Pennies from Heaven

It has been a crazy start to summer vacation.  I spent the most amazing life changing week in Guatemala.  And though the chaos continues in my life here in Suwanee, I feel a peace I haven't felt in years.  If you want to see my blogs from there, you can read them at http://www.goperimeter.org/blog/journeys/guat12-6-3-10-prj-482.  It was a trip of a lifetime and can't wait to take CJ back with me. 

This blog isn't about Guatemala though...this is about the night we had last night.  Chase (10) plays baseball on a team that Mike created.  Mike hand picked all the families and kids to have a team that had as much passion for the game as he had.  Luckily Brannon Sims, the then assistant coach, wanted to keep our team together and Mike's dream alive and stepped up to be our head coach.  This is our 2nd season without Mike.  This year the boys have really improved.  We hang out together as friends and not just players. 

We play in the Lanier League.  This weekend started the the Lanier League Championship Tournament.  We had a great weekend of baseball and on Monday barely won in the bottom of the 6th inning.  Last night was the Championship game.  We played a team that went 18-0 for the season and I think in the last 3 years we have only beat them once.  All day yesterday I just felt Mike's presence and that he was going to be an angel in the outfield. 

The 1st inning was a disaster.  We had 4 errors, but somehow they only scored 1 run.  We got it together and at the top of the 3rd inning it was 2-1 them.  As the first batter came up, I saw on the ground a penny.  Now we have a silver box at home that is engraved with "Kisses from Heaven" and every time we find a penny, we believe that is a kiss from Mike and we put the penny into the box.  We find pennies everywhere and in places you least expect.  The kids love it and so do I. 

I picked up the penny and placed it on the arm of my chair and smiled that Mike was here at the game with us.  That inning the boys exploded and their bats came alive.  They scored 9 runs and hit around the line up.  Chase has a screamer up the middle of the field.  When he can back to the dug out, I got up and walked over to him.  I gave him the penny and told him where I found it and he put it in his back pocket.  We won the game 12-3.

I had to tell the penny story to the boys, so as they gathered after the game for the coaches meeting I asked to say something.  I told them all the story about the penny and how I knew Coach Mike was so proud of them.  What an accomplishment.  The coaches then each spoke about the game.  At the turn of Coach Todd, he was shaking his head.  He said, "I have to follow up on what Sue said.  I had been standing on the 3rd base line coaching.  At the top of the 3rd I moved about 3 steps toward the outfield.  I looked down and there was a penny on the ground.  I did not pick it up, because it was tails up and  I didn't know anything about the connection with pennies. I went back out to find it and it was gone.  I know Coach Mike was with us tonight." 

So we had pennies from heaven with us last night.  I think there were many angels in the outfield last.  Mike always loved a party!!  Thanks so much for helping us coach last night!!  We love you!!

Cling to Life

It has been a very tough week.  Mike’s mom passed away last Friday.  Exactly 19 months after the day of Mike’s death.  I sat with her hours before her death, which was one of the hardest things I have ever done.  She was non responsive, with sunken eyes, sunken cheeks and hands already curling.  She struggled to get enough oxygen and close to the end, you could smell death in her breath.  I struggled to stay strong for my brother in-law and his wife.  All three of us, quietly reminded her to go be with Mike, to stop suffering, to go to the light, that Jesus was waiting.  None of us wanted her to suffer any longer.  Funny thing was she would not let go.  She was fighting for every second she could last here on earth. 

Now Phyllis, Mike’s mom, has struggled with the demons of mental illness for a long time.  The death of Mike was just too much for her to handle and took her over the edge.  She was strong in the first months after, but quickly spiraled downward.  She sat in a dark hole and as each of us tried to pull her out, she continued to sit there.  She wanted to pull us down with her, but we chose not sit in the hole.   I tried to help, Skip and his wife (her son and daughter in-law) tried, my friends tried, her family tried, and I can tell you even strangers tried. She would not let anyone help.  She would not help herself.  Really for over a year she has wished to die, to be with Mike.  Last week when I talked with her, she knew the end was near.  She sounded scared.  She was about to get what she had wished for but now she wasn’t sure that was what she wanted.  It was too late to go back.  Even though all her body shut down in those last hours, she clung to life.  I only wished she had clung to life a year ago. 

