An Inch of Gray

Keeping it Real

2012-01-27T08:47:00.001-08:00

Lest you mistakenly think our family life is all sweetness and light, I thought I'd share a picture I came across last night.

When Jack imagined taking his kids to Mount Vernon, I really don't think THIS is what he had in mind:

Tales of a 4th Grade Something Else

2012-01-23T16:45:00.000-08:00

The kids enjoyed talking about what it would be like to be grownups. Margaret wanted to be a teacher, but "marry someone rich so we can have a beach house with a pool and a hot tub." As we know, Jack wanted to be a Lego designer, an architect, or a missionary.

The kids also enjoyed picking out names for their future kids. Margaret selected Brook for a boy, and her girl names came and went. Jack picked Melanie or Malina for a girl and Frank for a boy. Of course I informed him that his future wife, who would do the vast majority of the work by carrying the babies and giving birth, would have a much bigger say in the naming than he would.

When I told the kids I thought it would be nice to move to a cute cottage in the country when Tim and I retired, Jack was adamantly opposed. First of all, he did not like the country at all. He also did not like the city. It was suburbs all the way for him, and I guess he thought this should extend to where his elderly parents would be permitted to spend their golden years.

Also, he was concerned that a "cute cottage" would be too small. "You'll need bunk rooms for the grand kids," he said. I loved, loved, loved the idea of his and Margaret's kids spending so much time at our house and wondered how many kids he thought we'd be dealing with to necessitate "bunk rooms."

After the accident, Jack's 4th grade teacher sent us a sweet fill-in-the blank paper the kids had made for her at the end of that school year.

Jack's page read:

"I am always going to remember you for the: GOODNESS that you bring to my class.

The most difficult thing that you have taught me is: HOMEWORK.

You have helped me grow stronger in: FAITH.

My favorite part of your class is: HISTORY.

When I am grown up and finished with my schooling, I will think of you when I: VISIT MOUNT VERNON WITH MY KIDS.

Sincerely,

Jack Donaldson"

Ugh. So many aspects of our loss hit so darn hard-- the idea of Jack never getting to be a dad, and Margaret's kids not having cousins to pal around with in the "bunk rooms" of our fictional cottage.

As a dad Tim has always been so willing to dust off his college backpack, load it up with his velcro "outings" wallet and a couple of juice boxes and take the kids places like parks, sporting events, museums, or the ski slopes. It makes sense that Jack would picture doing those things with his own kids someday.

But now he won't get the chance, and to Margaret's kids he will always be "Uncle Jack," forever 12, just as my kids had "Grandma Margaret"-- remembered through stories, revered, referenced, but not really known.

Do You Know "Whether/Weather" We've Been Watching Too Much TV?

2012-01-20T17:06:00.000-08:00

So the Washington area has reported that we might get a "sleazy" mix of rain, snow, and sleet tomorrow. Huh? I took Margaret and a friend out to dinner tonight and told them of this weird, new terminology. I mean I've heard of a "sleety" mix or a "wintry" mix, but never "sleazy."

Margaret's response without missing a beat:

"Yeah, sleazy mix sounds more like when you combine a Pole Dancer with an Exotic Dancer."

Yikes.

That noise you just heard was our television crashing through the front window.

In our defense, she learned what these things were by watching "Cake Boss" and "America's Got Talent." Of course I already told you about "Toddlers and Tiaras" today, so we may not have any defense at all.

My Theme Song

2012-01-20T06:20:00.000-08:00

A friend gave me this amazing song a few weeks after the accident. It has been my theme song, constantly playing in my car, even though some days I believe what it says and other days I don't. I love how the chorus is Jack's favorite verse:

Healer by Kari Jobe

My thought for today is Mark 9:24 "...I do believe, help my unbelief!"

And in a stellar parenting moment, I kept Margaret home from a field trip to the KENNEDY CENTER this morning and now she's watching "Toddlers and Tiaras." Classy.

Way Too Hard to Leg-o

2012-01-16T08:31:00.000-08:00

Remember how I told you Jack was patient? Well, that's why we had Gamestop giftcards from his birthday last March to spend today.

Every few months he'd have me put the cards in my purse, and we'd go "look." I guess he hoped that someday the perfect game that interested him would intersect with one I'd actually let him buy. Didn't happen. He never whined or badgered, just said, "Not today," and we would leave, puttting the cards away for another time.

