Distraction – A lesson in the art of avoidance.

I remember in high school, my mom called my phone and told me she had found something in my room and that we would need to talk the next day.  I was driving down the highway to a friend’s house and the whole night was nauseating for me.  I’d be laughing with friends, but in the back of my head I would remember that I had big trouble waiting for me at home.

As I’ve gotten older, more of these situations have arisen.  A meeting with my boss first thing Monday morning and a whole weekend to stress about it.  A hard conversation with a boyfriend that can’t happen until he’s back in town.  A confrontation procrastinated.  And, in the waiting, I distract. I watch I Love Lucy.  I have a drink with a friend.  I listen to music.  I keep my mind off of ‘the thing’.  Until I don’t.  Because it’s always there.  In the folds of my brain, waiting to be remembered.

That’s my whole life now.

I know there is something coming. Dread.  A train.  And I’m tied to the tracks.  I can look at the flowers growing in the ground, I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face, and I can even close my eyes and enjoy moments of brief relief from the train that is bound to come for me.  But the horn blares in the distance.  It’s coming.  Ready or not.  It’s on track for my location and there’s nothing I can do about it.  

Grief is a lot of things.  It is sometimes a slow melting snow man on a sunny day.  Sand moving through an hourglass slowly giving gracious time. It is other times an ocean pulsing wildly under a storm throwing you from open air to deep dark sea.

But today it’s a train.  It’s loud and travelling my direction faster than I realized trains could travel.  

I walk through life feeling all the goodness.  But grief is a highlighter over every word.  Joy. Hope. Laughter. Love. All highlighted in bright yellow grief.

I have moments, you know.  Moments where I forget.  Moments where the ink is lifted of the paper and, for one quick second I am fully good.  But those moments are always bookended by a reminder of what’s coming. 

I’ve been told I should move forward and of course I am.  I have been told to have faith and sometimes I do.  I have been told not to dwell, and I try not to. 

But would you be able to do those things?  If your life was the one tied to the tracks? Would you be okay?

So that’s I guess where this writing leaves us.  A reminder to ask how your grieving loved ones are doing – and to wait for the answer.  To expect truth if you ask for it.  To show up – however makes sense.  To tell them how you want to help and not ask them to let you know.  

The truth is we have no idea what to tell you.  Just do the things.  Make the dinners.  Watch the kids.  Place the calls. Drop off the liquor.  Just do the things.  Don’t wait for direction.  And don’t assume it’s too late.  It’s always the right time to show someone you care.

Talk soon.

Hannah

Empathy – A Lesson in Perspective

I remember the years and days leading up to our son’s diagnosis.  I remember feeling happy.  Too happy.  Wondering how I had managed to escape the evils of this dark and cruel world.  I remember reading stories – stories of children dying of cancer, stories of children who died of SIDS.  Stories from parents who had lost children to a drunk driver, to a freak accident, or to suicide.  And I remember thinking I was moved by those stories.  I would think of my own sweet babies and see their faces in the stories I was hearing or reading.  I would feel a pit in my stomach for those parents.

But then.  As we do, I moved on.  Sometimes within mere seconds.  I would step away from the article or the news and, suddenly, I was back in my happy life and back to my old ways.  I would complain about the kids to my friends.  Bitch to my husband about how hard my day had been.  Not really holding those stories and carrying them with me.  And this isn’t to say those aren’t real complaints.  Parenting is hard.  It’s not always going to be perfect and its okay to vent.  But. I tended to forget the weight that story had on me for that fleeting moment. Perhaps I’m uniquely selfish.  Maybe the rest of you really do carry those stories with you from day to day and allow them to shape the way you walk through your own life.  I commend you if that’s you.  But, if you are more like me…easily forgetting the pain of others and happily living in your bubble, then read on.

The day everything changed in my world – the day I became one of those sad stories – I suddenly realized what all those parents wanted.  It’s not that we think that writing about what’s happened to us is going to bring us our joy back.  It’s that we don’t want you to miss out on the things we will never get to do again.  So we write our stories.  We share our mistakes. We beg for you to not just listen, but HEAR the regret, the pain, and the love.  We want you to go home and scoop up your babies.  We want you to yell less.  We want you to record your children talking so you can always hear that little voice.  We want you to stare at their fingers and memorize the way they wrap tightly around a crayon.  We want you to jump on the trampoline with them and leave your phone inside.  We want you to have game nights and movie nights even when it’s not been a good week.  We want you to live.

Life changes.  At times slowly so you can watch it drip like winter honey.  And other times, you wake up on a normal day with excitement about back to school shopping…only to be threatening suicide by the time you get in bed that night.

A day can change a lot. Use yours responsibly.

Talk Soon.

Hannah

An Introduction

Hi! I’m Hannah. And this is the shaky start of something.

For years, I have thought about starting a blog. I even tried once. But there are so many blogs out there and I felt like the internet was oversaturated with recipes, funny one-liners, and sarcastic quips…what did I have to offer? So I stopped.

And here I am again. Why? Because I have something to offer. Because I need to write. Because I want to write.

So I will start with the basics.

My name is Hannah. I am married to the best guy on the planet. He is an artist and a teacher and an incredible dad to our four kiddos. When we met, I already had one son and my husband has taken on the role of step-dad beautifully. Together, we have added another three children to the mix and we are still basically flying by the seat of our collective pants. We got pregnant with our daughter before we had been married for 6 months and our middle son was born 18 months after her. The baby of our family came another 2 years later and we all really like him.

In August of 2019, after a relatively blissful life together, my husband and I received news that our middle son, Shepherd, who was only 5 at the time, was dying. I’ll talk more about that another time. But, out of that experience, was born a newfound purpose. I don’t think people talk about grief enough. When talking to my husband about starting a blog, I asked him what he thought my primary focus should be and he jokingly said “You talk about grief really beautifully’. We both laughed at the idea that I would start a blog all about how much life sucks. But as I laid in bed that night, the idea kept growing. Because, really, grief is a big part of life for so many people and yet, I hardly hear about it. I think that’s because grief is ugly. And multifaceted. It’s hard to package and make people want to hear about it. I know this because I’m living through it and even the closest of friends have jumped ship when I haven’t been able to maintain composure.

It’s a sea of ‘How are you?’ from people who are afraid to hear the truth. Well-intended, for sure. But lacking the ability to follow through on the loaded answer they may get if I were to tell the truth.

The truth is, you don’t have to have a dying child to understand grief. Grief comes in many unpleasant packages and, sometimes, you can’t even identify what you’re grieving.

But here’s what I know.

I know grief doesn’t live alone. Joy, and hope, and the rest of lifes truths are always there in the rafters waiting for their spotlight.

In the last 18 months since our sons diagnosis, we haven’t been completely crippled. Life has continued to move and I believe there is unending well of goodness to pull from.

So here I am. Sitting in bed listening to my kids argue in the backyard and starting a blog that I don’t really have a plan for.

I just want to be here. To talk about the realities of life. To talk about the things that get glossed over. To maybe reach someone who needs to feel less alone. And to, hopefully, process through my grief in a way that provides relief. And, yeah, I might share some funny stuff along the way. Life with 4 kids tends to lend itself to a dark sort of humor.

If you would like to follow along, I welcome you. You can also find me on instagram at Riddleher to see more of my daily life and simpler writings.

Let’s talk soon.

Hannah.