Learning to Live Again

Dear Caleb,

I have while in this past month of many broken/ falling/unstable emotions learned a lot about many things in and of myself.

I have put together Steps in Cultivating Grief.

Step 1: Recognize That You Are Grieving (This starts after the denial phase wears off)
.It's okay to grieve.
.Let yourself feel all angles.
.It is a must, to allow all ends to be opened in order to begin to heal.
.So let yourself Feel.
(No matter what everyone is saying about you feeling so deeply; especially family, they are not you, they do not know.)

Step 2: Find A Healthy Outlet
.Grief is/can be an overwhelming burden to carry.
.If no outlet is found the weight of the pressure can easily and quickly pull you down.
(Find the right outlet for you: Counseling, Online grief groups, Reading, Writing, Starting a new hobby, Picking up an old cherish hobby, Go where you feel the most alive to feel revived when you need to be uplifted and surrounded by a positive and safe environment.

Step 3: Allow Yourself To Feel Again
.Grief has a way to make one feel numb to the world.
.If we stay in the numb phase for an extended amount of time, it can place one in a world of oblivious.
(Our eyes turn inward and we are unable to see the needs of those around us, especially those in our care.)

Step 4: Live With Heart
.We are all in the act of "living," but if our heart is not in it and we are just going through the emotions of "living," then we have already admitted defeat.
(If anything is worth doing, it is worth doing it with heart.)

Step 5: Learning To Live Again

* This is where I am at now!
 I do not know how to exactly do this. I feel like I have come back from the dead myself. I do not know how to do so many things, I feel like I am a baby trying to walk, talk and read again.
I do not know how to carry on a conversion with those that do not "feel."
I do not know how to walk, move and run without being so winded and joints yelling at me to STOP.
I do not know how to read people's everyday in's and out's without saying, "Gosh I would switch trials with them in a heart beat."
I do not know how to do things that I used to do with that same intensity.

There is so much to living, of which I haven't been apart of for so long, that I feel very handicap and inadequate with trying to live again. I am in my 30's and people would perceive me as having lived my life up until this time, but I have been frozen and have tried to make life stand still. I am not my age, I am behind, though my body with all this weight makes me feel that I am much much older.

I have been trying to "FIX" our family, feeling that it was because of me and on my watch that things changed for us.  Using the grief to keep me: eternally focused, working hard to never fail our family again, trying to serve in ways to connect with you and support you on your mission... so that we would be guaranteed our Eternal Family and to be with you again. However, as righteous as those desires and focuses were and are, that direction wasn't exactly they way I was suppose to keep using my energy to "save" our family. I am not suppose to be our family's savior. We already have one Jesus Christ. If I really want to help our family, I need to allow the real Savior to mend what is broken, for he knows what to do. And I need to use more of the energy and time that I have been using with my grief work, to focus more on "living with heart" and trying to "be" in the moments with our family, now that, that is truly what our family has been needing. And remembering what started this family first of all? ....Your Daddy and I fell in love.  If we can keep this commitment and bond staying strong, then we have got a fighting chance of our goal in being together again. Our Eternal Family is hinged upon Daddy and I. It is not up to me to "FIX" our family, but up to Daddy and I to step up to the plate together to secure our family's dream, to be an eternal family.

I know that as time continues to past by we will continue to heal, but it is NOT a cure. We anxiously wait for the cure as we continue to try to take steps of healing here in mortality.

We LOVE you our sweet K-Bub!
Love Always, Your Mommy

The Bitter Work of a New Year

Dear Caleb,

I cannot believe we are in the year 2013, and honestly I am frustrated about that. Mentally it is always August 2009 with me; my mind cannot seem to yield or even fathom any other time. While everyone else is dreaming up new ambitions and goals, all we get is to live another groundhogs year: reliving difficult dates, getting through unfun holidays, celebrating everyone else growing 1 year older... this is getting REALLY OLD! I keep thinking to myself "How many years do we have to keep doing this???" I am growing very tired and weary of this... I am just tired of being TIRED!!