Now I question whether I should have just lightened up and rewarded him for being the great kid he was, realizing that stupid video games would not have made my peace-loving son into a violent person. Oh well, there are a lot of things like that to think about, and I have a long, long time to do it. But today we took Jack's gift cards to Game Stop to buy "Just Dance 3" for Margaret. Tim and Margaret are dancing in the basement to a song called, "Let's Go to the Mall!" Oh my. Thanks Jack, I think.

I also don't know what to do with his Crunch bars in the kitchen cabinet. The week before school started a mom called and hush-hush asked what Jack's favorite candy was. I didn't know, but Margaret said definitively: "Nestle Crunch" On the first day of school, Jack found 4 full-sized Crunch Bars waiting in his locker as a back-to-school treat. Did I tell you our whole family had a feeling Jack would love his middle school experience? Oh my yes.

We drove home that day in the rain, and during homework time, Jack opened the first Crunch bar. He seemed so happy, and his movements struck me as somewhat ceremonious, kind of how I imagined Charlie slowly opening the winning candy bar in Charlie and the Chocolate factory. Jack divided the bar into 3 sections: one for Margaret, one for himself, and one for me. I got the "CH."

It's not unusual that his candy would still be in the cupboard, even month later. After all, I recently threw out Jack's Halloween candy from two years ago, but having a kid who saves his candy is vastly different than having a kid who is no longer here to eat it.

I don't know whether I want to eat the Crunch bars, throw them away, or run over them with my car. It all just hurts so much. The gift cards and candy are emblematic of so many things I wonder about right now. Like the jigsaw puzzles and games in our game closet. We used to leave a jigsaw puzzle out on the dining room table for Jack and Tim to work on when they had a chance. 3000 pieces was their biggest one. But Margaret and I don't like jigsaw puzzles, and most of our games are too hard or too sad to play with 3 players.

We tried to play a game with 3 people last night and the episode ended in anger and tears. What a far cry from that Wednesday night in September, the first day of school, when we all played Clue together. You may recall Clue had been touch and go in our family over the years, but that night it was perfect. Jack won. Margaret accepted the win graciously. Life was good.

But now we are left with the Clue board, Jack's room, his toys, his clothes. There is certainly no rush to get rid of anything because that part of the house sits empty now, and we don't need the space. I am just so angry that the things that meant so much to our little boy are just that...things. Things to be dealt with at some point. Things that mean nothing without our boy here to enjoy them.

The same boy who saved his Halloween candy also saved the box from every Lego set he bought. I remember asking his pediatrician about this during a checkup, hoping the doctor would back me up. "Doctor, is Jack a hoarder, or at least a very neat one? Shouldn't we throw away those boxes?" The doctor asked him about his interests and concluded "Jack is not a hoarder; he is a collector. To a Lego collector, those boxes have value. The boxes can stay."

And now, with hundreds of Lego sets, their boxes, and neat piles of instructions in pristine condition, I wonder if that will be yet another way Jack will be helping me as we decide, someday in the future, how to deal with his treasures. I don't think my heart could withstand throwing all of his collections willy-nilly in a donation heap. But perhaps with boxes, instructions, and all the pieces intact, I could fathom getting them to new homes someday.

I don't know where I'm going with this post except to say I miss him. I miss all aspects of his personality that made him so special. That made him a patient person. A saver. A creative spirit. A collector, who took good care of his things. I miss liking what he liked. Doing what he liked to do. Looking forward to this next phase of his life with him. Talking to him. Holding him. Ruffling his hair with my hands. Kissing the world's softest cheek. Walking around the block after dinner.

Wondering whether he would ever choose to eat his Crunch Bars.

Every Last Thing.

Margaret Non-Update and What Happened to "Anna See?"

2012-01-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

For almost 4 years, this blog was semi-anonymous. I lived with "Jake," "Molly" and "Tom" in an undisclosed town in an undisclosed state. From photos one could see that we lived in an area with deciduous trees, but that's about it.

The kids knew when I took pictures for the blog to step away from car license plates and cover up the name of their school on their uniform shirts because I was too lazy to learn how to Photoshop that stuff out. I tried to balance the desire to protect the kids' privacy while also telling funny stories about them that begged to be shared. I never mentioned my job and, thank the Lord, tried not to write about individual people who drove me to distraction and madness, unless you count "Tom," but he didn't seem to mind being fair game. I didn't put my blog on Facebook or actively seek readers among friends and family.

