Grieving Grammie: Remembering Feb. 2009

It has been a long time since I have written, but she is never far from my mind and always in my heart. I have needed to write for sometime - but I didn't have the time to sit down and do it, so I've kept it bubbling inside me.

I recently read a blog of a woman who lost her child 5 years ago and she helps others who have experienced the same thing. She was talking about this Christmas and pretty much things were back to "normal" but there were things that still trigger her emotions like it was yesterday.    This caught my attention because I continue to be amazed that how things can trigger such raw emotion in me - like it all happened yesterday.

I can be perfectly fine and something comes to mind or I see something and my emotions are there on the surface and they are very raw. I want to talk about what happened to people and when someone is willing to listen, I can be perfectly fine talking about it and then in a split second, I am crying and feeling her loss so deep inside it hurts like I was stabbed.   It catches me off-gard - I don't even feel it coming - it happens in an instant.

I still have issues in the baby department and I am often there looking at things for my other granddaughter and I pretend the other items aren't there - even though she wouldn't be wearing the sizes that I associate with her.    I saw a very similar outfit I bought her for Easter last year - She never wore it becase it was a little too big for her.    Today a baby was crying in the grocery store and I turned and wanted so badly to pick that baby up - I have no idea whether it was a boy or girl, I just wanted to hold it and comfort it. Other times babies don't bother me, unless it is a little girl. I notice Katie has a hard time with little girls too and she can't be in the baby department - she has a hard time if I show her things I have bought for her niece who is older then Gracie.

This month was the beginning of the end for Gracie - she was fighting so hard for her life last year at this time w/RSV - I remember watching her turn blue in my arms and them doing chest compressions - I thought I was watching her die then. It was 4 weeks of hell - she was intubated, paralyazed, swollen so much at times, she looked like an alien - watching her vitals go all over the place.   Seeing tears creep out of the corners of her closed eyes and the nurses would give her morphine because they said she was in pain - She was give so much - she was addicted and had to go through withdrawls. I thought that was the worse thing to have her in pain an not be able to respond and let us know.

Then I have a lot of anger - how could she go through all of this and those doctors not know something more serious was wrong - how did they miss her right lung not getting any blood supply.   When she struggled to keep her oxygen levels up even when she had gotten better - up to the day we took her home - she was struggling w/their oxygen level - but they said no it must be our monitors - she "looks" fine.     I don't know if she would have made it or not if it had been discovered earlier - U of M seemed to think she would have stood a good fighting chance - they told us that and they told us they didn't understand why they didn't look further.    They were also amazed she survived the RSV at all given its severity - but she was a fighter - she wanted to live.

We were so grateful she pulled through. I truly believed it was a miracle and it was due to all the prayers from our friends, family and many others I never met. I truly saw what prayers could do - which is why I gave up on prayer after she died - but that's for a different entry.

I told so many people that she was here/saved by the grace of God and that it was the closest I ever wanted to get to losing a child - I believed that she really had "dodged a bullet" and we were so lucky to still have her.    I now wonder if God allowed her stay with us a little longer because of all the prayers and love at that time. Maybe all the prayers were answered and we were given the gift of time with her - I don't know what the answer is, but there was a reason she survived at that time - even the local drs were very skeptic if she would pull through.    I know we sure didn't take her for granted after that and we appreciated that time she was with us, so much so that I guess we thought nothing more could happen - we had been through the toughest part.... but we didn't know our future. I guess this is a lesson we hear about but forget easily - appreciate today and those you have in your life today for that is all we have, right now and no promise for a tomorrow or next week.

February will always be a reminder of 28 days in the hosptal with Gracie.... 28 days of praying for a miracle and getting one.   We just didn't know it had an expiration date.