I haven't written in a while. I think about it everyday but I just haven't felt like putting the energy into getting my feelings from my head to my hands to type. It seems so hard sometimes to put it all into words. But, I'm going to try today and write an update on where we are and what's been happening. We are still hurting. I'm still hurting. We are still a broken family. I wake up thinking about Chandler and I go to bed thinking about Chandler. Chad and I were talking last night at dinner. We were talking about how painful all of this still is, how much we miss Chandler and how badly we hate the position we've been put in. We don't want to be grieving parents! We don't want to have just 5 of us sitting at the dinner table. We always felt like we had a pretty large family and we loved that! It's changed now and we don't like that!
We got the pool ready a few weeks ago and that was an emotional time for me. Chandler was always out there with Chad and Caleb helping. It's so hard to just see Chad and Caleb when they are outside working and doing things. There's supposed to be 3 of them out there. The first day that I went out to the pool with Corben and Carlie was hard. I was laying out on my chair and realized something was different. The kids and I would usually go out to the pool sometime after lunch. Chandler would often come out too. He would usually sit out in my beach chair. He would sometimes sit and read and sometimes he would just lay back and close his eyes. Well, as I sat there in my chair that day, Chandler wasn't sitting there with me. The chair was empty and that was hard for me to see.
We also got a trampoline a few weeks ago. Caleb and I have used it the most. When I'm out there, I can't help but think of how much Chandler would enjoy jumping on that trampoline. He would be laughing and cutting up the whole time.
I was in the laundry room the other day, straightening up some shoes. That's where everyone keeps their play/work shoes. I picked up a pair of work boots and wondered who they belonged to. Chad, Chandler and Caleb all have the same kind. They'll usually put their names on them somewhere so that they will know who they belong to. Well, I looked for a name. I looked underneath the tongue of the shoe and saw "Ch". I lost it. They were Chandler's boots. I stood there in the laundry room, holding his work boots, rubbing my hands on them and crying. I thought about what to do with the boots. Do I want to put them in my closet, in a safe place? I don't want to get rid of anything and I don't want anything to happen to anything of his. But, I decided to leave them there in the laundry room, where he last left them. I just couldn't even take them to my room yet.
A few days ago, we (the family) went out to dinner. As we were headed home, Chad mentioned something about taking a drive around the area and checking it out. So, we drove around and saw lots of farms that are out here, lots of land and mountains. At one point, Chad decided to pull off on the side of the road and let the car that was behind us go around us since we were just on a pleasure ride. Well, when we pulled over, we noticed a tombstone at the end of a road advertising a place that makes memorials. Well, we haven't placed a memorial at Chandler's grave yet. We have a small one there for now but we've got to get the large one that will be there permanently. So, when we saw that marker advertising this business, we thought we would check it out. It seemed so out of of place to be there because we are driving around in the country. There are farms everywhere, not businesses. We drive down the road looking for the place that makes these memorials. We pass another farm. It looked like we were driving in someone's driveway so I thought we had made a mistake somewhere. We approached a large garden, passed it and noticed a lady working in it. So, we backed up and talked to her about the memorial we saw. Her husband is the one who makes the memorials. It's their business. She told us to pull up to her home and she would get us a brochure. She talked for a while with us and we found out she is German Baptist. She was dressed a certain way so that's how we started talking about her faith. She asked about why we needed a memorial and we told her about Chandler. Well, they had a 14 year old son die in an accident 18 years ago. The fact that we came across this lady seemed like such a "God nod". First of all, if Chad hadn't pulled over to let the car go around us, we probably would have never noticed the memorial at the end of the road. And then, we saw the lady stooped down in the garden working and it happened to be her husband's business. On top of that, they've had to bury a son. We haven't made a decision about a memorial for Chandler yet. But, it is likely, we will use this family's business.
Yesterday, I received a package in the mail from a sweet lady that I met on Facebook after Chandler's accident. She sent me some dragonfly gifts. A friend of hers makes jewelry so she had her make me a dragonfly necklace with matching earrings. Her friend had painted a dragonfly on a light switch cover and decided to send that to me as well. There were also a few other things in the package. She also sent an article she had read in a magazine. It was about a family who lost their 13 year old daughter in a skiing accident. She was wearing a helmet but still suffered a terrible brain injury. The family donated her organs and she saved 5 lives (just like Chandler). Well, they've met the lady who received their daughter's heart. The recipient lived in, get this now, Chandler, Arizona. When the mom and the recipient met, they had a stethoscope and the mom listened to her daughter's heart beating inside the recipient's body. How amazing that would be!! I read the article through tears. The story was similar to ours: brain injury, teenager, organ donation. I hope and pray that one day we will get the chance to hear and feel Chandler's heart beating in the young girl that received it. What an amazing gift that would be for us!
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