On September 8, 2011, as prayers, tweets, frantic phone messages and news reports flew around locally and across the country when Jack was missing in the water, "Anna See" and "Anna Donaldson" became one in the same.

People have asked me if I mind that the blog is no longer anonymous. Not really. I would not trade the loving support my family has received from so many people just to have stayed private. And for some reason, I think the blog will be able to reach and help more people if it is not anonymous. Real people. Real names. Real miracles. Real crap.

I also realize, after having the unthinkable happen to my son, that my desire to control and protect "No M-rated games! No personal info on the net! No sleepovers at x, y, and z's!" while prudent and well-intentioned, didn't protect our little family from tragedy in the end.

As a blogger whose kids were getting older, I was having to change my writing a bit anyway. You see, when I started, Jack was 8 and Margaret 6. In recent years you may have noticed that Margaret featured more prominently on the blog. Well, first of all, it's because that girl is MIGHTY entertaining. But also, as Jack got older and we shared experiences either poignant, tender, or difficult, he would say to me, "You're not going to blog about this, are you?" and I would have to say no.

I think a lot of "Mommy Bloggers" find it difficult to figure out what to write as their kids get older because while diapers, bodily functions and mom wanting to lock herself in the bathroom with a Diet Coke are pretty universal (at least I hope so!), as kids age, they are less likely to want their "big kid" selves shared in the blogosphere. A blogging mom also has to balance the fact that while she wouldn't want her kids to put anything about themselves online, she herself does so regularly.

Margaret was not there yet, seeking privacy over blogworthiness, but I believe she is now. I don't want to make her feel more vulnerable and exposed than she already does as the "girl whose brother died." Margaret just wanted a normal family life, and as normalcy eludes us right now, I don't want her to feel like I am sharing her bid'ness for everyone to see. I want to tread lightly as my spunky child does not like having attention drawn to herself right now. Go figure. I did say EVERYTHING has changed, didn't I?

I'm writing this today because I have not mentioned Margaret prominently in recent posts, and I know she is on your mind and in your hearts. Instead it's: "Jack, Jack, Jack." I write about him now because, well I must. I want you to know what he was like, and what his spirit IS like.

But I want to assure you that Tim and I are here for Margaret. We are parenting, we are reading the books, we are seeing a social worker to talk about how to parent at a time such as this, we are watching cooking shows and "Cupcake Wars," and yes, we are going to the mall. Margaret is smiling, laughing, and being Margaret. Please keep praying for all three of us, even when my posts mainly center around how I am feeling and my experience with grief.

The good news is that both of my kids loved to write, so perhaps there will be a "Molly/Margaret" blog in our future where she can share her experience with us. Of course I'm afraid I'll probably be the "fair game" in that one.

What's the Plan, Stan?

2012-01-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

I've heard from others, and maybe even said to people before: "God knows just how you feel because he had to experience the death of his own beloved son."

Here's the thing: I do believe God knows exactly how I feel because, well, he's God. He knows everything and He cares deeply. But acknowledging that He suffered when Jesus died just doesn't do it for me. I mean, God is GOD. I am a 42 year old mortal woman. He breathed life into the Universe. I just breathe.

God willingly sacrificed His son to save us from our sins. I just let my 12 year old go outside and play under very questionable circumstances. God had a plan with the death of Jesus. God knew the plan, and Jesus did too.

I am not privy to what the plan is here. It certainly doesn't mesh with my simple, possibly mundane life goals of raising 2 kids to love God, love others, have decent taste, and hopefully not turn out to be big jerks. As a family-- to know each other and be known. Oh, and to eventually get at least a few grand kids out of the deal.

In the loss of His son, God had the big picture in mind. I have a limited, dim picture, and what I can see is too hard and unsatisfying.

Just as we have more than amply ascertained that I am NOT God, Jack is NOT Jesus. He is just a kid. A special, soulful kid who got caught up in a bad situation. And besides, Jesus got to come back after 3 days and hang out with his friends and family.

I don't think that's asking too much.

Jack's Life Verse

2012-01-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

We've known for a long time that Jack's Life Verse was "For nothing is impossible with God." I don't how or when he chose it. Perhaps he picked it because it was short. I mean, when I was a kid I used to keep "Jesus Wept" at the ready in case I ever needed to recite a Bible verse. Oh so clever, I know.

