It
has been 15 months since Luke died. 15
months since I hugged and kissed my baby boy.
To say a lot has happened in the time would be a gross understatement. To say life has been hard would be like
trying to fill a bucket with an eye dropper.
We have all changed. J, K, and I
are different than we were 14 months ago.
We still get up every morning; we still go to school and work. The kids play, bills are paid and the cats
are fed. Sometimes, everything is done all
on the same day.
I
have started to hear, it’s been a year already, aren’t you over it yet? You can’t use Luke as an excuse the rest of
your life, you need to get over it and move on.
You have to start living again. Life
goes on… the kids need…. (Whatever the person decides the kids need.)
So here
is my reply to “Aren’t you over it yet?”
No, I am not over losing Luke.
No, my kids aren’t over losing their baby brother. We will never “Get Over It.” If you lost your arm in an accident
tomorrow, would you ever “Get Over It?” I don’t know, but I do know you will have a
part of you missing for the rest of your life.
You will learn to do things with your other arm, you will probably
become very efficient at living life with just one arm, but there will always
be a part of you missing. There will be
times when you forget about that missing arm and try to use it. Then the pain
and knowledge of the missing limb will hit you life a punch in the gut. There
will be times you would give anything
to have that arm back, even if just for a few minutes.
I
didn’t lose my arm, I lost my child. The
child I carried inside of me for 9 months, the child I rocked to sleep, the
child I caught when he would hold his breath until he passed out. The little boy who would hide in cabinets,
text me while standing in front of me, launch himself into my arms from across the
room, the snuggle bunny who wanted to hear Jack and the Beanstalk before bed, and
then tell me he was too scared to sleep alone.
This
amazing little boy was ripped from our lives.
There was no long lingering illness; there wasn’t knowledge that he
would be living this world after a just seven short years. I talked to him on the phone, told him I
loved him and would see him the next day. 30 minutes later, he was gone.
So
as hard as I try to keep life going for my two living kids and myself, as hard
as I try not to use Luke as an excuse for a bad day, for the kids misbehavior,
for the constant stomach ache and short temper, it is because my baby
died.
I
know teachers are tired of hearing me explain what my kids have been through in
the last 15 months, and I don’t want the kids to use Luke as an excuse for poor
school performance and bed behavior. I
don’t want to use Luke as an excuse for missing work and trouble
concentrating. But sometimes, that is
what it is. Sometimes, like now, there
is no amount of deep breathing, going to a happy place or breathing in a bag
that can stop the tears and not being able to catch our breath. 
I
still haven’t figured out how to live life without Luke.