So I guess my message today is to say…cling to life now.  Live your life now.  With the loss of a loved one, there are times when you miss them so much that you wish you were dead.  That has to be a fleeting moment.  Please don’t end up like Phyllis.  Remember there are so many reasons to continue to live.  Just think of one blessing at a time.  Your family and friends and the one you lost, want you to live.  You have a choice.  If you are not strong enough to help yourself, let others do it for you. 

Whatever your loss might be, please, please, please cling to life. 

Be Bold - Not Normal

This past weekend I went to see Bon Jovi with some wonderful friends.  My love of music is always a great excuse for us to get together.  We had a delicious meal before and rocked out like silly groupies at the concert.  And let me tell you, Jon Bon Jovi can still sing and move after all these years.  For 90 minutes I was back in college “Livin on a Prayer”, going down in a “Blaze of Glory”, tasting some “Bad Medicine and “Keep(ing) the Faith.”  Great show, but the highlight of my evening came from spending time with such great people.

After the concert we walked to a hotel bar, ordered drinks and sat back and enjoyed each others company.  A couple hours and several rounds of drinks later, in the middle of a light but lively conversation, we ran smack dab into a very interesting topic. What was normal?  And did we want to be normal?  Was normal a marriage of almost 50 years where the husband and wife continued to love and honor each other?  Was normal friendships that lasted 25 years or longer?  Was normal giving others the benefit of the doubt?  Was normal to love always and forgive quickly?  Was normal helping others when it is easier to help yourself?  Was normal a funeral in a high school gym because that was where the heart and soul of the deceased rested?  Was normal to touch so many lives that you actually filled that gym?  Was normal for beloved friends to drop anything and hold you during a tragedy?  No I don’t think so.

The more we defined normal the more we decided that most definitely we did not want to be normal.  Normal was a ho hum way to live life and all of us wanted to break out of normal and live a bold life.  We decided normal medical tests results were sought after but normal living was not.  

Being bold is not always easy and is not a one size fits all.  What is bold for me may not be bold for you.  For me, sometimes being bold was just walking into a room, sometimes just pushing the covers down and getting out of bed.  When I was so sad and angry, being bold was smiling through the tears.  Laughing when I wanted to cry.  Now boldness is becoming different for me.  Doing this blog is bold.  Standing up for my beliefs is bold.  Loving and trusting again is bold.  Reaching out to someone who is hurting is bold.  Who knows what bold holds for me tomorrow?  I hope great things!! 

So my challenge for you today is to take the first step to a bold life, whatever that may be.  The rewards will be worth it…  I truly believe it.       

If Only...

If only... Do you ever say those words?  A rhetorical question, I know.  We all say that.  If only I could lose 10 lbs...  If only my kids would listen...  If only I had more money... 

In the moments that followed Mike's death, I cannot tell you how many times I asked that question.  If only I had taken Mike's symtoms more seriously, if only the dr. had told him to go to the emergency room, if only money hadn't been so tight then Mike would have gone to the dr earlier, if only he had been given an echo cardiogram they would have seen the defect, if only I had gone into the room at 11:30 instead of noon.  I was eaten up with guilt.  I thought if I had done something different I would have been able to change it all.  Then there are these  if only questions... if only I had been a better wife, if only I had told him I loved him one more time, if only he really knew how I felt, if only I had one more moment back.  I was consumed for weeks about the if onlys... I so wanted what happened to change.  I wanted him back so badly I created ideas in my head of what I could have, or more importantly, should have done that would have saved his life.  It was all I thought of every moment. 

