Today

For any of you that don't know, today is pregnancy and infant loss memory day.  Many of us mommies from all over the nation will be honoring our sweet babies by candlelight tonight. 

I'm sad that I'm part of this club.  I'm sad that there are so many members.  No one should have to live with this heartache.  But this is my life and I can't change it.  I just have to find a way to get through it.  I will.

Looking forward to a new day tomorrow with a new promise. 

ready for happy

I'm tired of smiling through the tears in my eyes
I'm tired of laughing when I feeling like crying
I'm tired of feeling like I am invisible to the world
I'm tired of cringing when I hear about everyone else's happiness
I'm tired of being filled with fear that I will face another tragedy
I'm tired of hoping that people will want to be my friend
I'm tired of people ignoring the fact that my son died
I'm tired of family pretending like nothing ever happened
I'm tired of living with fear and anger
I'm tired of praying for God to finally say "yes"
I'm tired of waiting for the pain to go away
I'm tired of wanting my old life back
I'm tired of wishing that people would understand me
I'm tired of looking up at gray clouds in the sky
I'm tired of wondering if I'll ever be happy again

I'm ready to smile with pure joy and happiness
I'm ready to laugh because I love my life
I'm ready to be a part of this world rather than watch it pass me by
I'm ready to rejoice in the blessings of others
I'm ready to trust God with my life and my future
I'm ready to BE a friend instead of always needing a friend
I'm reading to tell people about my son so that he is not forgotten
I'm ready to forgive family for failing miserably
I'm ready to trust God and denounce Satan
I'm ready to be content with my family as it is and not how I want it to be
I'm ready to tell the pain to leave so that joy can replace it
I'm ready to embrace my life and treasure what I have
I'm ready to accept that some people will never understand
I'm ready for my world to be filled with blue sky
I'm ready to be happy!!!


Really, I'm ready to be happy!!!  I just need to figure out how to get there.

from my daughter

My 11 year old daughter, Shayna wrote a beautiful essay that I wanted to share.  She was given the assignment "beauty is..." and she decided to write about her brother.  She wrote of her memories and even went to his website to copy some of her favorite photos (the ones she has framed in her room).  This assignment brought about a lot of tears and I had the opportunity to have some really good and healing conversations with her.  She finished it last night and with an equal amount of pride and fear in her eyes, asked me to read it.  She was so proud of her work and yet scared that it would make Mommy cry.  She hates to see me cry.  I managed to hold myself together and tell her what an amazing job she did.  I am one lucky mommy.  See for yourself:

Beauty Is….
In my eyes, beauty is my baby brother who passed away almost a year and a half ago because he was an angel on Earth. On March 5, 2008 Nathan Ryan Larson was born in CHLA (Children’s Hospital Los Angeles). Sadly, he was born with a heart problem. He was missing a lot of parts in his heart area. Good news came when they discovered that he had a lot of those parts but they were extremely small. As soon as he came out, the doctors put him on a breathing tube and an oxygen tube that went into his nostrils and a bunch of other tubes and IV’s. Four days after Nathan was born, they operated on him. When he came out, he had a scar across his stomach (My mom said that it would get smaller as he grew bigger). When I came to visit to him, he always had a ton of tubes and IVs in him. I hated to see him suffer and all I wanted was to have him get better and come home. Miserably, he never made it to that point in his short life.

Things were starting to look up when the doctors took off the breathing tube, but it turned out he needed it so they put it back on. He had a couple of good days so they tried again to take off his breathing tube. It was off for a day and then put back on again couple days later, they tried one more time and it was never put back on, and the best part was that I got to watch them take it off. Nathan had a good week and they decided to transport him to CHOC. This would be more convenient for us because then we wouldn’t have to drive very far. CHOC was a lot cleaner and it didn’t look much like a hospital. The only thing bad was that the doctors were not as good and CHLA’s were trained better. Nathan was transported in a helicopter with my dad. When he got there he had a week that was all uphill. One day, I was with my mom and the nurse let us give him a “bath”. This was really a rubdown with a cloth and warm water. He was screaming the whole time. After his “bath”, I got to sit down and hold him. This was my third time. As soon as he was in my arms, Nathan stopped screaming and looked up at me with such admiration, I had to giggle a little bit. Two days later, my mom brought an outfit and asked the doctors if she could put it on him. By this time, almost all of his tubes and IV’s were gone, and he was so close to looking like a normal baby. Nathan wore that outfit all day and my mom got plenty of pictures of him and I’m sure glad she did. I got to hold him one last time that day and he looked up at me and looked like he wanted to say something to me, his oldest sister. I held his hand and he wrapped his fingers around my finger and made some noises. I’m pretty sure that they were meant to say, “I love you”. Beauty all around.

