There was a teen suicide in a nearby community.  The family was understandably devastated.  The friends were distraught.  The school was saddened.  The community was shaken at its core.  The very place that their children were to feel safe was the place that they were at the most risk.

I involuntarily started recalling moments through the Crazies’ short lives that would replay if I were to lose one of them.  Morbid, I know, but it shook me and my brain reacted in inexplicable ways.

I couldn’t help but put myself in that mother’s shoes, just for a moment (to stay is way too painful), and seek a glimpse at the deepest empathy.

I’d like to share a few of the moments, bad and good, that came to attention during these difficult days…

  • Getting in the car to leave the hospital and sobbing the entire way home.  I was petrified of everything…the other drivers, my abilities as a mother, the fact that I didn’t know what to do with ONE newborn much less TWO, changing diapers, those ugly belly buttons…you name it, I cried over it during that car ride.  Then I got out of the car and started my life as a mother.  It’s what we do…we move forward.
  • Double infant carriers slamming against my recovering-sciatic legs over and over again…not knowing if I could make it up a full flight of stairs with both of them (and my pelvic floor intact), but doing it anyway and feeling GREAT about the fact that neither Crazy went tumbling down.
  • Their first smiles.
  • Seeing them enjoy each other for the first time rather than just laying on the floor next to each other.
  • Listening to them babble to each other in their cribs…even though I wished desperately that they would sleep.
  • Instantly sweating when one would wake up from a nap b/c if one woke up, the other way sure to follow.
  • The first time that one of them got sick and realizing that it was inevitable that the other one would surely follow.
  • Watching them crawl backwards, under furniture, and knowing that they just wanted to move forward to me more than anything.
  • Pulling up…those little fat bottoms pulling up on furniture was the best thing ever.
  • Graduating to sippy cups.
  • Baby food…ugh, baby food.
  • Watching an EMT tech carry my limp son across my front lawn.
  • The first day of preschool.
  • Bare feet on the grass and how much they hated it.
  • Catching snowflakes in their mouths, eyes, nose, etc.
  • Our first bloody head injury.
  • Sibling rivalry at its finest…when they’re both at the same development level, reasoning goes out the window and you just do your best.
  • Baths…ah, baths…
  • Our first family trip to the aquarium and having such a great time.  No one fell into the shark tank and we actually enjoyed being together rather than thinking about schedules, snacks, getting hurt, etc.
  • Watching both of the Crazies fall down the stairs more than once…hated those moments.
  • Listening to the Crazies voice the fact that they are “best fwiends” and “on da same team.”
  • Not being able to rouse a sick child delirious with fever.  One of my most helpless moments.
  • Watching my son throw his Finn McMissle during our walk, losing his feet out from underneath him, landing straight on his chin, and screaming that scream.  I thought there would be a pool of blood when I picked him up, but there wasn’t.  He was screaming like crazy, so I picked him up and lugged him home.  The hole time, Hailey  was behind me, carrying Finn McMissle telling me that she’ll “take care of Matt and be his best fwiend.”  She really does love him after all.

 

I’m not writing this to take some random walk down Memory Lane, but to let us all stop for a moment to focus on what’s really important.  We’re all rushing around this world trying to get to this and make it to that, but we’re missing so much in the process.  The little moments that occur are surely something worth discussing with each other, right?

I wonder what little moments this girl’s parents discussed while planning her funeral.  I wonder which moments they were reminded of by her three surviving sisters.  I wonder what moments she would have wanted memorialized.  We’ll never know.

Get your multiple moments down as often as possible.  Talk about them with your kids.  Reminisce with your husband.  They’ll be the most important moments of all (even if some of them were torture to live through).

 

What were some of your BEST and WORST?  What will you remember when you’re further down the road.