Our family has this massive wound and it requires a lot of dressings to keep it from risk of infection. But the problem is, the dressings are only suppose to be temporary, and I do NOT like removing them. The wound exposed to open air aggravates my grieving heart. I just want to keep these temporary band aids on! I have learned that I am like one of your favorite movie characters, Shrek the Ogre, I have layers... LOTS and LOTS of layers. I do not like to expose my wound/ our family's wound... it hurts too bad. So what do I do? I do what I have learned to do with these temporary band aids. I dress this wound so well that the dressings have become hard like a cast. I have a VERY hard outer layer. I have made it incredibly difficult to let people help me undo these dressings, including your Daddy. I do not mean too, but this wound when it gets exposed is terribly bitter! It can take me weeks even months to recover when it is time to apply some attention on it. Of course we all need help at times, but we have received so much help that I am all helped out. I feel guilty for making others feel that they need to worry about us, using their precious family time to stop and help us... What if that very day they stopped to help us was the last day they got to spend with their family? I cannot take people's time away from their very valuable family time together, I do not need more guilt to carry on my plate.

I have learned also that I have become my worse enemy. It is myself and myself alone that stops me from healing and removing these dressing layers. It seems like with each new year that goes by I just  keep putting more and more on.. I think that is why God sent us Cumorah, to help comfort my heart and melt away these layers. I have too admit, I am in LOVE with having four kids again. It is comforting, it is familiar... I have missed it so much. Going backwards to just three kids was painful and ever so awkward. Yet this new group of four still makes me miss our 2boys 2girls time together. It touches my heart to see how much Montey loves Cumorah. They were sleeping side by side the other night, and made me flashback to how excited you were when Montey was born. You finally had your bedroom buddy, and you two slept side by side. I didn't know whether to smile, laugh, or cry watching Cumorah and Montey. I just feel like I am broken and never gonna heal... there are so many things that try to get me to remove these dressings to heal.... but I can't....I can't! Mentally I am stuck, it is just always August 2009 until we see your sweet face with us again.

So what do I do now? Where do I start? Where do I go from here? I know you want us to be happy. I too want to see our family happy again. I want to be able to laugh and smile with everyone and actually mean it. But I do not know what happiness is anymore, at least not the way I thought it was. Because the happiness I WANT and long for canNOT be found in this life. I know the way to find true happiness is ONLY through Christ. Clothes, money, fame, fortune, popularity.... do not come close to the happiness that I so desire- those things hold NO joy for me, nor desire to obtain.

So...... I am starting this new year on a specific mission for myself that will have a very strong and positive impact on our family... it is the "Pursuit Of Happiness". If I desire to be happy then, I know I need to try harder by starting now to get there, that I will be ready and worthy to be given such a blessing.

Caleb I know broken hearts can heal, I know that true happiness can be obtained.... I just don't know how to get there on my own. So we as a family continue to look to Christ for he is the only way to keep breathing once he removes all our bandages of layers. He is the only way we can keep smiling when we look at our scars from these wounds that he has healed. He makes things possible.... and I am trying to wait faithfully for this day. I just pray that we can find the strength to push through til then.

SO, SO Love You Buddy Boy!
Love Immensely, Your Mommy

It's Coming on Christmas

Dear Caleb,

"It's coming on Christmas
They're cutting down trees
They're putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on"

This seems to be the song of the month for me. 
'It's coming on Christmas but I do not feel it so,
There are twinkles of lights that light up the snow.

But my heart is hurting and there is that nasty void,
Other families like us our happiness has been destroyed.

How I wish that we all had a river to skate away on,
To be with our loved ones instead of feeling withdrawn.

There are presents that won't be opened songs that will not be sung,
Memories that will not be made music that will not be strung.

Yet those of us left behind we will use this time differently,
In prayer, in hope wishing and praising God intently.

How I wish it wasn't so,
But we know that with time things will show.

And we will be together again sooner then we think,
For our Savior has come and he will be back in a wink.'

Caleb, I will try to be happy for our little family. Please watch over all the sweet children that are there with you now. There are so many families that are hurting and missing them so. And as for your sweet little sister about to join our family any day, tell her I am trying to be patient so you guys can have more time to play.

Love You, Merry Christmas, Love Your Mommy

It is time....

