On the anniversary of...
I recently celebrated my anniversary. I have been married to the love of my life for the past fifteen years while we have been together for close to 22 years. We have two amazing children. Yet, we didn't celebrate our anniversary on the day. In fact, these sorts of celebrations have lost their luster. The events that have transpired over the last seven years have stained these should be typical celebrations like an anniversary dinner, a birthday or family get together. Every holiday, and family celebration is a poignant reminder of some horribly stressful moment. These aren't Facebook memories that appear in your newsfeed with happy little emoticons and emojis. These are like picture frames from an old timey movie camera rushing past in an anxious flurry, the flame melting the film fusing and distorting the images making the memories confusing with random years welded together.
Before having children we dreamed of hosting holidays in our home, making new traditions that we would carry on with our new family. I have always loved Thanksgiving. What can I say, it is all about eating, drinking, eating, sweets and football. I love Thanksgiving. We were so excited when we were finally given the opportunity to host Thanksgiving at our home in Buffalo Grove. Yet, now the holiday is tainted. It is stained with the death of Karen. one of Rich's mom's strokes and several years later Rich's mom's passing. We no longer host holidays. We are just happy to be together, we feel blessed to have all that we do.
The "PTSD" isn't only attached to remarkable events, it is sneaky, popping up when you least expect it. It could be something as routine as the first full week of school. Like the year Sophia was in kindergarten, she missed 1/2 of the first full week of school because my mom had septicemia from a knee replacement. Or last year, when I missed open house because my dad needed to have his heart shocked to reset the irregular heartbeat that had developed.
Our lives are littered with these incredibly deflating "anniversaries" taking the luster out of our daily life. We find ourselves living on the edge of some impending catastrophic event that will send our lives into yet another spiral of chaos. As a result of the trauma those around us have experienced, we in turn are damaged.
Yet here in lies the simple truth, our children, they are not traumatized, nor are they damaged. Our children only know the stories we tell them. They don't remember any of these crazy events. In fact, what they know is only from our recounting of events which have become distorted and fused together. It is that we need to honor our "griefiversaries" while simultaneously creating new reasons to celebrate.
To be honest, it is somewhat a challenging task. In particular when you are trying be "typical" in order to foster new community connections. So, we work as a family to create new anniversaries. For example, we recently celebrated Charlie's first scrap from playing with his sister. Sounds crazy, right? How else do you change the trajectory of the landscape of your life? Sophia attempted to carry him while we were outside. In doing so, she accidentally scraped his back giving him road rash. So, we celebrated. We do this a lot. Take something completely random and decide to create a celebration out of it. Simple things like taking Charlie to the zoo help cast new memory shadow blurring out those that remind us that is was two years ago we were battling mom's septicemia and subsequent strokes.
During her recovery, we had a lot going on with Charlie. We were in the midsts of a medical diagnostic, a comprehensive evaluation of human growth and development. It includes a developmental pediatrician, physical, occupational and developmental therapists, a speech pathologists and feeding specialist, and social worker. Collaboratively these experts work to provide a diagnosis to help guide treatments and therapies. In addition to the exhaustive medical diagnostic, we also had conducted an EEG, sleep study, swallow study. and numerous rounds of genetic testing, eventually including whole xenome testing. During this emotionally difficult time I found myself reading and copying down inspirational quotes, a habit a borrowed from my mom.
As I traveled back and forth from Illinois to Iowa over the next 6 months, I would bring homemade motivational posters. I copied, pasted and glued inspiring quotes along with pictures of Sophia and Charlie to help motivate mom on her recovery journey. Or maybe to help me focus and prioritize on the decisions that would still needed to be made, leaving my passion behind, teaching in order to focus my efforts on the recovery of my mother and the development of my children, my duty.
Different friends of mom's have helped in our recovery and inspiring us, often without knowing I needed their help. In doing so, they have helped bury our "griefiversaries" planting seeds of hope with new celebrations. There is the beautiful acrylic poster created by Cindy. She arrived just in the nick of time, on a drive by visit on their way to an appointment. During this whirlwind visit she saw my handmade posters and took up the charge making her own beautiful motivational poster and sending it to mom. It reads, "I can do EVERYTHING through Christs who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13
There is also Jani, longtime friend to my parents, my brother's sixth grade teacher. Recently, with Jani's help, we upgraded mom's latest motivational poster. The quote was of particular importance as mom walked after reading it. It had been almost two years since she had been up on her feet and on the day she read it she walked! I knew the power of the quote. I simply needed the experience of an artist to bring it to life.
With Jani's help, and God's grace, we camouflaged and replaced what was the two year anniversary of mom's knee replacement turning septic. We created a new holiday, a celebration of mom and the quote that gave her the strength to stand. Jani poured out her heart and soul, creating the most beautiful sign, a continual reminder of mom's internal strength and grit. It is hung directly across from where mom sits so it can be a continual reminder of the internal strength we must all muster in order to continue on the path for none of us can do it alone.
