Carry on Castle: Living with Grief

"You need to blog about this!" my bestie said immediately, when I told her what happened. "Yeah, I will, but why do you think I should?"  "Because, Jenn, you have a unique perspective for this kind of stuff."  Well, hooray for me. Our unique perspective is, of course, all things death. It's just what I wanted to do when I grew up, just what I wanted for my child, and after all, isn't that everyone's dream? To know death? It was around five o clock on Thursday night. I was in my room putting laundry away while Baby Girl watched TV. She came running into my room. "Mommy, mommy, mommy!" in her "I'm scared," voice, not the "I want you to think I'm scared so you will come faster" voice, but the actual "something is wrong" voice. "Mommy Nuggie isn't moving." Nuggie or Nugget for a proper name is her pet hamster.  She lives in a cage in the living room, I cleaned that cage out jus...

Baby Girl and I went to MTD (That's short for Magic Therapy Dude aka Baby Girls therapist)  I sit in on the sessions with her. Today she was schooling MTD on math, quite frankly it was over my head, but they were having a good time. In about five seconds everything escalated into ya that was intense. Lets back up. Last week was Thanksgiving. Nearly everyone I have seen since then has said "Hey Jenny how did your Thanksgiving go? Justin was there right?" Basically they wanted to know if it was awkward having my boyfriend at Thanksgiving and not my dead husband, although technically my dead husband was there also.  My response is; Thanksgiving was really really good. I actually don't think it could have gone any smoother. It was just about perfect. Justin cooked our turkey and Baby Girl helped him prep it, they pulled out the guts and washed it. Baby Girl played with its body parts and named it Fredrick.  They tied up its legs and gave it a bath in boiling oil.  They...

Almost three and a half years after Dan died I decided to maybe try this dating thing out. I thought it was going to be awful. One terrible date after another, never finding anyone 1/4 as good as Dan. That is what I was in for,why was I even trying. One of my besties said "No Jenny, dating is going to be easy for you, It has to be, you've been through way to much crap, God has to give this one to you." I laughed at her. Ha thats exactly why it's going to be awful, life isn't exactly going smoothly these days, there is no way this will.  Lucky for me my bestie was right and I was wrong. The first real date I went on I met the most amazing man. You can read all about that here  my first date  . A couple weeks later I messaged my Dad and my siblings "No body freak out!!!!! I may have started dating someone" Most of them freaked out despite my warning. Especially my dad. He wanted to know how we met "Uh my bestie Stacie might have made me sign up for ...

We were at a party for a friend the other day, Baby Girl, John Smith, and myself. (Side note yes I am still dating John Smith things are going very well, I'll catch you up later.)  At the party were a bunch of helium balloons.  John Smith and I were talking about the balloons, they reminded him of Winnie the Pooh. He was extremely sweet as he pulled a red balloon off the bunch and tied it to my wrist. Somehow we ended up walking out of the party with that red balloon in Baby Girl's hand. Go figure. Out the front doors and into a big open parking lot Baby Girl hung tight to her balloon. It was abnormally warm for a November night in Oregon. Baby Girl started running around the parking lot, red balloon following closely behind. She would run, stop for a minute, look up into the beautiful starry sky like she was inspecting it for something, and then run to a new spot. Jumping, skipping, running in circles with her red balloon. I laughed at her as John Smith and I held hands. ...

So remember about two years ago when I put my 9 year old on antidepressants because her daddy died when she was 7 and her anxiety was so bad neither of us could even catch a breathe. I do. I was there. It was awful. If you don't remember feel free to read about it here   I put baby girl on antidepressants Slowly, very slowly she started to come out of it. I started seeing glimpses of her becoming a kid again. Laughing and playing with her friends. Not being terrified when mommy left the room. It was a big deal. She continued to get better. She went from having a grief tantrum every day to me saying "hmmmmm I don't remember the last time she had one" I talked to her therapist and psychiatrist about how great she was doing. We all thought maybe she didn't need the antidepressants anymore. She was handling life so well. So about a month ago we decided to take her off them. You can read about that here  I took Baby Girl off antidepressants Yup, well that experimen...

Baby Girl isn't really a baby anymore. In about a week and a half is her half birthday, she will officially be 11 1/2.  I guess thats not a baby. She is in the sixth grade, I guess thats not a baby. When she was first born her entire body fit between my fingers and my elbow. That is certainly not the case anymore. Her daddy always called her Baby Girl and thats why I do it too. When she was 7 1/2 her daddy died, I've told you that story once or twice. She was still very much a baby then. In a time where most kids are growing and learning to do things for themselves we were stuck in the mire of grief. Baby Girl was in it so deep she couldn't talk about her daddy or mention his name. It hurt her little heart to much. Just over a year after Dan died (which might as well have been the next day the way grief counts time) we had to move. Baby Girl and I were both devastated, but like daddy Baby Girl did not like talking about moving, that hurt too much too. Slowly, very slowl...

So here is a fun story. It's also true so even better. It is about my precious, beautiful, dare devil daughter, who we used to say will do nothing short of conquering the world when she grows up. Her daddy always called Baby Girl. Her daddy was her hero and her eyes lite up every time he came home from work. She would run screaming with glee "daddy, daddy, daddy!" when she heard the front door open. He would scoop her up, kiss and hug her, and say "Hi baby Girl how was your day?" She almost always answered with a "daddy will you come play with me?" she always got a "yes as soon as I kiss mommy" Here is the part you may have heard. One night when she was 7 1/2 years old  we put her to bed just like we've done every night of her life. We said our prayers, we sang our songs. I gave her a kiss and a hug and said "goodnight baby I will see you in the morning." Her daddy gave her a kiss and a hug and said "good night baby I wil...

