Today (Thursday, March 24) my second oldest granddaughter, Aryiana, should have been 9 months old. She should be eating babyfood, or more likely skipping the babyfood like her sister did and going straight for the good stuff whether she has any teeth or not. She should be pulling up to my coffee table, crawling after the new puppy her Aunt Bekah brought home to "find a good home for" and getting her fingers smacked for touching the cigarettes, lighter, ashtray, etc. etc. etc. She should be jumping in the jumper, chattering like a magpie, walking with her sister and her uncle Karl holding her chubby hands to keep her balanced, and blowing raspberries and spit bubbles.
Instead she is singing with the angels. She is making our departed family laugh with her silly antics and her beautiful smiles. She sits at the feet of Jesus and listens to His stories of the world and why it is the way it is. She hears and knows and understands why she was given to us for such a short time and then taken away with no warning and no explanation. She sends on whispered memories and laughing dreams tiny bits of peace and strength so those of us left behind know we can and must go on without her. She sends smiles to her Mommy, sloppy baby kisses to her Daddy, waves to her Sissy, and hugs for the rest of us who love and miss her more than we can deal with most days.
10 days ago marked the six month anniversary of Ary's death. I don't give tribute to that day by calling attention to it because I would rather remember the 11 weeks of joy that her life brought to me than the endless loss that came with her death. My daughter-in-law said today that acceptance sometimes takes a lifetime. She is, as always, wise beyond her years and I am unbelievably proud of the way she and my son have taken tiny steps toward recovering from something no parent should ever have to survive. I have no doubt that they will both reach the stage of acceptance, probably long before I do. I still spend a few moments most nights stomping my feet and demanding answers that I know I can't have; pleading for things I know can never be. I still revel in the occasional thought that I just haven't seen her in a while because I'm busy and work too much, but then I feel that tiny head against my shoulder, the whispered breath on my face. It's her way of letting me know she's with me now and always, that she won't leave again and that it's okay to remember and admit that she isn't physically here anymore... admit, not accept... I'm not that far yet.
This blog post was written in loving memory of Aryiana Leigh Engle 6/24/10 - 9/14/10...
Mamaw loves her Turtle
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grief. Show all posts
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Monday, November 29, 2010
Here goes nothing...
Okay I guess you could say this is my maiden voyage into the world of blogging. I have no clue what I'm doing so it may take awhile before I figure out how to get all the little features and things up and running. Until then here are some basics...
I'm 43 years old, unmarried but in a relationship I've been in for nearly 15 years. It's a complicated situation that I'm sure I will get into at some point but that isn't now. Suffice it to say that we have 5 children; four of whom I adopted as a single mother before Frank and I met and then one biological child we had together after many years of trying. I'll get into all that more later as well. Michael just turned 24, Marques will be 23 in February, Keiran is 18, Bekah is 17 and a junior at Greene County Career Center (please dear Jesus she will be the first of my children to actually finish high school and graduate) and Karl turned 7 in October.
I will say as a precursor to later things that I made the designation of having adopted children once; you aren't likely to see that designation ever again unless it is somehow integral to the subject matter because I have FIVE children, not four and one, FIVE children that belong to me now and forever all in exactly the same way.
I also have 6 grandchildren; Nevaeh, Aryiana, Sebastian, Avery, Makayla, & Noah...
Nevaeh is 4 yrs old; she is the daughter of my 2nd son and his beautiful girlfriend of 7 years. Her baby sister, Aryiana is the baby in my background picture; she was born June 24, 2010 and passed away from SIDS on September 14, 2010. Turtle's death is something that we are all still dealing with on a daily basis and I'm certain that the grief process will play a huge role here as well.
Sebastian is actually my oldest son's girlfriend's son, but he's 2 years old and I am Mamaw all the same; hopefully loving him like I do won't come back to bite me in the ass at some point in the future. (I will add the note here that I have an absolutely filthy mouth and I don't intend to edit myself here so reader beware)
Avery & Makayla are my twin grand-daughters born 10 weeks premature on July 18 & 19, 2010. They are my oldest son's children with his ex-girlfriend; they are beautiful, awesome baby girls that I don't get to see nearly often enough mostly because of distance, stupid work schedules, and my son's severe mental health issues.
Noah Geronimo is the newest of my grandchildren; born 6 weeks premature on October 31, 2010. He is also my oldest son's child with his current girlfriend and is Sebastian's baby brother.
I work at Wal-Mart as a Photo Center Specialist despite a fairly decent education which again I'm sure I will get into later. I'm a Democrat after spending most of my adult life thinking I was a Republican because I don't believe in abortion... I also don't believe in the death penaltry, wouldn't trust a politician from any party any farther than I could carry them on my back, and don't have any interest in debating either my political stances or my religious beliefs. I am who I am, you are who you are and as long as we respect each other there is plenty of room in the world for all of us.
