Deux

Avant-Propos 

You know . . . you think you know a thing, all about a thing, all the angles on the thing when it's your own personal thing. And there's definitely no way you can tell me how to feel, how to react, how to process this terrible thing that I've experienced.

Unless, that is, it's your thing as well.

Deux

It was at least a year after we lost Joshua before I knew that one of my daughter's friends spent some time in a "safe place" because of what happened. She'd been there that morning, after the fact, and saw things from which she'll likely never free herself. It was so shocking for me to learn. Why hadn't someone told me sooner? Where is she now? Is she okay?

Later still, as Ethan was being enrolled for pre-K at the same school that Joshua had attended, I learned that Ethan would have the same teacher Josh had known and loved. And also that she'd had to take a year-long leave of absence when Joshua died.

The hardest one for me to hear, however, was Chandler's experience. He and I were alone together at the house that morning when my daughter called. (I still hear that call sometimes. Completely out of the blue. I can be driving along; it's a beautiful day; zero stress, then bam!¹ "Mom!! Mommmm!!!")

I don't know how long it was just Chandler and me that morning as I was catapulted into that horror, snatched back and pummeled, over and over and over again. I don't know when my husband got home. I don't know where Chandler was the rest of that day. If I try to remember ~ and I really don't like to ~ I can only see myself on the floor, trying to twist myself into some alternate reality where it had not just happened.

And there was little three-year-old Chandler, witnessing it all.

Switchback

As I shared a couple of weeks ago in Panic At The Disco, my youngest grandson recently graduated from pre-k and I was not there. Chandler, however, did get to attend, and here are some things he said when he got home.

"Meme, they said my name on stage!"

"I wish you had been there."

"It's okay that you weren't."

"Really, Meme! They said my name!

They said that Ethan said that I am his best friend!"²

But the thing that really chokes me up is this: I was in bed pretty early that night ~ beginning to experience the physicality and brain haze that comes with a full-blown panic attack ~ when Chandler crawled into the bed, scooted up really, really close behind me, put his arm around me, and just stayed quietly there with me for a considerable amount of time. He never said anything and he left quietly and it's the only time he's ever done this (with me.) I knew (hazily) at the time that there was something very significant about this, but it was a couple of months later before I realized what exactly that was.

Back To Reality

Because of an entirely separate thing that's happened in the time since we lost Josh, Chandler wound up at our local Children's Advocacy Center to receive trauma counseling.³  Part of that process was for him to write his life story, hitting the high and low points and especially focusing on the source(s) of his trauma.

His counselor gave us a fair warning about a few particulars before the day that he read his story to us, so I was a tiny bit prepared to hear him read:

"I remember MeMe got a phone call and she fell on the ground and she started crying and screaming."

He stopped reading to ask, "Remember that, MeMe?"

"And then Pop came home, but I don't remember anything else about that day or when they told me that Josh had died."

And that's how I learned that Chandler's loss of Joshua trauma has been rooted in My Reaction to losing Josh.

He'd not only just lost his very best friend ~ which would take some time for his tiny heart and mind to comprehend ~ he also witnessed for too long a time and completely unequipped to emotionally process as his meme came completely unglued.

Now what?! To learn now, these years later, how deeply I've imprinted a terrible memory into his psyche is much to bear. How are any of us ever going to be okay?!

But we will be okay.

Ethan graduated in May and it's taken me three months to get this far with this one. But I'm here, and so is Chandler, and each of us is healing in our own ways. 

It still doesn't feel quite finished, but if we're going to keep moving forward, then it's time to take the next step. 

[Publish.]

At Chandler's CAC graduation, we painted rocks to represent our journey.
His mom, Pop, and I left ours in the CAC rock garden.

   Chandler brought his home.

***

1 Sometimes I think that beautiful, stress-free days actually Are the trigger because it had been such a lovely, peaceful morning

2 It's possible that I don't have the quote exactly right, but the idea of it remains.

3 Thank Jesus for the CAC

Panic At The Disco

Avant-Propos 

I used to get so mad at my sister. 

If I even believed her ~ which I didn't at least half the time. 

I still have doubts, in fact, and still get mad about it even though she's been gone for five years now. 

I also didn't believe my doctor when he presented the diagnosis. 

I still don't believe him most of the time. 

Until it happens.

Partie Une

Ethan graduated from Pre-K the other night.

Ethan is my fifth grandbaby, my third grandson.

He is Chandler's cousin. (Chandler, my first grandson, lives with us.)

Ethan is Joshua's little brother.

Joshua, my second grandson, was Chandler's best friend¹ in the world until we lost him in a terrible accident four years ago.

I did not make it to Ethan's graduation.

It's been long enough since I had a panic attack that I had myself thoroughly convinced ~ again ~ that I do not have panic attacks. It's not that I don't believe they're real (anymore.) It's that I'm just too strong and sound and capable to have such a thing. 

Until it happens.

I also can't remember the first one that I had, but I do know that it was after we lost Josh. And that happened just a couple of months after his graduation from Pre-K at the same school that Ethan attends.

The entire day of graduation, I felt "off" but had no idea why until it was getting near time to close the shop and I realized how much I didn't want to go home. Which was weird. I mean, I do love my job but I don't usually dread leaving it at day's end. From there it wasn't hard to figure out what was wrong with me.

Which ought to be a good thing, right? Realizing the cause of an issue is usually the first right step toward correction. However, the more and the harder that I tried to be excited about my grandbaby's graduation, the faster and harder I began to spiral. Some of the reasons are obvious: triggers lead to flashbacks, etc. Another contributor was worrying about my husband's reaction to my reaction. He's a fixer and while I know that his heart is right, his efforts don't always help. And then I started thinking about all the other family that would be there and the various ways they might react, and so by the time I was face-to-face with my husband, I'd become a blubbering lump.

I wanted so much to be there.

But the thing about these panic things is that they pretty much run the show.

It's one of the reasons that I hate them as much as I do.

While I have a much lesser desire (than I used to) to control my environment,
I have a very hard time being controlled.

The reason I used to get so angry with my sister is that I was 100% positive that she could stop it if she really wanted to. 

But you really don't know what you don't know and 

I wish I hadn't had to learn this in such a difficult way.

And I wish I could tell my sister that I'm sorry. 

1 Best friendship at 4 years old may seem like a stretch, but it was the real deal with those two.