I haven't blogged in a long time. I feel like I have been saying that every time. It's true, I think I managed to blog about once a month all summer as opposed to 2-3 times a week. I just didn't have time. We had such a busy summer Baby Girl and I, I have so much I could blog about; How therapy is going for baby Girl there's stuff to talk about there. Our summer adventures, we had about a million, all with memories of Dan. The start to school for Baby Girl. Family. I am making a list. Dating. Ahhhhhh that widow dating thing, it's a doozy. and our topic winner for today. If you didn't read my last post here is the link.   dating blog   In short it says that yes I have started dating. Fortunately  for me the first man I dated was amazing (you can read about his amazingness in the above blog.)  I think it just took time, it just took time for me to be ready to date, it took time to understand that I can still love Dan. It took time to understand that I can be hap...

"So your doing this" my therapist asked. It was more of a statement then a question. I think. I couldn't quite tell. Her eyebrows were raised and she was looking directly at me. I think she wanted to make sure I was sure of my decision. I'm not certain if she thought it was a good decision or not. "Yes we're doing this!" I answered back firmly. I was sure of my decision. "Well it's been three months" I added. That was the agreed upon time frame, agreed on by my therapist, by Baby Girls therapist, and by me (at their suggestion). This all started about five months ago.  I went to the beach for the weekend with one of my besties.  We were in our hotel room drinking too much wine. Yes for real this is how this story goes. We had been talking as we do a lot about how much I missed Dan. How much I missed someone to take me out to dinner or watch a movie with, or just ask me how my day was. I was so incredibly lonely.  Thus my bestie said ...

Here's an old story: When I was pregnant with Baby Girl (who is currently eleven)  I went into premature labor. By the grace of God she stayed in there and was born right on time. I went home from the hospital on strict bed rest. I was allowed to get out of bed to use the rest room and that was it.  The problem with that lay in that our bedroom was upstairs and our bathroom was downstairs.  Going up and down stairs was not in the prescription of strict bed rest. While I lay in the hospital Dan with the help of his brothers came up with a plan for my return home.  In their minds it was much easier to bring a spare bed from his brothers house  over and put it in our living room then to try and get our bed down the winding narrow stairs of our old historic home.  Thus they did so and I came home to a bed in my living room which I then slept in for two months. While sleeping in this bed Dan and I commented several times on how soft and plush it was and how su...

Baby Girl and I were at church camp this last week.  The church camp where Dan was the director for many years. The church camp where almost all the staff know his name.  The church camp where the summer after he died I sent some of his ashes and they spread him around a tree. The first two years baby Girl and I went to camp were rough. Her anxiety was very high and I just plain wasn't all there.  I was hoping this year would be better, after all this summer has been better, well different at least. Like I said in a previous blog baby Girl is into full blown tweendom and it has been the summer of eye rolls and mommy is always wrong. Going into camp that was my biggest thought, perhaps baby Girl would give mommy a break from the eye rolls this week. I thought about Dan because I always do, but I didn't think about how we may be attacked by grief this week. The first night at dinner I sat by another adult I didn't know. Except I did know him, well Dan knew him, I had ...

I was taking Baby Girl to camp, about to leave her for five days.  We had an hour or so to waste so we stopped for ice cream.  While we were standing in an extremely long ice cream line my mother in law called me. "Hey whats up" I said very causally because it was the middle of the afternoon, I figured she wanted to tell baby girl to have a great time at camp.  "Where are you right now?" there was something wrong with her voice, it was shaky, something had happened but I didn't know what. I left Baby Girl in line with Auntie and I walked away. "Whats going on? We are getting ice cream"  "good I wanted to make sure you weren't driving and I wanted to make sure Baby Girl didn't hear me. Rick died this morning." WAIT WHAT! "Wait what?"  "Rick had a heart attack and died this morning" Rick is Dan's older brother. Arguably the brother most like Dan, they had a lot in common that the other brothers didn't. They...

I have a tween girl.  She is 11, she thinks shes 16. I think thats the definition of a tween; a kid who is between 9-12 and really really really wants to be a teenager. So far it has been a summer of 'everything mommy does is wrong'  I wear the wrong clothes, I pick the wrong way to go (cause you know the 11 year old is an expert driver) I get eye roll after eye roll everytime I open my mouth. She rarely wants to snuggle anymore and is embarrassed when I kiss her goodbye. We haven't had the official "talk" yet but I think shes done with Santa and the easter bunny. Yes this blog is about grief, hang on. Baby Girl went to sleep away camp last week. I am picking her up today. Five days and four nights she has been away from me. I am sure that is the longest she has ever been away from mommy EVER. She went with her two best friends. Two years ago her best friend invited her and she refused to go. "I can't leave you mommy" she said and would start to pa...

Two weeks after Dan died I was driving to Doughy Center for grieving children and families.  I called them a week or so earlier "My husband just died, I have a seven year old daughter, I don't know what to do" They gave me some helpful hints for the funeral and scheduled us to go to the next available support group. That's what I was driving to, it was January, it was dark.  We went early for an orientation. The director asked Baby Girl if she knew what this place was for. I answered for her, something to the effect that it was a special place where only kids who have had a mommy or daddy die get to come and play. Baby Girl was impressed with the cool toys. When the group started the adults went upstairs and the kids went downstairs. The kids played, the adults talked.  The adult room was just a carpeted room with soft lighting and 10 ish rocking chairs. The rocking chairs are genius, motion helps calm you. Much like an AA meeting the adults go around the circl...