This week (the week of the month that contains the 17th) never gets easier. Yesterday was a rough day. It was all I could do to drag my butt out of bed. Finally after as much procrastination as I could get away with I finally moved.

It wasn’t until I was making my breakfast with the news in the background, and the date ran across the screen that I realized why I was in such a funk.

Today it is 6 months, 6 months since I made the hardest decision that any parent should ever have to. To turn off the machines and let Connor go. Knowing it was the right decision, does not make it any easier or change the outcome.

I know that I will miss him every day for the rest of my life. The hole in my heart hasn’t even begun to heal and I am unsure when or if that will ever happen. What I do know is that I am surrounded by friends, family and an awesome community that has embraced me since this tragedy turned my life on its head.

It truly takes a village, a village to raise a family, and the same village to help you heal when you lose a child. I thank every part of my village because without them I would not be able to handle this at all. I draw my strength from them and know that they are here whenever I need them❤️

Today is just shy of six months, Connor has been gone 171 days. Please know that I don’t count the days in this terrible new journey I’m on, I have an online calculator that will do it for me when I need it.

In the beginning each and every one of those days was a fog. From the time spent at the Funeral Home making arrangements to the time spent with Rev. Bob Szafran discussing the service. I just walked through the days in a haze, going about the motions and getting things done, but not really dealing with the emotions or the finality of it.

I have gotten through Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kyle’s Birthday, My Birthday, Easter, Valentines Day, His 18th Birthday, Jordan’s Birthday, FCTS Junior/Senior Prom. Each one of them with their own issues and own emotional pain.

The next big hurdles are coming quick, they are Senior Awards Night, and FCTS Graduation. 2 nights I have looked forward to since he started FCTS as a freshman. The next right of passage in a young mans life. To watch him walk across that stage, and then throw his cap in the air when he was done. To listen to him tell me about all the graduation parties that he and Jordan were going to. To plan his graduation party, to have a yard full of all his friends, as well as our friends and family. Watching them have fun, laugh and be crazy.

These are all the things I will miss, the rights of passage that I don’t get this summer. In some ways I am jealous of all of my friends who get to experience all these rights with their kids. We have been invited to a slew of graduation parties. I have told everyone that it will truly depend on how I am doing at the time. I am happy for everyone, but at the same time my heart is broken and aching. Aching that I don’t get to experience the same things.

I will experience them through the eyes and hearts and love of my friends and their children. Knowing that Connor will be right there with me, nudging me along, telling me it’s ok Mom. Ok to enjoy them, and ok to be sad and miss me all at the same time.

I have wanted a tattoo for at least 20 years, but I could never nail down exactly what I wanted, or where I wanted it. I toyed with a butterfly on my ankle, or a cluster of flowers up higher on my calf. More importantly pain is not my friend and the thought of anyone drawing on me with needles terrified me.

Once my life imploded in November I knew that it was no longer a want, but a need. I would always have Connor in my heart and my memory. Now I needed him on my body. I needed to carry him around as physical memory on me, on a daily basis.

Anyone who knows me knows that:

1. I can’t draw to save my life and art was not anything I excelled at in school.

2. I can and will research the daylights out of anything that I am interested in.

I talked to people I knew that had tattoos, and found a local artist that I liked his work. Most of all, I was told repeatedly he had a “gentle hand”. I am a wimp, I wanted this tattoo, but I didn’t want to be in agony getting it.

I perused his profile and found a piece that he had done that I loved.

Messaged him, and he drew one up for me. We set a time, for me to be ink’d and all was set.

As the time grew closer, I got nervous, but I also knew that this was something I needed, wanted and more importantly had to have to move forward in the grieving process.

We showed up in Gardner at Kevin’s studio and he set everything up, his girlfriend put some music on. She started to talk me through the process. Telling me to breathe and relax. It really didn’t hurt as much as I expected. Just feeling like constant cat scratching. Once it was starting to hurt, we were done.

I now understand what everyone says about them being addictive, I am in the process of finding one to honor Kyle’s strength, because that young man is a Rock of Gibraltar, and he needs to be recognized as well!!!🗻

Connors friends and classmates never cease to amaze me. Since the first night of the accident, when my phone began to blow up. They all wanted to know if he was ok, and was there anything they could do. They organized donations at the school and have been beside us every step of the way.

