365

So, Tyler and I were talking several weeks ago about needing to do something to commemorate the 1^st anniversary of Keegan’s death – we were also in agreement on not knowing what on earth to do for such a time. I don’t want to think about the fact that it’s been almost a year. Three hundred and sixty five days without my charming, funny and handsome son. I miss him every day. Sixty five days without seeing most of my family drives me crazy – cripes, I start itching at 5 days without one of my boys - so God only knows what you call this mess after 365. I would give absolutely all that I have for one more day. One more hug. One more smile. To hear, ‘love you momma’ – One. More. Time.

If you know me, you know I’m a fixer – I can fix just about any situation or at the very least – reframe the perspective to fix how we feel about it. Yeah, I’ve been trying for almost a year and there’s no fixing this one. It sucks, it’s not fair and there’s not a damn thing any of us can do about it! I can’t help be angry – but at Satan, just to clarify. That Satan felt that he could mess with my family like this just pisses me off to no end – it also tells me he sees something dangerous in us and that’s why he felt he needed to meddle in it. It causes me to continue to fight for a path and example he should be fearful of – so I will continue to dig deeper into Christ to battle him. Day in and out. He will not ever win this battle with me. Is anyone else starting to see why I was built with such drive and determination?  Ha!

Bring. It.

I finally figured out a couple of weeks ago why I was having such a hard time coming up with what to do today – because I don’t really want to commemorate Keegan’s death – I want to celebrate his life! He lived an amazing example of a great life and was this tremendous man that his dad and I are proud of – why would we want to shadow that in this horribly sad and tragic story of his death? It’s crazy to me how I can add him to so many stories of my life, incorporate him into a story at work or to another baseball mom who may or may not have ever even known him – they only known I’ve lost a son (and I assume everyone who’s known me in the last year knows I’ve lost one of my sons) and so many people probably tense up when they hear me say his name…little do they know, his name gives me comfort (and have seen him at a few games, too). It settles me every time I can share a story of him; as long as we’re talking about him and telling stories – he’s alive. He’s alive in me and in you and our stories of who he was. So share your stories of him – focus on the good ones and share them far and wide. Tell the people who don’t know him, the stories of how he impacted your life and made you laugh – he lives on in those stories.

In addition to obviously his very life, I regularly miss Keegan’s friends and his other moms and everything he brought to his every day. His laugh, his smile, his run and skip as he chased his brothers and certainly, his hugs. His ability to take a somber moment and make someone laugh – in fact, he helped me out with that this morning.

We had the misfortune to have 2 of our sons (we have 5 total, including Keegan) in an accident on their way to join us on vacation today. The boys were ½ way between home and our vacation destination and while I’m not really awake, but trying to prepare things for my husband and I to eat and drink on this 4 hr trek (each way) to hold our children safely – and discuss how nobody will be driving on July 6 or 7 again – possibly ever…I’m packing some scones and sweet rolls I had made and grab some napkins I’d picked up at IKEA.  They are fantastisk – I’m not even kidding. The brand is FANTASTISK and the only other being that I’ve ever known who would have picked up on that….is Keegan. We are embarking on this trip we don’t want to make, for reasons we don’t want to have to handle and on a day we don’t necessarily even want to get out of bed, but we have FANTASTISK napkins – so it’s all going to be ok, do you understand?!

 And so it was.

Friends, we pray for safety and guidance and strength on a daily basis, and at the end of THIS horribly stressful and historically tragic day in our life from 365 days ago…We are safe. We are guided. We are strong.

We have children to pick up. They have a pinch from where the seat belts saved their lives, we have an OnStar bill – which paid for the employees who were of comfort to our children while they waited for help to arrive. We have a car payment, for a car I will likely never be seated in again – but it did its job and protected our children in the best possible way – to where we were able to hold them again, with beating hearts and minor scrapes - while we may not do much laughing and smiling today…trust me when I tell you.

We are FANTASTISK. Let your day be, too.

Underestimated

Though she be but tiny, she is fierce. 


 I just LOVE that phrase – it reminds me of my mother and her fire for life and the spunk she added to everything she did. It reminds me of my granddaughter and how the impact of her heartbeat, long before her first breath - changed the direction and purpose of my life (she turns 3 next month – so she's got a little sass in her step now too, to go with her 'fierceness'). It also reminds me of a friend of mine, who was married last Saturday, becoming a wife and step mother, and someone I would have never imagined would be such a source of support and faith and example to me when she walked into my life. I feel that phrase holds true for me on occasion too, especially when I've been underestimated.

