Sunday, February 16, 2025

Linnaea

Dear Aaron,

Today Linnaea was looking at pictures of you on my screensaver 

She asked, "Can Aaron talk now?"

I smiled and said, "yes, and run and laugh and dance and play and do so many things!" 

Then, "Where is he?"

"He's in Heaven."

"Still??" 

"Yes, still" and the knife in my heart twisted a little. 

Oh, my funny Valentine, I miss you.  

Sometimes Heaven feels close, and other times so very far away.

Love,
Mom  

“You’re everywhere except right here, and it hurts.”

— Rupi Kaur

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Diagnosis Day, Two Months, Forever To Go

Dear Aaron,

Fifteen years ago today I went for the "routine" ultrasound that wasn't. 

I didn't really think too much about it beyond finding out if you were a boy or a girl. Daddy met Michael and I there. Michael was only 3. He was my sidekick, always with me since the big kids were in school. When the doctor started talking (for what it's worth, when the doctor comes into the ultrasound, it's never a good thing), I started crying and really couldn't stop. 

Michael told Daddy to make them stop hurting me, and we tried to explain that the doctor wasn't hurting me, but he just couldn't understand.  

Our next appointment was five days away, which felt like an eternity. 

In some ways, that day seems like an eternity ago, but my body still remembers, still hurts. Today feels heavy, dark, hard.

And it's been two months since Gramma came to join you. Did you come get her? Did you hold her hand as her spirit slipped away from her body, from the hands that were holding her earthly hands? 

While we were in Arizona, I noticed a book on the table near where she sat. I have wondered if she read it. I mean, she found out a few weeks before that she was permanently losing her eyesight and that was so hard for her. I remember her saying on more than one occasion that her eyesight was the one sense she was terrified of losing. I'm sure it was for a variety of reasons, but I know not being able to read was a big part of that.  

Gramma read voraciously. She passed that on. I don't remember not being able to read. I learned before I went to kindergarten. As she read everything, so did I. Cereal boxes in the morning, magazines in offices, even JAMA at the pediatricians. The Reader's Digest and church magazines were staples in our home, and library cards were prized. 

So when I saw the book on the table, I wanted to read it. And those library cards? Well, I still have one. I read it last week, a bittersweet experience, the last book she will recommend to me. Mom came of age during the Vietnam era. Papa was in country. She married an Air Force officer. The book was about women nurses over there. I could almost feel her spirit as I read. Oh, I hope she did get to read it. It was the kind of book that spoke to her, and maybe a bit of her. 

As I finished reading it, it was a little like saying good-by all over again.

Fifteen years since your diagnosis, two months since Gramma slipped away, and what feels like forever until I hold you both again.

The full moon rose above Box Elder Peak tonight, seemingly caught in the tree branches, watching over your grave. Did you see it? Did you see me checking on you? Did you feel the cold wind rustling your butterflies?

I love you, little man.

I miss you so much.

Love,
Mama

“Moreover, we can’t fully appreciate joyful reunions later without tearful separations now.”
Russell M. Nelson


Sunday, February 9, 2025

Waves

Dear Aaron,

It comes and it goes. Like the waves on the beach.

Last week I was pretty good. Earlier this week I was okay.

The last few days... well... it's hard.

I don't like February.

It's dark, cold, often dreary. 15 years ago on Tuesday, my world rocked when I went for the "routine" ultrasound. It was anything but routine.

Fourteen years ago you were admitted for your first "scary" pneumonia. You kick that in the butt! Once we were settled, I started asking how long they thought we'd be there and no one would answer. When we discharged six days later, everyone was astounded! That's when I was told that they had expected several weeks, if you managed to survive. 

Then all week, Facebook has been reminding me of February 2022.  Sepsis, DIC, neurostorming. Fragile enough to prompt a move to the middle of the ICU and your own one-to-one nurse for days on end. On February 6, 2022, you were given a priesthood blessing and this is what I wrote the next day:

Yesterday I had the chance to take the sacrament and then the Elders gave him a priesthood blessing. It was beautiful, and I have a hard time remembering what was said. He was blessed with strength, and his family too, and that his body would be strong. But I also got the impression at that time that this was going to be rough and long, and frankly, hard.