These young men and women are hurting as much as Mark and I are. They lost a classmate, a friend, a teammate, and in the case of Jordan a boyfriend and soulmate. There hearts are broken, aching and hurting just like us. They don’t know how to process this anymore than we do, this is uncharted territory for all of us.

Two weeks ago was FCTS Junior / Senior Prom, an event that Connor and Jordan had looked forward to, but now something Jordan and I were dreading. She and I spent the day being pampered to try and block it out.

The Seniors had been planning, and need I say scheming to make sure Connor was at Prom in spirit. Krystal and Courtanie had the carpentry shop make this bat, CAD engraved the writing on it, and Courtanie painted the letters.

I got pictures of special couples holding the bat at prom. Pictures of friends of Connor and Jordan, smiling, but with melancholy looks in their eyes. But none are as special as this picture. This picture is Devon, Krystal and Kyle. All my Colrain kids from FCTS. The group that played ball together and hung together in elementary school. Showing me that he may not be there in body but definitely in spirit❤️

22 years ago I walked down the aisle, I was one of the last of my friends to take the plunge. I had sowed all my wild oats, earned 2 degrees and found the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

I envisioned a life full of happiness, things would be easy. We would sail along into blissful love and marriage. Lol, then reality hit. Kyle was conceived on our honeymoon and the first year of wedded bliss was paired with morning sickness and pregnancy hormones. Kyle came screaming into the world in January and we celebrated our first wedding anniversary in April of that same year.

Three years later Connor was born and our family was complete, I was a boy mom, I had always envisioned girls, and bows and dresses and lace. Instead I was surrounded by overalls and trucks and mud. I wouldn’t have traded a minute of that for anything.

Life doesn’t come with a manual, or if it does I didn’t get mine. I do know that I made some mistakes being a wife and a mom. Hell none of us are perfect. The June Cleaver era and doing housework in your pearls and heels went out a long time ago.

What I do know is that I wouldn’t change a minute of any of it, from the frogs in the laundry to the sleepless nights due to sickness, to the hours helping them work on projects or the countless field trips I chaperoned.

Tonight was the FCTS Junior/Senior Prom, just one more hurdle we have to get over. Jordan and I got massages and pedicures, wore our matching flip flops that Michelle Milton got us (they are awesome) and tried to pretend it wasn’t happening today.

In reality it was niggling in the back of my mind, just like always. But I was trying to focus on the good times, on all the fun he had, how he loved to dance and how he truly looked so handsome in his tux.

22 years, 2 boys, and 1 marriage later. Life doesn’t come with a manual, it’s a dance you learn as you go. And in my head I am dancing to his favorite music right now. Shall we line dance to the Cotton Eyed Joe anyone???

Photo Credit (Kevin Momaney)