The next day was kind of a blur to me, but I’ll do my best to tell you what happened. My mom was going to try to breast feed him and the next thing I knew, my dad was paged to come immediately to her side. He pulled me aside and took my hands and prayed with me. Suddenly, everyone who was close to us like friends and family came to stay with my siblings and I, who had no idea what was happening. It was the longest two hours in my life and I still cry when I think about that day. Finally, we met them in the hall and they broke the news: Nathan Ryan Larson, my baby brother, only 25 days old died. Even though he had all those tubes and he was on lots of medications, he is still my brother and the most beautiful thing that had ever graced this planet. To many people, a sick baby with tubes, IV’s and scars all over him may not be beautiful on the outside, but if I learned anything from Nathan, it’s that you shouldn’t judge people by what they look like, but what matters on the inside. He is now an angel in heaven where he is wanted most by ones who love him more than you can ever imagine. Beauty was always surrounding him and you would take one look at him and know that love was all that mattered in this world.

on a roll

Still trying so hard to focus on the good.  This weekend my husband and I went out with some really close friends to celebrate our birthdays (we're 9 days apart).   We decided to skip the "nice" dinner and go to a sports bar so that my husband could watch the USC game (aren't I sweet).  The food was actually pretty good and we had a really good time with our friends.  It was even topped off by a huge win for USC -- go Trojans!  It's so good for us to be with people that "get" us and allow us to be real -- both good and bad!

Then we went to The Improv!!!  We saw a great comedy show with Kevin Nealon.  He's doing a show on Showtime called Weeds which I've never heard of but I used to watch him on Saturday night live back in the 90's.  He was so funny!  Even the comics that opened for him were hilarious.  We laughed so hard.  It is such a relief to laugh and feel normal again.  There were a few hospital & baby jokes thrown in throughout the night but I just let those fly by without a second thought.  I was determined to enjoy myself. 

It felt so incredibly good to be HAPPY.  I have to work hard at it so often.  It's nice when it just happens and I don't have to put in the work.

Good Stuff

My posts are sounding pretty depressing so I thought that I would share some of the good stuff.  My life is FILLED with good stuff.  Despite my heartache, I am lucky.  Often times, I just focus on the bad.  I'm making a concerted effort not to do that. 

My girls had such wonderful parties.  I really try and put together wonderful events so that they'll have fond memories.  It worked.  All 3 of them had a great time and I have pictures to prove it!

Shayna took 13 friends to see FAME and then dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.  Here's part of her thank you card that I'm sending out:

For the twins, we had a backyard party with a jump house and Princess Belle.  We've been watching Cake Boss on TLC so the kids REALLY wanted to make the twins birthday cakes.  It took 8 hours total (with lots of errands and trips to and from school in between).  I doubt that I'll do it again but I think that their "princess tiara" cakes turned out pretty darn cute.  Especially since it's the first decorated cakes that I've ever made.  Here's part of their thank you card that I'm sending out:

I'm almost done with thank you cards.  My husband's birthday is tomorrow so we'll be making our 5th trip to Disneyland in 2 weeks and then I'm done with birthdays.  I get a lot of joy from them but they also wipe me out!  I love looking back at the pictures.  That's my reward.  It's a good one!

October

I've been trying to get some photos up from the birthday parties but life has just been so busy.  I should be doing that right now.  But, I felt a strong need to write this post instead.

October is here.  It's always been my least favorite month of the year.  It's dark when we have to get up for school which makes climbing out of bed very difficult.  It's dark after dinner so we can't play outside anymore.  There's a chill in the air and that doesn't work well for a tank top and flip flops type of girl like me (although that's what I'm wearing today).  Sickness starts spreading around like crazy.  The blue skies diminish and are replaced by gray, cloudy skies.  And...all of the yucky Halloween decorations come out of the boxes and are prominently displayed in front of our neighbors houses.

I've always struggled with Halloween.  I know that it's Satan's holiday and not Gods.  But, I thought that it would be okay if I just dressed my kids in fun costumes that allowed  them to pretend to be someone else.  I thought that it was okay as long as I didn't dress my kids like a witch or a devil or any other evil creature.  But that strategy doesn't work in my neighborhood.

Last year, October was miserable.  I didn't want to leave my house.  I was constantly faced with skeletons, grave markers, coffins and evil creatures hanging from the tree branches.  It really tormented me.  Today, I find myself feeling the same way.  As I drove my kids to school, I saw numerous grave stones around our neighborhood.  All I could think of was that my son is lying in the ground and I still haven't picked out his stone.  And then I saw the skeletons hanging on the front porches.  All I could think of was what Nate's sweet little body looks like now.  And then I saw a  coffin on someones porch.  All I could think was that my son will never come out of his coffin (his body that is).  I don't know how people can consider these "decorations".  I don't understand why this is a good thing.  It's going to be a long month.

gift

I received 4 gifts yesterday.  This one was my favorite.  It's the bracelet that my kids picked out and bought for me with their own money.  It's so sweet.  I love it. 

I think that birthday's are a time of reflection.  Sometimes good...sometimes bad.  I've been thinking about all the friends that I used to have.  All of the gifts that I used to receive.  All of the fun that I had celebrating.  My life is so different now. 

I'm really trying to focus on what is good.  It's so easy to get caught up in the circle of what I don't have or what I want.  But I need to focus on WHAT IS.  That's all I have control over (if I even have that much) and that's what matters most. 

So as I wear my BELIEVE bracelet from my kids:  I am going to "believe" that I am going to get through this.  I am going to "believe" that I will have a good life.  I am going to "believe" that I will feel whole again.  I am going to "believe" that God will answer my prayers.  I am going to "believe" that God is holding my hand and will not let go.