The morning of her wedding, I was thinking of my friend and how there are enough trials that just naturally come in our roles as a wife, but the work of a stepparent is SO much harder and definitely one of the most difficult roles I have. There is such a fragile line and while I am a stepchild, a stepsister and a stepmother - that stepmother gig is definitely the toughest. The mere connotations of being a ‘step’ anything is rough to me. I can’t even stand it. The first time my stepdaughter called me her stepmom, I know I just snarled up my face immediately, I didn’t even realize until that moment, but I truly hated that title. It doesn’t even come close to reflecting my interest in my stepchildren, my commitment to their lives, my connection to them as the children of my husband and the complete love I have for them that they may never realize. We’ve had multiple discussions from even before I married their dad that my function was never to replace their mom, they get ONE mom and the mother she is to them is the mom they get. My role is always to be an additional source of support to them, a resource – if you will, in whatever shape that takes. In my relationship with my stepdad, I was so conflicted for a long time because I felt that I was betraying my dad if I had any affection for my stepdad. My dad was my everything so I was pretty adamant I wasn’t going to be caring for this stepdad fellow….at all. You add in 2 redheads and our stubborn personalities and this Leo’s pride – and you have a quite a recipe for disaster. You will also know that today, that stepdad fellow holds a pretty hefty place in my heart – though I still don't feel his title reflects his impact on my life and heart, but it is what it is. 

What changed? Time. 



What happened? Time.



Eventually, I figured out he wasn’t really the bad guy in my life – and I think I really just got tired of carrying the anger and figured that he was always going to be around, so I'd better at least be civil. And he was around. He was there for my graduation. And when I made the Dean’s List. And when I was miserable carrying and later delivered my children (drove me to the hospital for one of them). He has been around for so many birthdays, and for Easters, Thanksgivings and Christmases. Year after year after year. As my mother’s health declined, he was there. In and out of the hospital and back again, for decades. He’s been there. And there’s been no grand gifts or trips or houses or cars, there are no motives, no agendas – just love and acceptance. Through good and bad, up and down, thick and thin.  

At some point, I finally started ‘adult-ing’ and figured out how incredible the heart is. The human heart is roughly 3.5” x 5” – not so big. They actually make a picture that size, but people are usually looking for at least a 5” x 7”, if not an 8” x 10”. If you walk into a room – you really have to be paying attention to see the 3.5” x 5’, they don’t necessarily jump out at you. That’s not a very big organ either, given its function.  Lucky for me my stepdad provided some forgiveness on his end for my poor behavior because I wasn’t a very nice person to him for a while. In addition, at some point I had to forgive myself. I was bound and determined that I did not need him and would not need to get along with him to carry on in my life and you know what? I probably didn’t. I’m sure that even if I went the rest of my days without building bridges, extending that ‘olive branch’ or providing forgiveness, I’d get along ok – and so would he, but I think I’ve talked about this before, and my poor little heart would be SO heavy. In guilt, shame, anger, bitterness….I’d much rather have a light heart.  Our hearts were built for forgiveness and expansion and sometimes forgiveness has to be exercised for those who don’t ask for, want, or even know they need it and through that forgiveness your heart is allowed to grow. In the book of Luke, chapter 6, verse 37 – we are told, "Do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned.".  I am thoughtful today about the capacity of the human heart and how incredible it is that we have the ability to love and be loved with an infinite width and depth. There truly is NO end to the love you can give or receive, but we also need to be mindful of what our expectations are in return (there should be none) - we are to give our love freely as we see in Matthew 10:8 “As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead…drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.”.  



I share that experience of mine for anyone else who may find themselves struggling in their ‘step’ role from time to time, but also because it demonstrates the surprise of the friendship we found in each other. I wasn’t looking or expecting to find friendship, much less love for my stepdad (I underestimated him) or with my friend (I underestimated her too), and quite honestly I underestimated myself and whether I could be open to these relationships. I was so impressed to see how naturally and easily my friend would use God’s word to comfort me in the loss of Keegan and in many other areas of my life and although I never necessarily deserved that grace from her, I sure am grateful to have an opportunity to reciprocate. When I went shopping for our wedding gift to her and her groom, I had no clue what to get them. I was sure they had their home full of whatever things they wanted and had no indication they needed anything in particular but the older I get, the more I want to make sure people have something tangible from me. For Christmas, I gave her (as part of my Team Brave ladies) a clock – as a symbol of appreciation for the time we've spent together this past year, building our friendships and each other up in Christ. At any rate, I walked into the gift shop pretty clueless as to what I was looking for, but how ironic that I would find a collection of decorative pieces with olive branches – one of the things I grabbed was a picture frame right around 3.5” x 5”…. so we definitely had to make sure they had that! I hope they put something in there that reminds them of being underestimated, because I would want them both to be able to easily recall – that when we open our hearts to an opportunity to give love freely – there is no telling what will come of it. I have no doubt that their marriage is a result of that investment and we have built a great friendship on that single opportunity. I am certain that she and her groom, along with her stepdaughter, will build an amazing life in spite of other's underestimations – because though she be but little, she is quite fierce.  