You’re gonna miss this
You’re gonna want this back
You’re gonna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you’re gonna miss this

~~~Trace Adkins~~~~

When my boys were young my mom always told me “Once they go to school, the time goes by so quick Tam, they are in kindergarten, then you blink and they are in Middle School, and before you know it they are graduating.” At the time I was in the middle of screaming toddlers, and babies that wouldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn’t see the fact that they were going to grow up so fast.

Kyle is getting ready to move out, and Connor is gone, gone in a way that never returns, gone in a way that all I have left are memories. Memories that I cling to with all I have, like algae clings to your foot when you get out of a lake, or the sand from the beach that wont brush off of your body no matter how hard you try.

I do miss it, I miss running from one Baseball Practice to another. The times when Kyle had Golf at Mohawk and Connor played Suburban Football. Trying to be in 2 places at the same time. I even miss their squabbling and snapping at each other. I miss my boys, I miss them when they were little, all snugly, and even when they were too big to snuggle, when they needed me.

The summers of Tournament Ball, every weekend a different tournament, in a different town. Pack the car on Thursday night, games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then get ready to do it all again the next weekend, with practices in between. Once the summer was over we went straight into Suburban Football.  With maybe a week of vacation squeezed in somewhere, if we tried hard enough.

Then he morphed into Middle School Baseball, and Babe Ruth and finally High School Ball, all benchmarks of growing up. Not as needy as before, he could get himself where he needed to be, but still needed Gatorade and seeds on a regular basis.

Kyle needs this, he needs to move out on his own, and grow, and spread his wings, but my house will be so empty. I don’t know if I am really ready for an empty nest, although I would never tell him that he couldn’t go, I’m not that kind of mom. I just know I will miss him, but he wont be far away, I can call him, or text him, and he will come home to visit. It is a different kind of missing.

 

Just over 4 months in to this horror that has changed my life I had a world class sized panic attack. The kind that puts you in the Emergency Room, with your body trying trying to revolt on you. I have to come to terms with the fact that I can’t control everything. I can’t keep everything bottled up inside, and being strong doesn’t mean that I don’t give myself the chance or the ability to just fall apart. That my friends is a big fat lie. Falling apart is a part of this journey, it can be said it is a right of passage. Today my heart blew apart like a thousand tiny puzzle pieces and I began the process of putting it back together. It is a arduous process just like this entire grieving process. There is nothing easy or remotely enjoyable about it. Sometimes I just have to give myself time to cry, wail, scream, be sad and at times give in to my grief. I am just in the beginning stages of this lifelong journey. No amount of sorrow, tears or screaming will bring Connor back to me. But that doesn’t mean that bottling it all up inside will help.

I am beginning to wonder if by having my heart fall apart and then begin to repair, like Dr. Seuss’ Grinch my heart will grow in size and dimension. I will be able to accept things that I never dreamed of. Love and acceptance, like healing comes in stages. I am just 4 months in, just barely scratching the surface of the the first stage of this grief.

Someday I will be able to dig out of the trenches of grief. The shovel will appear and the digging will begin, at this moment I am going one step at a time. Trying to be gentle with myself, my heart and my soul, and most importantly my body. As moms we aren’t wired to do this, so my wiring needs to be diverted, or even removed and changed. Much like my boss removes old Knob & Tube wiring and replaces it with Romex wiring. I will have new wiring to support the new normal that I live in.

See this woman right here? She has walked the same path as me, she lost her daughter Tabitha in 2016. At the time I couldn’t imagine anything worse happening to anyone, and I did my best to try and help her. She is strong, tough really and she pushed on through her grief and pain doing the daily things and trying not to let any of us see how much in pain she was. I know she buried it deep, and someday I may understand that, but right now mine remains too close to the surface. I can’t bury it deep, it pops up at the most inopportune moments.

Missy and I have been bonded for many years, since our babies were in pre-school. Connor and Krystal were boyfriend and girlfriend from pre-school until 7th grade. They spent hours on the phone together, and as much time together as they could. Missy watched my kids when I went back to work, and Connor and Krystal loved that (I’m not sure Kyle was as much of a fan of it, but he dealt with it).

Even when they moved on from “loving” each other, they remained friends, they were there for each other. There when a relationship fell apart, Krystal was there for Connor when his Mimi died and he was there for her when Tabitha died. They rode the bus together, laughed and giggled, and were just the best friends.

Then they both got their licenses and life moved on, they both got cars and the bus didn’t transport anymore, but since they were both at Tech, they still remained there for each other.  Just the way great friends should be, just like Missy and I are grieving, I know Krystal is. She grieves for both Tabitha and Connor. A loss that no young girl should have to experience. She has more in common with Jordan than ever before, they both loved Connor and now they both grieve for him. Life truly is unfair, and I with I could make sense of it. But I just can’t, I just know that Missy and I have walked this path, and will continue, it is a path we never asked for, but we will walk it together, facing this heartache and pain as best we can. Moms forever, Grieving Moms until the day we leave this earth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 days, at sea, with warmth and sun and beautiful blue water, clear skies and puffy clouds. The temperature never dipping below 78 during the day. Amazing food and free flowing cocktails, fantastic friends. 3 days at sea floating in the Bahamas gave me a new perspective on things.

Seeing the scooters in Nassau and knowing that Connor and Jordan would be seeing the island on one of those. That they would be playing in the waves and having a blast made me smile. A melancholy smile but not one full of tears this time.

Would they be trying to figure out what to eat at one of the sit down restaurants on the ship, or would they just stick to the “safe buffet”? Once they could drink they would be hanging out by the pool bar, he in his long wild colored swim trunks and she in a beautiful bikini. Just like the hundreds of young people on our cruise. But they would be different, special because they only cared for each other.

This quick trip to the warmth of The Bahamas gave me renewed perspective on life and loss. I will always see Connor and Jordan in young people in love. But after 3 days at sea with no tears shed, I realized I can do this without racking pain, soul wrenching tears and all consuming heartache. It will never be the same, but it will be ok.