Pushing through

I’m often asked on weeks like this:
“How do you do it?”
It’s busy and for the most part my mind is compartmentalized.
But once during this week of prepping, I have to let it all out.
This morning Will reached for his clothes and pulled out a onesie. It wasn’t just any onesie. It was first Chase’s and then Shane’s. It’s the Pearl Jam one in our cover picture and is framed in our home.
Then we read books. He again reached for a book and it wasn’t any book, it was Shane’s book, “On the Night You were Born.” Honestly, I haven’t read it since I read it to Shane. The cardinal towards the end caught my breath.
During Will’s nap (yes a shocking surprise today), I put background noise on while I printed and organized the raffles.
For whatever reason, “Collateral Beauty” was on.
Tissues later, I got all the bottled up feelings out.
Our COL event is like planning a birthday party every year for my son who never gets to have that birthday party. It’s to honor him and children like him.
It’s to raise awareness and research funds to change the outcome of these high risk childhood cancer realities and to allow these children to live to have their birthday parties.
“The meaning is simple, the damage of a child’s death is so dark and severe that a parent cannot see the full picture because of the tragedy.
It may take a lifetime to understand that within that dark and ugly place there was a beauty and love there so strong that not even death could dishevel it ….that in fact, the beauty is that love continues even after and through death and the impact of that trauma brings us closer to the love that we shared for that person and all the ways love of that individual has affected our lives and the lives of others.”