Some of you might be sitting through all of this trying to figure out what any of it has to do with Keegan and my grief – so to pull it all back around - there are many days that I am just not sure what the point of stepping through another day of work and chores and life is worth. What is the point when one of my children just isn't here? My heart is very broken, I miss him terribly and even worse, is that I have to helplessly watch my children experience this tremendous grief – but I do have a recourse. I can sit at this very superficial level and talk about how this is bullshit (sorry to offend, but it is) or I can remember the promises God made to me, that he is with me - will NOT forsake me and to share that with my children (and you). WHY did Satan choose me and my family to attack?  Oh right – he underestimated us. Clearly, he forgot who our Father is. Pshhh. 

Tomorrow's Blitzen

Soooo, how was your Christmas? I haven’t had time to both process what I’m going through and write it down – so since February is here, I figured it was time to get it hashed out. We had a lovely holiday season, surrounded by friends and family – it was thoughtful and loving and wonderful, for sure. I went to church 3 times the week of Christmas (3 different churches for different events) which is definitely a first for me and I needed each perspective of God’s love as we celebrated the birth of His son Jesus.  Every single minute of church I attended, I needed that week.  We missed Keegan tremendously and struggled through a lot in prayer and tears and heartbreak. I find that it’s not really so difficult that Keegan wasn’t there for just that one individual day. It’s not just THIS day or THAT day. It’s not about yesterday or tomorrow – per se. It’s about all of the yesterday’s we’re so grateful he was a part of and all of the tomorrow’s he won’t be.

We considered all kinds of things to keep Keegan in our Christmas, traditions to change or add - nothing seemed to really stand out as right for us. Christmas is a pretty big deal at our house – not because we buy a ton of big extravagant gifts, but when you parent multiple children, I think we all try to be as fair as we possibly can and I am one of those people that tends to organize to the nth degree, on occasion. J I have a spreadsheet with formulas calculating totals and the not only are the number of gifts even, but so is the dollar amount (our blended family consists of 6 children-I have GOT to be on my game). On top of that, we usually have some sort of ‘code’ that accompanies the gifts. Kids are nosy and I don’t appreciate spending all of the time I do shopping, wrapping and decorating gifts to have them know what they’re opening before the paper is off. One year each kid had their own paper (regardless of the name on the tag – one had the green paper, one was candy cane, etc), one year each kid was assigned a reindeer name (Keegan was Blitzen). My favorite, however – was the year we sorted all of the gifts out and had the kids switch places with their sibling. All of Keegan’s gifts were labeled Tyler and Tyler’s gifts were labeled Keegan…like I said, it’s always interesting. We’ve finally been able to keep them from nosing around the tree figuring out which gifts belong to them because they doubt the tag is an honest indication of who the gift is for – and they’re right! A couple of the kids awesomely provided me with Amazon lists of what they’d like this year and the others were pretty easy – so some of the normal issues I struggle with weren’t present this time, thankfully. As we all know, I had other issues I was dealing with this year. My numbers were skewed and my shopping plans awry because Keegan wasn’t a part of them. No new jeans in size 32/30 – no Men’s medium Ohio State items (his little brother was pleased to accept OSU items in his own size, however), no new Puma socks, no camping gear to add for next year’s trips – instead we are disbursing those gifts from Christmases past to his brothers. What a twisted change of events. I don’t like it. At all. I guess I don’t have to and I’m sure nobody expects me to. I was in a funk and I knew it, but couldn’t quite figure out why. I didn’t complain, didn’t say a word to a soul – but one of my dear friends, who knows me and my Christmas production well, had the foresight to identify it for me a couple of days before Christmas AND give me an idea on how to address it for next year. (have I mentioned recently how blessed in my friendships I am?). She had suggested adopting a child in need for Christmas and spend the money on them that we would’ve spent on Keegan. I loved that idea and the representation to carry the memory of Keegan into Christmas and to bring light and love to another person at a time where we can’t help but feel a loss. When I talked to my husband about it – we came up with something that correlates perfectly with Keegan and the life he lived.

Keegan was tremendously passionate about playing club soccer. Unfortunately, it’s also very expensive in addition to the expense of the fees - new uniforms, warm ups and cleats were often also his birthday and Christmas gifts because we couldn’t justify those expenses in addition to the soccer things. Keegan sacrificed plenty to play the game he loved and Keegan knew he wasn’t ‘righted’ anything.  Not even his mandatory Puma soccer socks. He worked a lot of hours at his job to pay for most of his own things, put in all of the hours for club and school soccer teams and kept his grades up so college coaches would consider him athletically and academically – and so they did. While most of his teammates never had to consider any of those things, there were some who had it worse than he did and we decided we want to help those kids. We’ll be reaching out to the club in the coming months to see how we go about providing scholarship money to the kids that are as passionate about soccer as Keegan and maybe need some financial assistance and/or help with uniforms or travel expenses. We are relieved to have an opportunity to be able to help others do something that was so much a part of what helped build Keegan into the amazing young man he was and I’m hoping maybe the kids we help will enjoy getting new Puma socks or a new pair of cleats at Christmas – do you think they’ll mind if they’re addressed to Blitzen? Just kidding. It is a phenomenal way for us, however – to keep Keegan in our Christmases of tomorrow, by finding a new ‘Blitzen’ to shop for each year!