I love to read anything that can hold my attention and I guess you could say I'm a writer as well although grief seems to have stifled the creative process somewhat lately. I had a book published in the early 1990's by a books on disk (yes children I am speaking of floppy disks... little square pieces of plastic that went into a little slot on your computer, which back them had 64 MB hard drives if you were really lucky) publisher out of Littleton, CO. The book was called Wylde Skies and the company went out of business shortly after it was published. I haven't been published since, but to give myself some credit I haven't really pursued publication with any consistancy or dedication so it may be that I haven't tried or it may be that my stuff sucks... at some point you'll get to judge that for yourself I'm sure.
As you can tell by this first post I like to ramble and much of what gets posted here will be just that; rambling. Some will be angry and hurt people's feelings or piss them off, some will be amusing and make people laugh, some will be sarcastic and probably again hurt feelings and piss people off, some might actually make sense but that's a huge maybe. Either way I told myself if I fell into this blog stuff I wouldn't hold back, that it would be the real me; the me everyone around me thinks they know but really have no idea.
That said... here goes nothing...
I'm 43 years old, unmarried but in a relationship I've been in for nearly 15 years. It's a complicated situation that I'm sure I will get into at some point but that isn't now. Suffice it to say that we have 5 children; four of whom I adopted as a single mother before Frank and I met and then one biological child we had together after many years of trying. I'll get into all that more later as well. Michael just turned 24, Marques will be 23 in February, Keiran is 18, Bekah is 17 and a junior at Greene County Career Center (please dear Jesus she will be the first of my children to actually finish high school and graduate) and Karl turned 7 in October.
I will say as a precursor to later things that I made the designation of having adopted children once; you aren't likely to see that designation ever again unless it is somehow integral to the subject matter because I have FIVE children, not four and one, FIVE children that belong to me now and forever all in exactly the same way.
I also have 6 grandchildren; Nevaeh, Aryiana, Sebastian, Avery, Makayla, & Noah...
Nevaeh is 4 yrs old; she is the daughter of my 2nd son and his beautiful girlfriend of 7 years. Her baby sister, Aryiana is the baby in my background picture; she was born June 24, 2010 and passed away from SIDS on September 14, 2010. Turtle's death is something that we are all still dealing with on a daily basis and I'm certain that the grief process will play a huge role here as well.
Sebastian is actually my oldest son's girlfriend's son, but he's 2 years old and I am Mamaw all the same; hopefully loving him like I do won't come back to bite me in the ass at some point in the future. (I will add the note here that I have an absolutely filthy mouth and I don't intend to edit myself here so reader beware)
Avery & Makayla are my twin grand-daughters born 10 weeks premature on July 18 & 19, 2010. They are my oldest son's children with his ex-girlfriend; they are beautiful, awesome baby girls that I don't get to see nearly often enough mostly because of distance, stupid work schedules, and my son's severe mental health issues.
Noah Geronimo is the newest of my grandchildren; born 6 weeks premature on October 31, 2010. He is also my oldest son's child with his current girlfriend and is Sebastian's baby brother.
I work at Wal-Mart as a Photo Center Specialist despite a fairly decent education which again I'm sure I will get into later. I'm a Democrat after spending most of my adult life thinking I was a Republican because I don't believe in abortion... I also don't believe in the death penaltry, wouldn't trust a politician from any party any farther than I could carry them on my back, and don't have any interest in debating either my political stances or my religious beliefs. I am who I am, you are who you are and as long as we respect each other there is plenty of room in the world for all of us.
I love to read anything that can hold my attention and I guess you could say I'm a writer as well although grief seems to have stifled the creative process somewhat lately. I had a book published in the early 1990's by a books on disk (yes children I am speaking of floppy disks... little square pieces of plastic that went into a little slot on your computer, which back them had 64 MB hard drives if you were really lucky) publisher out of Littleton, CO. The book was called Wylde Skies and the company went out of business shortly after it was published. I haven't been published since, but to give myself some credit I haven't really pursued publication with any consistancy or dedication so it may be that I haven't tried or it may be that my stuff sucks... at some point you'll get to judge that for yourself I'm sure.
As you can tell by this first post I like to ramble and much of what gets posted here will be just that; rambling. Some will be angry and hurt people's feelings or piss them off, some will be amusing and make people laugh, some will be sarcastic and probably again hurt feelings and piss people off, some might actually make sense but that's a huge maybe. Either way I told myself if I fell into this blog stuff I wouldn't hold back, that it would be the real me; the me everyone around me thinks they know but really have no idea.
That said... here goes nothing...
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