon was the most difficult by far and my heart ached at the thought of his stocking hanging empty next to ours on Christmas morning.  I knew it would be yet another reminder of the hole left where his presence once was and I wanted a way to ease that pain.  So in my Christmas letter that year I asked family and friends to send me their stories of kindness shared during the season.  People sent me emails and letters and each one I placed into his stocking. (Where they still are today.) On Christmas morning while opening gifts we passed Jaydon’s stocking around the room and each one of us read an act of kindness that was shared.  It warmed our hearts and reminded each of us that in a world full of hurt there is still love.

In the years following I continued this project, changing it and adapting it to fit the community in which I work and sharing with my work family its meaning.  I continued to ask family to share there stories and the project became an opportunity to remind others of the power of kindness and to challenge students and staff in the elementary school where I work to help make hearts grow.  Instead of asking them to email me their stories I ask them to write them on hearts and place them on the windows in the front lobby of the school next to a paper cut-out of the Grinch with a sign stating, “Help my heart grow.”  The response was overwhelming and continues to be each year.  Over the course of the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas you can see hearts growing, not just the ones pasted to the glass, but the ones in the classroom, within our community, inside our home, and within my chest, where the visual of love being shared reminds me each year that in this dark world love still reigns.

This holiday season I want to take this project one step further.  I want it to reach more communities and see more hearts grow.  That’s why I am asking you to get out and be intentional.  Look for ways in your everyday to put a smile on the face of someone who needs it.  Look beyond those you see daily and think about those people who help you out but are rarely acknowledged.  Give some time to provide extra to those who know you love them, but might need to feel it more. Remember those for whom the holidays may not be the easy and let them know you care.  Today I challenge you to make hearts grow.

To Infinity & Beyond

As a young boy one of Jaydon’s favorite movies was Toy Story.  I remember the year we took the kids to Disneyland for the very first time and how enthralled he was to get to meet Woody on the boardwalk in California Adventure.  I can not recall if we ever met Buzz Lightyear but I know one of the kids’s favorite rides was the Buzz Lightyear Arcade and afterwards Jaydon wanted a Buzz Lightyear laser gun of his own so he could continually shoot his sister, cousin, and everything else around with it.

Oh how those memories creep in and desire for me to take hold.  My heart longs for those times and I often wish I could just go back an relive those wonderful joyous times in my life.  Especially when it seems it is so difficult to hold on to time in the present.  My plate is full these days with going back to school, working full time, being a mom, and being a wife, and unfortunately they usually fall in that order.  I keep myself so busy that I haven’t much time to focus on the memories, good or bad, but last night I needed a moment to just sit still and to remember.

Today marks a day of very bittersweet memories.  Memories I will hold onto and remember distinctly for a lifetime.  Sometimes I have to stop and think about just how much time has truly past because it seems like yesterday and a lifetime all in one.  This time of year its almost as if I enter the twilight zone.  Time seems so irrelevant as the days pass and I find myself grasping for the present and the past together in handfuls.  How I wish sometimes I could simply make the two collide together if even for a moment, and sometimes I do manage that for a brief time.

Today I reminisce about the last moments of life before everything changed.  I remember a day filled with laughter, proud mommy moments and joy.  I remember a day that I met new people who would become lifelong friends and how one special boy brought it all together as normal.  I remember Jaydon’s charismatic demeanor and his boisterous laugh but the most vivid memory of that day is Jaydon asking for a selfie and then asking for just one more.  One more that I would deny him, because one was good enough, but it was that ONE picture, that would be our last together.

Jaydon I miss you like crazy, but I will never forget the wisdom you have left me with in being kind towards others, loving beyond boundaries, and seeing others for who they are not what the world wants us to see.  It is you who has taught me in the last four years how to live beyond those infinite bounds and I will always find pleasure in that.  I love you my son, to infinity & beyond.

Until We See You Again

Last night I put on my ugly shoes, the ones that have started to get more comfortable. It’s been awhile since I’ve had to embrace the full effect of their wear, but in this last week the reminder of their hurt has been there. It’s difficult to be the one who welcomes another mother into this awful club, the one that no one ever wants to belong to, but it is especially difficult when that mom is saying goodbye to a boy who was friends with yours.

I met “B”and his mom while working as a playground aid at his school and it wasn’t long before I was introduced to the full impact and vibrancy of their personalities. “B” was a social butterfly, always checking in on everyone and making them feel welcome and his mom was always doing the same. It didn’t take long for us to find a common bond, basketball, and that’s where our relation bloomed. At the time my daughter was playing basketball and Jaydon was just starting to take interest but struggled to live up to the athletic ability of his sister. It was frustrating to him that it came so easily to her but that he had to work at it. “B”s mom took both my kids under her wing and through basketball they bonded, especially Jaydon and “B”.

The boys were two peas in a pod, always talking and giggling and getting into mischief, but I will never forget the first time I saw them together and knew that connection. I was running late to pick up Jaydon from practice one night, so “B”s mom took the boys to get ice cream. When I got there to pick up Jaydon, both boys were beaming, he and “B” had the biggest smile. If you knew “B” you know the one I’m talking about, bright and toothy with big round cheeks and his face a glow. The boys only knew each other for a short time, but in that time they were inseparable, even connecting through Facetime to play video games. I remember countless times hearing chatter in Jaydon’s room, I would enter and ask, “Who you talking to?”, the answer was, “B!”

These boys loved each other, and the best part was in that relationship they knew no prejudices, something they were both amazing at in a world that could have easily told them otherwise. They saw each other, as well as others, for the beautiful people that they were, beyond the labels society might have put on them, and it breaks my heart to know their physical presence will be missing from this world. But their light has not gone out and their legacy lives on in the lives that they touched and continue to touch.

Jaydon taught me many things in his short time here and one of those was to embrace this world and its diversity. I have never been a person who sees people at the surface, I have always looked beyond, but because of him I reach deeper and take the time to know people on a real level, with patience, compassion and kindness. I quickly learned that we all have hurts no one else can see, but I have also learned that we are stronger than we know. Last night I looked into the eyes of another mother who lost her son and I saw strength, resilience, and empowerment. I saw a woman brought into my life by two amazing boys who had the ability to connect people on a real level. I saw two women who embraced each other on a level of hurt many can’t understand and in that moment nothing else mattered. It brings me great comfort to know our boys are together again. “B” and “J” we will be right here living for you, Until we see you again.