Maybe he chose it because although reading and math and logic and grammar and art and so many things came incredibly easy for Jack, others took extra effort. He truly relied on God, and one of our greatest pleasures in recent years was seeing how far Jack had come. He had so much going for him.

Jack's fourth grade teacher gave us the image below, so now we can all have Jack's life verse in his own handwriting-- misspelling and all:

I've been thinking about what Jack's verse means to me today. I mean, when Jack was alive, it had a "You can do anything! Lean on God! Never give up!" vibe about it. And that's how he lived.

But now? Hmmm. If nothing is impossible with God, why didn't God save Jack? I mean I was only a few seconds too late. Surely he could have been found and revived! Surely he could have lived.

My friend told me how she is going to look at this verse, and it makes sense to me. Surviving without Jack is impossible. Truly. But we will survive, perhaps kicking and screaming on my part, but survive nonetheless. We must. In fact, in time we may even thrive. And we absolutely can't do it on our own. We need God for that. I'm not sure what that's going to look like, but I know it is true.

I hope you will enjoy having Jack's verse. Perhaps you can print it out for yourself when you need a little encouragement. That's what I plan to do.

Don't Throw Your Trash in My Backyard

2012-01-06T07:08:00.000-08:00

I was out in my yard today when a wayward piece of wrapping paper blew by. It was not a pattern I recognized. Annoyance flared up at having to pick up someone else's trash. A little thing, I know, but this is one day after mysterious tire tracks appeared going straight down the length of our front yard. In the middle. Between the trees. Not anywhere near the driveway. Weird and annoying.

I started thinking about having to clean up other people's crap, and why it annoys me so much. I mean, as mothers, isn't that pretty much what we do-- move piles of stuff from one place to another, day after day, year after year? I guess it doesn't bother me as much if it's my own family's crap, you know?

For there have been many times in this journey of parenting that I've felt the residue of other people's crap linger on my family. You know-- the tough issues, the drama, the complications that we would not have to face if we just chose to live an insular life. And as I look over the strange direction our lives have taken, with Jack's death, it is easy for me to say, "If only..." If only we had kept more to ourselves-- circled the wagons so to speak-- perhaps we could have kept the awkward, the uncomfortable, and finally the tragic from entering our lives. If we hadn't opened ourselves up to others, if we hadn't given our kids a growing sense of freedom, if only, if only...

This is the point in the post where we all say, "But of course we can't raise kids in a bubble!" It's one thing to try to be the family who bucks the tide against violent video games; it's another to isolate children and keep them from interacting with others and experiencing life." You know-- We are the world, Kum ba yah, carpe diem, hakuna matata and all that stuff.

But truly, it's hard to think in those terms when I yearn for a fantasy in which the 4 of us, the dog, and maybe even the hamster run away to some ice floe in Antarctica-- completely alone, yet together, and blissfully free from the tinge of other people's crap. Of course I would be cold, and extreme changes in body temperature do not a happy Anna make. And the kids would hate us, and there would be no internet or friends and we would be ruining their lives. And Tim would want to get frisky but can he not see that I have the damn igloo to keep clean and that 24 hours straight of light or darkness or whatever messes with my libido?

The more I think about it, however, the more I realize that, in reality, our crap is all over your backyard now. You never asked to be part of this tragedy. To have to explain to your kids that, yes, children do die. Maybe your child is one of Jack's classmates, a tender 12 year old who is trying to figure out how the clever boy who entertained the classs for more than 6 years could be sitting there one day, yet gone next. That cannot be easy.

Maybe you are trying to figure out how to regain a feeling of security and safety after yours has been rocked. "If something like this happened to them, what could happen to us?" Maybe your husband, after weeks of sympathizing is saying, "It's okay to feel bad for someone, but you are taking this grief thing too far. You have your own family to worry about." Maybe we have been friends for years and you want the old Anna back, or you feel helpless in the face of such a huge loss. Maybe you found Jack annoying and don't know what to do with those feelings, or you found him delightful and don't know why your own boy keeps screwing around when at least he gets to live, damn it!

