Look beyond the "sad"

This blog has been a blessing and yet it throws me entirely out of my comfort zone. I am a pretty private person these days and I don't share a lot with just anyone. When Shannon read the blog, he was really outside of his comfort zone. He is EXTREMELY private about Kade and not many people have heard him talk about his son. This is the man who built his son's casket without saying a word to anyone-I didn't even know about it until it was almost completed. Not that he minds me blogging this information, he just doesn't understand why I' d want to. The why and why now is pretty easy. The why is because when we got home from the specialist and through the next few months, I felt so alone. The only thing getting me out of bed each morning was the beautiful little girl who needed me. I kept going for her. I took comfort in reading other parent's stories and found others who felt the pain I was feeling. The why now is a little complicated as it has actually been in the works for the last 3 years. About a week after Kade's funeral, I was ready to get a website up and running, etc when I received a great piece of advice from a nurse trained in grief counseling ( the hospital provides this when an infant is born still ). She said "Give it six months, give it a year. You need to feel your grief before you can help others." She was right. I needed to experience the grief...the whole process. I honestly would have had nothing to offer then-I am still n0t 100% confident in sharing our journey with others.



I had a support group parent ask me how these posts were supposed to help-it just made them sad. You have to look past the "sad" of it. Yes, it is sad, and yes it is emotional, but you have to look beyond that. As I post the journal and letters, you'll see that there is so much more to the story. There is hope, love, and strength in it all. Kade's journey changed us all. Changed the way we live, changed the way we love, and it made us stronger individually and as a family. I hope it helps in that you know you are not alone-that someone has felt that pain, has made those difficult decisions, and survived it. In the moment, you have no idea how you'll ever survive it, how you'll go on, and I wish I had all the answers, but all I can say is you just do. You just take it one day at a time and each day leads to the next. I don't agree with "time heals all wounds"...honestly, that is crap. Time won't make the hurt go away-it may make it easier to get up each morning-but from my experience, that hole in your heart will always be there. But I see that as a good thing-each day I have a reminder of what I have and what I've lost; what has made me who I am and there is no doubt Kade made me a better person. I am a better person and a better parent. As much as I hate to quote Garth, I could have missed pain, but I would have had to miss the dance; I wouldn't have missed that dance for anything. I would gladly have given my life for Kade to live, but that wasn't an option. I wouldn't change anything we did in dealing with the hand life dealt us.


I have had people say we were "brave" or "so strong" and while I appreciate the compliment, it would be a lie to say that is true. I was scared every single day and always questioning myself. I was only strong around others...I will fully admit that I cried myself to sleep almost every night for almost a year. The only strength I had came from close friends and family. It wasn't something I woke up with each day. I just kept everything so private that no one on the outside knew how I was completely broken on the inside. However, out of that grief came compassion for others and a relationship with myself that I'd never had before. It is amazing what you learn about yourself in the darkest hours...it isn't always pretty, but I think you make the choice to either let it consume you or to come out fighting. I fought for sanity, I fought for some type of normalcy, I fought to keep life as normal as I possibly could for Kinsley. That was so important to me. Ultimately, we all handle life differently; we all choose a path. I can't say what the correct path is for anyone else. Kade's journey taught me all I can do is wake up each day and hope that the path I choose to take is one I can live with, one my family and children would be proud of, and that leads me home to my Creator at the end of my days.