Finally one day I just said...I didn't, so now what?  Mike wasn't coming back and I couldn't change that with my if onlys.  And if I continued to ask if only, I would never get over my guilt. I started to remember all that I did do.  I comforted Mike.  I told him I loved him the night before he died.  I layed with him in the bed that morning and rubbed his head.  I did love him enough and he knew it.  I have to hold onto all the wonders that we had.  And learn from what I didn't do.  

So anyone who is reading this and is asking if only, go back and think of the things you did right and hold onto them.  Don't let the guilt eat you up.  Regrets are hard to live with.  Use today to tell your family and friends you love them, to say thank you to someone special, to laugh a little louder or just smile at a stranger.  Because you have the power to change the if onlys to right now. 
               

The Storm

The storm began about 18 months ago.  On a beautiful, sunny October day my life changed in an instant.  One moment I was happily married with 3 outgoing and fiesty children.  The co-owner of a indoor baseball facility, where my husband was living out his dream job, teaching kids to play baseball and football.  The next moment my life was taken away, and my husband was dead.  I was left alone to raise CJ (12), Chase (almost 9) and Libby (5).  They inturn were left without a dad. 

As I have become more comfortable telling my story, I realize that there is so much loss out there.  It does not come only in death, but in divorce or illness or finances or addiction.  I want to create a safe place where people can come to share there thoughts and feelings and get the support they need.  I hope I can help just a few to walk through the dark tunnel and back into the light.  I hope sometimes to make you laugh, sometimes to make you cry but ultimately to help you heal.  Because as quoted by the band Train "I won't give up, if you don't give up."

Here is how it all played out...

The morning of October 20, 2009 the sun shined brightly and I was busy getting ready to have girls over for a jewelry party.  My middle son Chase had been running a fever during the night so he was home sick.  At 7am my husband Mike stumbled to the bathroom.  He thought he was going to throw up.  He didn't, but was feeling very dizzy and nauseous.  He got back in bed, and we both thought he had contracted what Chase had.  He did say his neck/jaw was hurting, but no excruciating pain.  His chest was a little tight, but he has asthma so I wasn't really worried.  I got my other 2 kids off to school, CJ a 7th grader and Libby who was in pre-kindergarten.  As the morning went by, Mike actually took a shower and ate some honey nut cheerios.  I even asked him if he thought he was going to be able to go to work.  No, he said he didn't feel that good.  He did call the doctor and give them his symptoms and made and appt for 2:30.  He said they didn't seem that concerned, he also wouldn't be.  He told me he was going to take and nap.  Chase was feeling much better at this point and I was busy cleaning the house.  Twice I thought about going into our room, but then thought I would wake Mike up and he really needed to rest.  At about noon I thought, wow Mike is really going to feel better when he wakes up.  He has taken a great nap.  How ironic?!  I walked in and immediately saw his ashen face.  (His lip were not pink, and that is something I knew from when I first had CJ.  A nurse had told me, as long as the babies lips are pink, they are breathing.)  I had to walk out and come back in because I could not get my head around it.  Anyway to make a long and torturous story shorter (still torturous), I called 911, tried to preform CPR, and knew when the EMT's took him away in the ambulance I knew he was dead.  This was the storm that blew my life and heart apart. After getting the autopsy reports, Mike died of an aortic aneurysm. His aorta had burst in the morning and he slowing bled out.  Even if we had taken him to the hospital earlier, he would have died.  It would have been so scary and traumatic.  Instead, he got to take a nap and die in his own bed.  Around the family that loved him. 

I could write on and on about the moments that followed but ultimately there in that one moment I had to make a choice.  I had to continue on in this life or fall into a deep dark hole.  I chose to get up every day and be part of this world.  I cannot tell you how hard this was for me in the beginning.  If you are reading and are in the midst of a loss, you know how dark the days can be.  But I got help and had a huge loving network including a family, friends, neighborhood and community.  I fought through the pain and never gave up on healing or my faith.  What I learned is that life is a precious gift and as one door closes, another can open up.