January 27, 2020

Live, Love, Laugh....

Those are 3 words that are on our wall inside our house. On a wall in our foyer. Hanging right above a storage bench where the kids get ready with their shoes and jackets and hats. Yesterday, while getting ready to leave the house, Matthew looked up at it and asked me what it says.  I read it to him. “Wow, mommy,” he says. “We do that. We live here, we love each other and we definitely laugh a lot.” He’s absolutely right. And those are the 3 words that carry us through everything. Live... live in the moment. Cherish everything. Love... love with all that you have. Laugh.... you have to have laughter. Laughter makes everything better. I love having that sign in our home, right by our doorway. It’s always in sight and it’s always a reminder, especially on days when we need a little reminder.

I have to admit, the terrible news over the past two days has hit pretty close to home.  The helicopter crash and then the poor girl from Freehold. Thinking of these families and what they are going through.... my heart aches for them.  Did I know them? No. But their stories...  it could happen to anyone. Just makes you realize how important it is to live, love, and laugh with the ones you love the most because you just never know what’s lurking around the corner in this crazy life.

Kobe Bryant. His daughter. All I can think about is what their last moments must have been like and how his wife and his other three daughters go on. We all fly in airplanes. With our kids, without our kids. I remember the only time we took Matthew on an airplane, I was a nervous wreck.  Before Matthew, I was fine on an airplane. Taking Matthew on an airplane... totally different story. I saw it as putting our lives in danger, or more, putting his life in danger. During the flight we hit a bit of turbulence and I don’t think I’ve ever held onto Matthew so tight, so nervous, so anxious to get on the ground. It took me a long time to be able to get on a plane again. A few weeks ago I did fly again, but by myself. I’m not so sure I can get on an airplane with my kids again anytime soon.

Now let’s talk about Stephanie Parze. The girl from Freehold, just a town over from where I live, who went missing on the night of October 30th 2019.  I didn’t know her, but the night before she disappeared it’s a known fact that she was at a comedy club called the Stress Factory in New Brunswick. The show that night wasn’t a comedy show, though. It was a medium who performed and did readings for people in the audience. The medium read quite a few people in the room that night. How do I know? Oh, because I was at that same show. I was part of the same audience, along with my father. We didn’t get a reading but sure enjoyed listening to those who did. And I clearly remember Stephanie being one of them. She spoke that night and was spoken to and her family members around her did too. I saw her sitting with her family, or whoever she was with. She was over to the right, just a few tables away from where we were sitting. I saw her face. I heard her speak. Then, just a few hours later it was reported that she went missing. Then today, the truth revealed itself. I saw the Facebook posts on our local township pages and saw the press conference that was held today, and again although I didn’t know her personally, it became real to me that I saw the face and heard the voice and was sitting so close to someone who was murdered. Left lying in the woods on the side of a road I travel everyday. A place I’ve passed by more than two handfuls of times over the past 3 months since she disappeared. Drove right by her. This poor girl. This poor family.  This crazy, crazy world. This is all just too close to home.

These kinds of things make you think. They make you think about how precious life really is and how we need to just stop stressing over little insignificant things and just slow down and live in the moment. Hold your babies. Rock them to sleep if you must. Play Nintendo with your kids. Put your phone down and be present. Get on the floor with them. These are the times you can’t ever get back.  And I know first hand, how everything can change in an instant. Thankfully with all I’ve been through over the last year, I’m still here to tell my story. But I hate to say it, my family could have been grieving. They could’ve been the ones to understand what these families are going through... maybe not the ways that these 2 things happened, but to know the feelings. Thank G-D my treatments worked and my family won’t have to suffer the way these families are. But no one knows what the future holds for any of us.

So live, love and laugh. As much as you possibly can. And do yourself another favor and lay off of the judgement. Why are you better than anyone else? What makes your way of thinking right? Just live. Live your life. Cherish your moments and your loved ones. Everyone is just doing their best to stay afloat in this world. Judgement brings dislike. Judgement brings hate. Hate is what destroys us. We have to do better.... especially for our kids.

My thoughts and prayers are with the families that are grieving right now. 🙏💗

Wednesday January 8, 2020

I feel like 2020 is the year of new beginnings.  A time of change and transitioning. It’s the turn of a new decade and within this new year and this new decade comes a new start. For me, everything feels new and changed and I’m slowly transitioning myself back into the real world. Little by little I’ve been immersing myself into what everyone else knows as every day life stuff. I’ve taken Ryan out, I’ve taken Matthew out, I’ve taken both boys out at the same time. We’ve gone places as a family, I’ve been places by myself, I’ve gone out with friends, but for all of those times that I’ve began to reacquaint myself with the outside world and learn to work with the body I’m now in, there are still many days where I don’t leave the house. Where my days are consumed by doctors appointments and follow ups.  Nights when I still can’t sleep and mornings when it’s still so hard for me to get out of bed. But I’m trying. I’m trying to learn how to manage. I’m getting better but there’s still more work to be done. I’ll do everything it takes to get myself back there and so with that being said, tomorrow starts a new challenge. A new chapter. Daycare. Ryan is going to daycare.
Part of my getting back into the swing of things means I have to face some challenges head on. Ryan starting daycare is one of them.  

My kids got me through everything. So did my husband and my parents and my sister and every single one of you that supported me and still continues to support me, but my driving force- my motivation every morning, every day, hour by hour, or minute by minute, was how I could be present for my kids. For the most part, Matthew was out of the house because he was in pre-k. But Ryan- Ryan was with me. Ryan was with me all day the day after my treatment. Every other day of the week, I fought within myself to take care of him as much as I possibly could, as often as I could. With the help of others I did. I needed to be able to take care of our little baby. The baby that took three years to get here. The baby that was colic for the first three and a half months. The baby that at only 7 months old, only just about 4 months after I was able to finally spend the time we were supposed to have had together already but couldn’t because of the colic, now had a mother diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. This baby needed his mother. Matthew needed his mommy and his baby brother. Even though Jason and everyone else stepped in, our family wasn’t complete without mommy. My kids needed their mommy. And I needed my kids. Matthew was out of the house most of the day.  So Ryan was with me.

 Now I’m on the other end of this. The recovery end. And in order to stay on this path, of healing and recovery, the time has come for me to have to let go a little.  But even though Ryan doesn’t understand it, and thank goodness he doesn’t, he and I went through a traumatic event together. A life changing event. I know he’s going to be fine. I’m not worried about that one bit. But I know I have separation anxiety from him more than he might have from me. So I’m taking baby steps. And tomorrow another baby step begins.

Ryan has been away from me, with my husband or with his grandparents but this is his first experience away from us, away from me, with other adults and children for a majority of the day, that he doesn’t know. Ryan will only be going two days a week and I know it will take some time to get adjusted, but it’s more of me adjusting to him not being with me. I know putting him in is good for him and like I said before I know he’ll be fine. It’s me. I have to learn how to manage with him not by my side.  Thankfully I scheduled his first day when I have a day full of doctors appointments for myself to keep me busy. And now the two days that he’s not with me, I can start to do things for myself. More doctors, but maybe some more resting. I need more rest.

So here’s to overcoming another new challenge, new chapters and new beginnings. But I can’t wait until Friday afternoon already, for when he won’t have to go back to daycare until next Thursday.  💖