Maybe you are trying to figure out why the life and death of a child you never met, perhaps on the other side of the world, wakes you up at night, or drives you to your knees in prayer. Is this normal? How long will this last? Maybe you are having sympathy fatigue and wishing you could read something here about spray paint or dumpster diving or the annoying way Tim chews. Maybe you are feeling closer to God than ever as you see how He is comforting us through this, or perhaps you are feeling farther from Him than ever before... before our crap landed in your yard.

I may not know your individual situation, but I know that when you come here, our crap lands on you. It must. If my family had and did lead a insular, bubble-bound, existence we would not be sharing in this way, either because the accident never took place, or because our suffering would be private and polite and reach only a small circle of people.

And my wish would be to never make my friends, those I have met and have yet to meet, suffer needlessly. Yet in the suffering, the suffering together, you help carry us. You bear our burdens, you pray, you care, just as we are all asked to do. And that can be messy, and confusing, and crappy, but somehow Holy, too.

A Different Kind of Bridge

2012-01-04T14:15:00.000-08:00

A blog reader living in Mozambique sent a photo she took while driving in South Africa with her husband.

She felt compelled to capture this Bible verse , which Jack considered his "life verse," on the back of the truck in front of them, as she had just been thinking of Jack and our family.

It took her a while to get a non-blurry shot, and when she did, she was surprised and amazed to see what was visible in the frame of the photo.

As am I. Wow.

Thank you, friends, for loving us. For lifting us up all around the world. For not forgetting. For sharing these amazing experiences with us, so we can learn from them and share them with others. Thank you.

Some Christmas Thoughts, With Gobs of Photos from Last Christmas

2011-12-31T21:12:00.000-08:00

I’m guessing you may be worried. It has been more than a week and you haven’t really heard from me. I know I’d be worried about you if the tables were turned. The truth is, I just don’t know where to start in describing Christmas. And now it’s New Year’s, and the symbolism of leaving Jack in one year, yet moving on to the next weighs heavy on us, even as we stayed up to watch the ball drop and hang out with friends. While I’m just not sure what to write, there is a great deal to share, of that I am certain.

First and foremost, I want you to know we made it through Christmas! I hope you are proud of us; I know I sure am. There was a lot of laughter in our home. Rituals and traditions including “It’s a Wonderful Life” and Christmas Eve church. We made it fun for Margaret. Our niece flew in to keep her company, and the house sounded like it used to, with running up and down the stairs, the Wii turned on for the first time since August, and rooms being used again.

In the days leading up to Christmas we felt surrounded by love: through this blog, Facebook, and throughout our town. People stopped by in person and checked in virtually to let us know we were not alone. People sent letters and packages. I must say I am learning so much from you about how to reach out to others in difficult times and how to acknowledge pain.

In trying to train Jack and Margaret, but especially Tim, I have always said, “People just need to be acknowledged.” Never in a cheap, “I’m sorry you feel that way” kind of way, but in an “I’m sorry. This sucks. What you are dealing with is very hard” kind of way. I’ve been working on this with Tim for almost 20 years. He comes from the “If I mention a problem it will draw attention to it, but if I ignore it, perhaps it will go away” school of wishful thinking. Over the years he has learned that a little acknowledgment goes a long way.

With our current situation, we have been blessed to be able to experience your acknowledgment of our loss, and even the world’s loss, in relationship to Jack’s death. This does not take away the sting, the anger, or the disappointment we feel at our son being gone, but it helps. It makes us feel connected to others rather than separated from them. Even as I feel like a broken, alien species, out of sync with the person I was a few short months ago, I have never felt more connected to the world’s suffering and to the world than I do today.

A Christmas tree lovingly placed by unseen hands beside the bridge/drainage ditch where they found my little boy says, “Something happened here. Something changed for a family, and for a town.” That is an acknowledgement, a connection from person to person, family to family. As lights, ornaments and even presents appeared at that tree, day after day, the message we got was, “Jack is not forgotten. Jack counts.”

Seeing blue ribbons pop up around town and in the blogworld says, “This Christmas is different from last year.”

An evening drinking wine, way too much wine, with neighborhood friends and sharing stories of that horrible day, trying to make sense of what happened and talking about how God has been at work through this situation says, “This is not small. We need to talk. Jack’s life and death are not small matters.”

Spending time with my sister, someone who knew Jack better than almost anyone else, and who was able to sum up so much about his character, even in the brutal, crazed days immediately following the accident, was a needed time of acknowledgment for both of us.