I had no idea how long or rough that stay was going to be. Or how much more you would be called on to endure over the next 22 months. 

Or how my heart would break, shatter, when yours stopped.  

And then Gramma. I wanted so badly to call her yesterday, to talk to her and hear her voice. It wasn't even anything "special" or significant. 

February may have the shortest number of days, but in some ways, it is the longest month.

My heart hurts.

I toss on waves and they overwhelm me. 

I know they will ease again; they always do.

But right now, right now, it just hurts.

Love,
Mama 

“One more day
One more time
One more sunset, maybe I’d be satisfied
But then again
I know what it would do
Leave me wishing still, for one more day with you.”
— Diamond Rio 

Sunday, February 2, 2025

I Carry You

Dear Aaron,

For nine months I carried you inside of me.

For 13 1/2 years (and ten days), I carried you with me.

For 58 weeks now, I carry you, unseen, in my heart, my soul, the very marrow of my bones.

In a very literal sense, your cells still reside in my body and likely always will. 

But I carry you in other ways, too. 

I made a watch band this past week using the beads I made your trach chains from. I use your lunchbox every day at work. I wear the bracelet Gramma gave me after you passed, which also now symbolizes my life without her as well. Your prints hang in one office, your toys are in both. 

I always wear butterflies and your name is on my key ring. Your pictures hang on my walls and keepsakes are in the curio cabinet. Your minion rock is on my desk.

There's a butterfly on the back of my car and an angel crystal hanging from the rearview mirror. Your "hope" bib hangs on the shelf in my room next to the ribbons from your funeral spray. My watch face is yellow roses and a butterfly for you and Gramma as is my lockscreen. 

You are everywhere with me.  

I see your smiles pop up on my computer screen; I miss the sound of your laughter. 

I carry you, and your spirit carries me.

You carry me through the days and nights, through the anguish and the pain, and through the smiles that come in spite of my tears. 

I'm not sure how it has been 58 weeks already, and yet only 58 weeks. It seems like forever since we said goodbye, and yet it doesn't. 

I spent yesterday working on a ceramic nativity from the same mold as one of Gramma's that I've always loved. It was calming and introspective. I miss the two of you so much, and I also feel your strength. You lift me and teach me and make me more than I could ever have been without you. 

You carry me; I carry you.

Forever and always.

Love you so much, little man.

Love,
Mama

"We do not have to rely on memories to recapture the spirit of those we have loved and lost – they live within our souls in some perfect sanctuary which even death cannot destroy."
- Nan Witcomb 


Monday, January 27, 2025

Time Warp

Dear Aaron,

It was a weird weekend, kinda time warp-y.

Saturday I went to a birthday party for JoJean Loflin. She's Andrea's mom. Drea, Sorena, Tara and I were super tight in Alaska until I moved away between freshman and sophomore years. There weren't many weekends where the four of us actually slept in our own beds; we were almost always at each other's house. At least that's the way I remember it. So I saw her mom a lot. 

She's 85 now and actually doesn't look a whole lot different than I remember her, and we're all older than she was when I knew her. I couldn't find Drea at first but then she turned around and I saw her smile. I knew that smile. It's been over 40 years since we spent a lot of time together, but I still knew it. 

Then last night and today, I went to honor another mom. Onalee Wood was mom to four friends; Stacy and Laurie are a year older than me, Michelle is my age, and Brian a year younger. When we moved from Alaska to New Jersey, their dad was our stake president. And man, was their family fun!! They took Aunt Maurie and I under their wing and we spent a lot of time there. She passed away last Tuesday, and once again, we "children" are all older than she was the last time I saw her much.

But seeing people from the past makes me feel like not much time has gone by, certainly not 35-40 years! How did we get to be the older ones? The grammas and grampas? 

Kinda like, how are you gone? How is my mom? Where did the time go and why can't I turn it back? Back to when we were all so young and innocent and the world lay before us just waiting for us to go out and conquer it? 

I mean, I sorta guess I wouldn't turn it back even if I could. I think I've grown . . . I don't know, maybe wiser? I hope more loving and tolerant. Maybe more forgiving. But that growth comes through pain and I don't like pain. It hurts! 

Oh, I miss you. 