Before having children we dreamed of hosting holidays in our home, making new traditions that we would carry on with our new family. I have always loved Thanksgiving. What can I say, it is all about eating, drinking, eating, sweets and football. I love Thanksgiving. We were so excited when we were finally given the opportunity to host Thanksgiving at our home in Buffalo Grove. Yet, now the holiday is tainted. It is stained with the death of Karen. one of Rich's mom's strokes and several years later Rich's mom's passing. We no longer host holidays. We are just happy to be together, we feel blessed to have all that we do.
The "PTSD" isn't only attached to remarkable events, it is sneaky, popping up when you least expect it. It could be something as routine as the first full week of school. Like the year Sophia was in kindergarten, she missed 1/2 of the first full week of school because my mom had septicemia from a knee replacement. Or last year, when I missed open house because my dad needed to have his heart shocked to reset the irregular heartbeat that had developed.
Our lives are littered with these incredibly deflating "anniversaries" taking the luster out of our daily life. We find ourselves living on the edge of some impending catastrophic event that will send our lives into yet another spiral of chaos. As a result of the trauma those around us have experienced, we in turn are damaged.
Yet here in lies the simple truth, our children, they are not traumatized, nor are they damaged. Our children only know the stories we tell them. They don't remember any of these crazy events. In fact, what they know is only from our recounting of events which have become distorted and fused together. It is that we need to honor our "griefiversaries" while simultaneously creating new reasons to celebrate.
To be honest, it is somewhat a challenging task. In particular when you are trying be "typical" in order to foster new community connections. So, we work as a family to create new anniversaries. For example, we recently celebrated Charlie's first scrap from playing with his sister. Sounds crazy, right? How else do you change the trajectory of the landscape of your life? Sophia attempted to carry him while we were outside. In doing so, she accidentally scraped his back giving him road rash. So, we celebrated. We do this a lot. Take something completely random and decide to create a celebration out of it. Simple things like taking Charlie to the zoo help cast new memory shadow blurring out those that remind us that is was two years ago we were battling mom's septicemia and subsequent strokes.
During her recovery, we had a lot going on with Charlie. We were in the midsts of a medical diagnostic, a comprehensive evaluation of human growth and development. It includes a developmental pediatrician, physical, occupational and developmental therapists, a speech pathologists and feeding specialist, and social worker. Collaboratively these experts work to provide a diagnosis to help guide treatments and therapies. In addition to the exhaustive medical diagnostic, we also had conducted an EEG, sleep study, swallow study. and numerous rounds of genetic testing, eventually including whole xenome testing. During this emotionally difficult time I found myself reading and copying down inspirational quotes, a habit a borrowed from my mom.As I traveled back and forth from Illinois to Iowa over the next 6 months, I would bring homemade motivational posters. I copied, pasted and glued inspiring quotes along with pictures of Sophia and Charlie to help motivate mom on her recovery journey. Or maybe to help me focus and prioritize on the decisions that would still needed to be made, leaving my passion behind, teaching in order to focus my efforts on the recovery of my mother and the development of my children, my duty.
Different friends of mom's have helped in our recovery and inspiring us, often without knowing I needed their help. In doing so, they have helped bury our "griefiversaries" planting seeds of hope with new celebrations. There is the beautiful acrylic poster created by Cindy. She arrived just in the nick of time, on a drive by visit on their way to an appointment. During this whirlwind visit she saw my handmade posters and took up the charge making her own beautiful motivational poster and sending it to mom. It reads, "I can do EVERYTHING through Christs who strengthens me." Philippians 4:13
There is also Jani, longtime friend to my parents, my brother's sixth grade teacher. Recently, with Jani's help, we upgraded mom's latest motivational poster. The quote was of particular importance as mom walked after reading it. It had been almost two years since she had been up on her feet and on the day she read it she walked! I knew the power of the quote. I simply needed the experience of an artist to bring it to life.
With Jani's help, and God's grace, we camouflaged and replaced what was the two year anniversary of mom's knee replacement turning septic. We created a new holiday, a celebration of mom and the quote that gave her the strength to stand. Jani poured out her heart and soul, creating the most beautiful sign, a continual reminder of mom's internal strength and grit. It is hung directly across from where mom sits so it can be a continual reminder of the internal strength we must all muster in order to continue on the path for none of us can do it alone.
I continue to struggle, lying awake at night not knowing how to lay to rest the traumatic events of the past. In the dark, awake in all my vulnerability I recognize that I too "may be slightly broken, a little bruised, and even permanently scarred. But I still wake up everyday with a tremendous will to fight. I am strong woman who refuses to be defeated." I, similar to Charlie, my mom, must wake up each day strong enough to fight, to reinvent my own destiny. Each moment is filled with infinite possibilities, being up to me to realize a few of those worthy. In doing so, I create new anniversaries to celebrate. Painting over the old memories, not so they fade but so they can be incorporated into a new landscape with a more hopeful new trajectory.
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