the great pretender..

I think that i like many other mothers who have gone through a loss have gotten really good at hiding our pain. I am a great pretender. I am smile and laugh and carry on seeming like everything is alright but there are times when inside I am dying. I dare not to talk about it for fear that people will think geez isn't she over this yet. It's been 11 years since i lost my son and I have good days and bad days. i can bare with things now and i don't melt to tears like i did so many years ago and I am very happy. I should be. I have three beautiful children who adore me and my husband. They are the world to me and i am so proud of them. I am in all aspects blessed but still there are times when i feel my loss and think how deep is my sorrow still. i feel like i am 100 years old. Not young and springy like my friends. i often make friends with older people because i feel like i have more in common with them. i am old on the inside. I do not have this huge hole i once had for God has filled it with love from my three sweet peas but there's still room for more. I would of loved Dawson to the moon and back and been the most adoring mother to him as well. I don't speak of him as much anymore. Technically I don't think i am supposed to. Isn't there some type of time frame for these things. Well I will never forget. I remember it all and he is in my heart forever. At least if i write about it on here no one will have to listen to me and i won't seem crazy. I teach young children preschool and they don't want some derranged womam teaching their child so every now and again i need to let it all out and say, Hey i was hurt real bad once and I have the scars to prove it!
There will be better days to come again but today is hard. I miss the chance i did not get to hold my first son. I will hold him one day in heaven. He is waiting on me i know. I hope he is proud.

update to all...

well it has been a long time since i last wrote anything but boy were we busy. the holidays were wonderful. probably a fairy tale christmas, lots of snow, family, too much food and gifts but the memories are beautiful. We went to dry gultch and rode the christmas train. we took a white carriage ride through rhema and saw the lights. we saw our favorite santa at spunky creek.and o ya brandon lost his job?!?! ya that was the sore spot.the one thing that might have severly messed up our holidays.. I couldn't understand why. why did it have to happen? brandon prays often is very strong in his faith and it seemed like we needed god more than ever. He kept appyling at just about everywhere but no call backs? we were starting to get really scared. it is probably the most difficult thing to just simply trust in the lord. that he will provide for us. We are adults here, who have to take care of our children and be responsible so i find it very hard to simply surrender it all and know that god will take care of us. i will try harder at this. but it just so happened that he is...
Brandon managed to get a once in a lifetime interview and sure enough nailed the job!!
He is now a hybrid out of hillcrest medical center. He will be the senior tech and manager to the tulsa office for a company called PDS NOW. the national manager interviewed brandon and liked him and his style and offered him this positon. He will start out making a little more than when he left navistar but quickly will increase. He will have a new company car, a new blackberry, and a new laptop. he is so excited and i am thrilled for him. this was such a blessing to our family and the lord knew and takes care of us. I am so thankful. I should learn to trust in him more and know that god is in control. it was his will and now it all makes sense. at first we didn't understand it at all but seldom do we ever, now it all seems perfectly clear. I admit that i was upset and even angry but i will learn to trust and surrender it all. What a mighty god we serve!!

thanksgiving in my heart!!

thanksgiving is a few days away. I am so thankful for all the ways God has worked in my life. We now have this new beautiful home, when i simply trusted in him. Oh how good it will be to celebrate the holidays here, where it's warm and clean and the ceiling isn't falling in around us!! But yet i see so many people struggling right now. If only we could help them all~ I feel like i need to help some, but who?
There are a few who will remain unspoken who did for us when no one else would. Who i depended on for strength and sometimes more. I owe these people a lot. I pray that the lord will bless them as he has me~give them care and comfort and good days to come. I have asked for so much in my life and i always find something new to ask for. I ask this not for myself but for those who i love so much who have done miracles in my life and need you lord right now!!
I pray for happiness and sunshine in their lives. I am happy and so blessed. Not without my days of rain and sometimes tough roads but you are always there for me. Lord you have watched over me and helped me find the right path~ use me now, use my words and any tool i have to help those who are hurting. With thanksgiving here i am reminded of what i have, what i've lost, what i've gained, my life's journey, ~ thank you lord !!

Dawson's birthday

well, yesterday we went as normal to visit my son Dawson's grave for what would of been his 11th birthday. It's always hard but i really wanted to break down after we left. I'm just feeling a little bit emotional right now. We sent balloons up to him and tied some extra special ones to his vase and made a beautiful flower arrangement. The boys always put some cars and little boy toys out there for him to play with. sometimes this makes the holiday season start off a little sad but then good things follow. We had some cake to celebrate last night. I literally felt ill afterwards. Devyn has a sleepover to go to tonight and i think it will be good for him. Today is the day that he passed away so maybe his mind will be on better things tonight. Gabe is supposed to go to a little girls party also , so it will be just me with my emmi. She always makes me smile and her brother would of adored her as well. We miss him and god knows how i have resolved to make everything good in my life and how now i am at peace. but i hurt sometimes. more today and yesterday. Can i forgive myself for letting him down? Did i let go too soon? only god truely understands my feelings. Help me to understand better and more clearly today.
For the last five or six years that i have visited Dawson's grave it has only been our family. Does his father remember? Should he? I don't feel resentful but a little ashamed of him.
Dawson i will love you forever and never forget!!

Be still.....

