First I'll catch you up to speed on what's happened since my last REAL post. I graduated college in May (FINALLY) and am currently looking for a job. I'm getting pretty desperate at this point. June and July flew by like nobody's business. I got to spend a week in LA with most of my friends, and as always, we had a blast and made tons of new memories. In August, I got the chance to go back to LA for two days, but this time I was flying solo (with the exception of spending part of one day with my friend Chrissie and her son Danny) because I had to take a test for a prospective job that I did not get. Um, I think that may be all the big happenings in my life.
So let's go back to about a month ago, August 28th to be exact. My great-great Aunt Helen passed away and while I hadn't seen her in many years, her death took an emotional toll on me. But it seemed like God was just preparing me for what was to come over the following month.
Six days later, a little boy with a heart condition, who I have been following his story for about a year, passed away at a hospital in Cincinnati. His name was Liam and he still holds a special place in my heart. He was born in February 2011 with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, which basically meant he had half of a heart. I first heard of Liam through a friend of mine, who also had a daughter born with a similar heart condition. I started following his Facebook page around October of last year, and he quickly stole my heart. In May of this year, Gammy got a new home health nurse named Jamie. And I'm not really sure what brought it up, but Gammy realized her new nurse was Liam's Aunt Jamie (if you've followed Liam, you know who that is). Our family just thought the world of Jamie, she's not only taken care of my grandparents, but she would come in and play with the kids and talk to them and talk to us and tell us about things Liam had been doing as of late. And so we felt like Jamie (and Liam) was part of our family. Unfortunately, after 18 months of fighting for his life, God called Liam home. And while it broke our hearts, we knew that he was no longer struggling or in pain. I really didn't know how attached I had gotten to Liam, because I had never met this child in person, I only knew him through Facebook posts and pictures because he had only been out of the hospital for 10 days of his 18-month life. But it absolutely crushed me. He's been gone 23 days now and I still find myself on the brink of tears at any given moment. I do pretty good when I'm around people because I don't like to cry in public, but sometimes it's impossible. That's part of the reason I hadn't written about him earlier because it's taken me this long to not fall completely apart by talking about him. This kiddo changed my life. He taught me so much in the short time I knew him.
So in the midst of all of this, my nephews and oldest niece celebrated their birthdays and niece #3 celebrated an awesome milestone! Lizzy hit the 6-month mark on the 8th, Jaxie turned 5 on the 11th, Lulu turned 3 on the 17th and Riley turned 9 yesterday. I couldn't imagine not having them in my life, like seriously. They've helped me survive these last few weeks by just being who they are. On the 15th, we were able to go to the zoo with a bunch of friends and family to have a birthday party. Kinz got to come down from Kansas City and spend the weekend, so I think that helped get me out of the biggest part of this emotional rut I've been in.
Then, this past week has been a little tough again. Friday night, Nessa, Gammy, Callie and I went on a little shopping trip and out to dinner. We got home to find out one of Stigler High School's senior football player's, Gordon Parsons, committed suicide. I didn't know this kid, I had never met him, but I had quite a few friends who were friends with him. I grew up with his stepsister, my 2nd grade teacher was his stepmom. Some of the kids I used to babysit were some of his best friends. So it was a tough situation. Like I said, I didn't know him, but I didn't have to in order to feel the hurt that those close to me were feeling. I've always been the fixer...you come to me with your problems, whether it be emotional, mental, physical, big, small, disastrous, whatever...I will do anything and everything in my power to fix it. That's just my nature, I'm pretty sure I've been that way all my life. But to know that there are so many people hurting and asking why this happened, it kills me to know that I can't fix it for them. There's nothing I can do to make them feel better. Even I find myself asking why. What was going on in his darkest moment to make him want to take his own life? As it was stated in the news paper, there were SO many people at his funeral yesterday, he was definitely a loved and admired person. Who knows why it happened. One of his best friends died in a car wreck back in July, some have speculated that could be part of the reason. Otherwise, he really gave no indication that something was wrong. I know that one day, we'll get to Heaven and we'll be able to ask why, and we'll get that answer and it will all make sense, but until then, we're left to wonder. They said they played the Rascal Flatts' song "Why" at the funeral, listening to it just broke my heart, because it's so dang accurate, he had everything going for him, but as the song goes "why'd you leave the stage in the middle of a song?" Until then, pray for the kids at SHS, because they hadn't even began to heal from Cory's death in July and now to add Gordon's to it, I couldn't even imagine.
And Saturday, one of my best friend's Granny passed away. She's never been one to show her emotions either (one of many reasons we're friends), but when I talked to her on the phone that day when she was headed to the hospital to be with her Granny, she was crying, and my heart broke. Once again, that need for fixing things returned. I just wanted to hug her until the pain went away. So today was the funeral, she called me this morning to see if I could babysit her nephew. I jumped at the opportunity, because even though it was something small, it made me feel good that there was actually SOMETHING I could do to help out.
Some people don't realize this about me, but like I said, I'm a fixer. After this last month, I realized if I wasn't helping someone out or solving someone else's problems or just talking through a crazy situation, I don't know what I would do. I would problem be in a crying heap on the floor, in all honesty. That's just my type of personality, so please never feel like you can't come to me for help. Because like I said before, I will do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in my power to help you. And if you've managed to stick with me through this entire blog post, I'm guessing I probably mean something to you, which probably means you mean a heck of a lot to me too!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep these families and friends in your prayers, because life's tough enough to start out with, but when you lose someone close to you, it seems ten times harder. And do me a favor, if you see someone you haven't seen in awhile, give 'em a "hey, how ya doing?" or maybe even a hug. It could make a world of difference. And never pass up a chance to tell someone that you love them or how much they mean to you, because you're not promised tomorrow or next month or even the next hour.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not depressed or anything, this was simply a reflective thing. I do get very sad at times, but in my adolescent life, I've never had to deal with a death of someone who hasn't lived a long and happy life, where you're left wondering why it happened. So this is a whole new experience to me.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not depressed or anything, this was simply a reflective thing. I do get very sad at times, but in my adolescent life, I've never had to deal with a death of someone who hasn't lived a long and happy life, where you're left wondering why it happened. So this is a whole new experience to me.