Someone said to me last week that they couldn't even imagine losing a child and I hope I wasn't too curt when I said, "Don't, don't even try. You can't. It's impossible. Even when you know it's coming, it is beyond imagining. Spare yourself, just don't." I mean, she's an amazing woman and she has experienced a lot of challenges (and growth) with her own childrens' journeys. But like I told her, until you actually go through it, it is completely unimaginable, and completely soul wrenching. 

So this weekend, celebrating one mom's birthday and another mom's life, seeing old friends that I haven't seen in person in way too many years, well, time seems strange. I'm so grateful to know that even though we have to say goodbye in this life, it's really a "see you later" even though "later" seems so very far away. As I drove to the funeral, music was playing and I found myself reviewing the words to a hymn. 

You and Gramma and Sister Wood have finished your race; you've proven worthy; you've gone Home. We miss you but I know we'll see you again. 

I put out Valentine's decorations at your grave last week. I hope you like them. You gave so much love, you taught love, I think you were all about love. 

And I love you.

Love,
Mama

Fill our hearts with sweet forgiving;
Teach us tolerance and love.
Let our prayers find access to thee
In thy holy courts above.
Then, when we have proven worthy
Of thy sacrifice divine,
Lord, let us regain thy presence;
Let thy glory round us shine.

Sunday, January 19, 2025

Dear Aaron

Dear Aaron,

It's starting to sink in, or through me, or something. 

I'm learning to swim through the grief? Maybe?? (Swimming never was my favorite. I'm not very good at it.)

This loss, your absence, it still aches but it doesn't throb, at least as much as it used to.

For so long it was a stabbing, gut punching, visceral beating. It felt like it was coming from all sides, all around, relentless.

Now it soaks into me. Less violent, more melding with my soul, an infusion that binds with the marrow in my bones; less of an outside attack and more of an internal long-time battle scar, the kind that always bothers you but more during certain weather changes or exercises.

"Look for Me in Rainbows"

This past week a client asked if she could ask me a question. I told her she could always ask whatever she wants and if I'm not comfortable answering, I'd tell her. She asked if I was okay. I thought and then said, "I think so most of the time, but not always. And then I break down and scream and cry, and give myself permission to do so. But yeah, it always hurts." She just nodded her head. 

"Your sunshine lives with
us forever."





I was in the front room tonight with Linnaea and Elend. Linnaea picked up one of the picture collages and said, "this reminds me of Aaron" and then was showing Elend pictures of him and you, and her and you. He doesn't remember you but she does. 

It's quiet. The dishwasher runs, the dogs are resting, Dad is on the computer (and I guess I am too.) We made it through another week at work and I'm starting to get back in the swing of things there. A friend stopped by yesterday and brought me a crystal hanging she had made for me with a reminder to "Look for me in rainbows." Rainbows only come after the storm. I'm so grateful to be surrounded by so much love.

I'm grateful for your love. You're still with me, everywhere. I wear butterflies, your reminders go with me. You are in my heart and I'll keep you there for always. 

I miss you.

I miss you so much.

Love,
Mama


His shirt at the end says, "Life Is Beautiful."

“If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart.
I’ll stay there forever.”
- A. A. Milne 

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Renewal

Dear Aaron,

I painted the bluebirds yesterday.

The ones that have sat on the kitchen windowsill for 20 years. 

I don't remember where they came from: Colorado, Alaska? Somewhere else? Probably Colorado because I don't remember them not "being" and Mom did a lot of ceramics in Colorado. 

I'm pretty sure Mama bought them already fired, as bisque rather than greenware, because her initials aren't on the bottom.  My nativity that she and Grampa did so many years ago when they were still engaged has either hers or his on the bottom of each piece, depending on which cleaned it. 

But over the years, like so many of us, the vibrant blue faded, and even more, the paint started to come off in places. 

So yesterday, I painted them again, and used a pen, like she did, to outline the eye area. 

Is that what happens when we die? Do we get remade? Our parts that are crumbling, failing, fading renewed? 

Does your body run and play? Does Gramma have her perfect eyesight back, lungs that won't fill with fluid? 

Do you remember all the good and the love you experienced here? 

I have so many questions, and so few answers.

But I trust you are still you, and she is still herself, and you both still love with all your hearts because that's what you did here. 

I love you so much.

I miss you.

Love,
Mama

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint."

Isaiah 40:31