Psalm 46:10 says to be still in the lord....well sometimes this is quite difficult. For example we have been renting the same house now for over three years and our landlord is the all time worst landlord ever!!! No seriously. We have horrid electical problems like a quarter of it doesn't work. When the electician came out a few years ago he said it was the absolute worst he has ever seen, wires are just spliced into other wires everywhere. It's still the same he never fixed it. The roof is gone literally, He should of replaced it after the ice storm. It is so bad that the ceiling fell in, in our bedroom and in the living room. It has leaked for years and the mold. I am the one who painted over and scrubbed clean all the black mold from the leaks. The sheetrock is gone. He never fixes anything dispite how many times i've told him the condition. So needless to say, I have been so worried and scared. not knowing what we were going to do or where to go. I had to think about my children, Emmi is so young and mold is poisonous. I put it in the lord's hands and just yesterday we signed the papers to buy our first home. it is perfect just what we needed. Nothing bigger or smaller than perfect and a great price. We are so thrilled. It was hard to wait but I knew that God would provide and take care of us, When you are at your wits end and you feel like screaming and then he reminds us. Hey i have this all handled. God is so good to me. Thank you lord for all that you have given to me.

Dawson!!

Allow me to tell a story.....
Around this time of year I always start to get a little sad and often remember thoughts I want to forget. Dawson's birthday is approaching soon and I feel with the change of weather I feel him stronger. I feel the need to share my memories of him.
I was young when I found out I was going to have a child and Dawson was my first. I won't deny how exciting the whole pregnancy was, seeing pictures (ultrasounds), hearing his hearbeat and decorating his room(winnie the pooh). All was ready for this big beautiful boy to come into my life and someone I could love whole heartedly and who would love me in return. There was so many things missing in my life, a father who never wanted me, a mother who acted like I was always in her way, an ex-boyfriend who had moved on to someone new. So when the news of me being pregnant didn't meet everyone's approval~it didn't bug me. Sure I had wanted to wait so that i could give my children more but nothing was going to stop me from taking excellent care of this little guy.
My pregnancy went smoothly~ no bumps or any worries. Everything looked perfect including my weight! When we were induced we had 26 hours of long labor and then the most beautiful and perfect looking baby came into this world. He was 8lbs and 8ozs. Blonde almost reddish hair and the most gorgeous blue eyes. They looked violet. He was breathtaking. Right when our doctor pulled him up and was like," Hey looky here." Then he immediately gave him to a nurse instead of handing him to me. They were looking at him and rubbing his chest and I heard him cry twice real loud~ then nothing. They were making a huge fuss around his bed and I couldn't hardly see what was going on. Then they brought in a incubator. The doctor looked at me and said that they think he has a heart murmur, yea i wish. They took him away and finished up with me. After some time they came in and told me that Dawson's situation had not improved and that they wanted to life flight him over to St. Francis hospital where the Neonatalogist was and he would be admitted to the EOPC unit. Of course, I was up trying to get into a wheelchair and see him off. They brought him by and let me touch him through the incubator and immediatley whisked him away. I never seen two doctors move that fast. In my postpartum room I recieved a call after the neonatalogist has done tests on Dawson and came to a conclusion. He had a horrible birth defect. The whole left side of his heart was not formed. Tell me how they missed that on the ultrasound? There were certain options we had, a heart transplant(which there wasn't enough time to wait for a donor), a new experimental option called the Norwood theory( which there wasn't enough time for either), or we could just let him go. Let him go, what did they mean ? Let him go? Without me? I couldn't! I wouldn't!! How dare you to suggest that I will just give up and let him go!! I jumped up and made the nurses let me go be with him at St. Francis. When I arrived, It was a horrible sight. Everyone left me alone with him for some time and I got to hold him and sing to him. Some people would say he was already gone, but I'll tell you that he was waiting for me. When I started to sing to him, he opened one eye and looked at me. I think that's all he could muster the energy up to do but he was there. They had pierced his lung with a drainage tube to drain the fluids off and he was medicated for the pain. He was dying slowly. His little body was filling up with fluids and his heart couldn't pump them off. We were in a family room when he left us at 2:56 in the morning. The sounds he made as he was leaving ~ I'll never forget. They still haunt me in my nightmares. I was in the most pain I had ever been in my life. I had just given birth to a beautiful huge baby, so the pain down there was insufficating and then I had just lost my heart and that pain was beyond unbearable. Maybe the pain from just having him was good, to help num the pain from just loosing him. How could I go on? We laid him to rest a few days later but the hardest thing in the world was leaving the hospital without him. going home empty handed. We had two beautiful services. The music was perfect, the flowers and oh all the cards and hugs were wonderful but i was empty and broken inside. The hole was there for many, many years. I love you Dawson and still weep at loosing you but now I am happy once again~ and I know that makes you happy. You have three beautiful siblings and they love you too. I will never forget you!! ALways in my heart!

Fire

Well this weekend was eventful. On saturday we were having family over to watch osu then the ou games on tv. Brandon's brother josh, his daughter Ava, Dawna(mimi), and his cousin jeremy. In the middle of the osu game we were in Emmi's room playing with the babies when all of a sudden Devyn screams "FIRE".. he had been yelling stuff all day long, touch down, first down so I was like fire what?!?!? Then we see smoke and sure enough there was a fire in our dinning room. He acted so quickly, I told him to take ava and gabe out into the front yard and stay until it's all clear(i had emmi). I had a candle burning on the table and a veggie tray right next to it and someone put the lid to close and boom, everything was burning. Dawna was trying to put it out with my cloth place mats and brandon was getting water, but the table was ruined. I loved that table. It was like our family altar, we ate their together as a family. We prayed and studied there, we played games there. Obviously the fire was eventually put out and the drama calmed down. Devyn is our little hero. It could of been so much worse. Thank the lord for watching over us and keeping us all safe!!
It ended somewhat well when osu won their game and ou lost theirs?!?! On sunday we spent some time with my grammy and went to church. Not too much longer to wait to see our verdict on the house!!! Keep prayin'
Thankful