Trivial pursuit...

After Noah died I could never imagine myself thinking or acting on anything that didn't have eternal value or a world changing after effect.

Engaging in the day to day was a difficult task, not only physically but emotionally and mentally. I had difficulty having trite conversations or giving a rip about petty pursuits...yet at the same time, because I live on earth, I would have to embrace those pursuits like laundry, grocery shopping, filling the car with gas, even dusting gigantic creatures out from behind long neglected furniture or caring about the PTA.

I hated it! I resented that day to day existence didn't have more of a "POW" or "PUNCH!" I still had to make dinner and my kid was still dead.

Continuing on, not "moving on" or "getting over it", but continuing on is one of the most difficult steps of grief. I'm no grief expert, but I sure as hell know what I'm talking about when it comes to my own grief. Sometimes, in order to get through another day without the person you loved, you just have to not care what the heck anyone else thinks and allow your heart and mind to be somewhere else...somewhere trivial...somewhere not centered on loss and despair...because that will always be there.

Going there may cause feelings of guilt, but there is no ONE WAY to grieve...and I personally advocate escapism when it comes to grief...and I could sure use a dose.

Grief sucks because as long as we've lost someone we loved, we'll always grieve. We will never NOT grieve. Even with time, which for me personally has helped bring some healing, we will still miss those people...wondering.

No, I won't and don't spend every single day missing Noah. But there hasn't been a day in 4 years that I have not thought about him. Days and dates come and go that hold significance for the short 7 months he spent on this earth...

One day in particular was the day Noah was admitted to the hospital...for the rest of his life. It was August 2nd, 2006. Four years later, on August 2nd, Jason and I spent the day with friends we love like family...in a hospital here in Colorado, where we all said goodbye to someone we loved very much.

And yet, somehow in the days leading up to the guys' surgeries, we were living life just like the next guy...dropping Em off at camp, surprising her with a "TWEEN" room makeover, running here and there, nesting for "Baby Nacho".

And then life stopped. Literally. At least for a lot of people who loved Ryan.

And then the part that sucked is that life started to continue...but for us, just as it has affected our lives since Jason's dad's death, Noah's death and now Ryan's death, life will include some trivial, but it won't be trivial. There will be a "norm", but life will be anything but "normal".

Just like the tag line for the retreats my non-profit organization hosts states, we will "find the extraordinary in the normal".

Picking up Em from camp...she informed us it was the first and last time she'd be going there.
(So, it did not go quite as we expected...)

Em's favorite color is aqua...somehow I caved and decided to paint her room that color...she is completely OVER pink and so INTO aqua.

Above is a 200+ year old sleigh bed I slept in when I was a girl (less than 200 yrs ago, of course). I found "TWEEN" bedding that incorporated all the colors she's currently "into".

Em and Lady loved the room and she, at 8, now thinks she's pretty old and cool!

And, for whatever reason, this hideous thing made it into the room because she was given a dollar at a garage sale to buy whatever she wanted...I think when I was a girl I had glass swans with liquid in them and paper mache clowns from Mexico...sorry, Mom! What a decorating NIGHTMARE!

Lady loved the new look. She pretty much just loves Em and likes to snuggle her and follow her places.

For those who recall, I painted those glow in the dark rings and circles for her original pink little girl room. They still glow so I'm not touching those.

That's Em's little "vestibule" in her room where her mirror is now face height so she can apply clear lip gloss.

And those are 50-60 year old baseball mitts that were my dad's when he was a boy...they are a glimpse into the trivial I've been working on since, in the midst of all the last month has brought our way, we still have something very monumental and extraordinary on the horizon...and it's the anticipation of a sweet baby boy's arrival into this world. I'll let you see what I'm doing with them in another post.