Dear Caleb,

Today is the start of the due date range for your new little sister- that is soon to join our family.
I sense that you are giving her all the important advice that she will need, knowing that she will be coming to join our broken hearted family. I feel that she will not come until I am ready. I never thought I would see the day, when I could say, that I would be okay with having more children after the accident- that is such a hard thing on my heart. You know what Caleb, these past 3 years I have being fighting accepting the future, and clinging, longing for the past. In doing this, I just realized that I am not allowing room for new memories to be stored, because there is literally no room in the inn. Only wall to wall memories of our past with our perfect 2 boys and 2 girls little family: all our outings, laughter, being together... I have not been okay with making more room. I figured your siblings and father would understand, and forgive me for not being the mom that they used to know. To continue to just BE instead of trying to become a new person, because being the old me is unfortunately not an option, so I was content with just to BE.

During these Holiday Seasons as families get to gather together, I felt some emptiness because our family is not complete like others, and in my mind I would think, "That's not fair." Then I came across a very profound quote from an apostle, Elder Russell M Nelson, "Somethings just don't seem fair. Whether things seem 'fair' relate to the limits of one's perspective." Paul in the bible taught, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." My perceptive in this mortal life is indeed limited. And if I enjoy the knowledge of Christ and apply it only in this mortal life, surely it would not be enough to help me to find eternal happiness here and now. We all must pass through the portals of mortality to receive eternal happiness and life: Mortal Birth, Mortal Existence, Mortal Death- which comes from applying the knowledge of Christ into the next life, which is the best life to come!

Russell M Nelson said, "The holy cause in which we are engaged did not begin in 1820 in the state of New York. It did not begin in Bethlehem. It did not begin in the Garden of Eden. The underpinnings of the everlasting gospel were in place even before the world was."An I can attest to this by looking back on our past. There have been several, even multiple events that happened, which paved the way to help us today... watching friends loose beloved children, watching them rise from heart ache, our miscarriage in 2007, becoming acquainted with grief, learning the warning signs of depression and what to do, dream of loosing my father- all lead up to much needed preparation, that we would need to draw from after the accident. I recently came across this statement from Virgina H Pearce, "When I see how carefully Heavenly Father has prepared and planned for my present circumstance, how can I be frighten about my future? Surely He is putting into place today all that I will need to face the unknown times ahead."

As much as I just want to BE, I know that God sees a stronger me, and sees something more that I can become, and doesn't want me to just stay where I am. It amazes me at how well He knows me, because that is exactly what I would do and was planning on doing. A former apostle of the 12, Neal A Maxwell said, "Even believers if malnourished as to the doctrine, can become wearied and faint in their minds and surrender to circumstance." I desperately wanted to surrender, it is such hard work to keep living this mortal life with a broken heart, it hurts and never stops. I was reminded today at church that Faith pushed into action is Hope. Hope is the verb of Faith, it places a burning desire within oneself to move forward to Christ, to keep moving and not give up.

So our Father in Heaven is sending me a reason to move forward with our family, since I can not seem to find it on my own, to help me not give in and just BE. This baby girl wants an eternal family, she too wants her shot at mortality to prove herself worthy to have eternal life. And as her soon to be Earthly mother I need to help her accomplish her goal in this. I can not deny to extend my hand to her. I need to love her, teach her, help her and guide her to Christ and Home to our Father. The weight is indeed on my shoulders. And Caleb, "I AM READY!" And I gladly continue and accept this mission that our Father feels that we are capable of handling. Not that I will not have tears anymore, because I will. Not that I won't have my bad days, because I will. Not that I won't still miss and long for the past, because I will. But I need to make room for new memories for this new child to join our family. I need to be a mom that she can depend on and be there for her. I need to be able to release some memories from my inn, so there will be room for more. Because Caleb, with a sad heart but a heart full of Hope I need to say, "It is time...."

Thank You Caleb for being there with her, preparing her, loving her, teaching her the gospel- you are serving your extend mission well. And when it's time for her to join our family in mortality, we will add to what you have already started and shared with her. We are honored that God has found us worthy to serve with you on your mission.

We love you Buddy Boy! Merry Christmas to You and ALL those Heavenly Angels that surround you at this time.... For surely there is peace on earth ONLY because of ALL our Angels above.

Love Your Mommy