Time with Auntie was well spent—ranging from being upbeat when the kids were around, to finding quiet moments together when we could just look at each other and say, “What the hell is going on here?” except we said a word other than hell. We were able to acknowledge that if there could ever be a poster child for “Kid least likely to get swept away by a frickin’ neighborhood creek” that boy would be Jack. Acknowledgment of the sheer lunacy of this situation.

We veered from pigging out on chocolate and discussing the year-end double issue of People Magazine to weeping for what her son lost, in losing his best friend Jack. We shared that while Jack will never be faced with heartbreak or drugs or depression, and how we can see God drawing people closer as a result of Jack’s death, we would trade it all in a second if we could.

We were able to acknowledge our regret of not spending enough time together in the past while also acknowledging that spending time together now is ridiculously hard for all of us.

In all, Christmas was okay. It was survivable. We made it. We felt your love and fervent prayers the entire time. Thank you for walking beside us.

Some things, however, remained unspoken, unacknowledged. Like the way my sister was able to loan me her son for a few minutes, his head in my lap as we snuggled on the couch. These moments meant I could pray for him as he tries to figure out how to go on without his cousin. But I could also close my eyes and pretend, just for a few seconds, that the boy I held, and probably squeezed a little too tightly, was my boy, not hers.

At Which Point We Call Our Son a "Trunk Tool"

2011-12-30T17:41:00.000-08:00

The night of December 23rd, Tim was in despair.

He prayed that he, too, would see a sign letting him know Jack was okay.

The morning of the 24th, while Margaret and I slept, Tim decided to do a
crossword puzzle. He pulled out one of the spare Washington Post puzzles he
keeps in his bag. Geek-ish, I know. The puzzle was from Valentine’s Day 2011. Yeah, a 10 month old puzzle.

And the answer to 1 Across?

JACK

Do I understand this? No, but I sure do love my puzzle boy.

Christmas Card Outtakes

2011-12-23T11:32:00.000-08:00

Today we venture to the dark underbelly of those perfect family Christmas card photos. I give to you the Donaldson family, circa 2005:

Come on people, the clock is ticking!

Uh-oh, Mom put on her crazy eyes!
Focus, people, focus!

Maybe, maybe... Oh crap, Jack, what are you looking at?

Trying to keep my eyes open enough for ALL of us. Is Hillary Clinton in this family?

We're losing the women-folk!

Maybe? Not terrible?

Really? How hard is this supposed to be?

Hmmm...

Are those smiles or tears? Not sure. I can't see past Mom's pointy nose.

Could we just photoshop Margaret's face on?

I'm thinking there's no turning back at this point.

A winner??? Nope. Unless boogies, tears, and Mom's double chin=Christmas cheer.

Forget those little people. How 'bout just Mom and Dad?

Better yet? Or is that a wee bit self-centered?

We ended up giving up that day, and going with just the cute kids:

Merry Christmas! Much love to you. Please keep praying for us.

Almost Wordless Post: One Year Ago Today...

2011-12-20T15:13:00.001-08:00

...we took the kids to Winston-Salem for the first time to show them where Tim and I met. We stayed with dear friends in Greensboro, saw a Wake Forest basketball game, and went geocaching. We showed the kids the exact spot where we met and 5 years later got engaged. Then we went to our favorite Mexican restaurant.

I realized today that I never put the pics in our 2010 album because it had already been sent to myPublisher, yet I forgot to put them in this year's album too. It was such a great trip for the four of us. So hard to believe how much things have changed. I guess I'll make prints of some of these pictures eventually, but for now I wanted to share them with you.

The Spirit of Christmas Past and Present

2011-12-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

When Tim and I met with our counselor today, we talked about which Christmas traditions we wanted to keep this year, and which ones we would alter. Of course "want" is not the right word, because we really just want our old lives back, but you know what I mean.

We've been following Margaret's lead on Christmas, and she wants it to be as much like "before" as possible. Thus, our trees are up, the house is decorated, I've completed our 2011 photo album, and we'll be going to Chevy's for Christmas Eve lunch, which could or could not be a hellish experience.

Since the accident, I have discovered I prefer to lean into my grief, rather than try to avoid it. For me this means spending time with people who are willing and able to talk about Jack. I figure I probably have about 40 (!) or so years left on this earth to talk about other things, but for now, if someone isn't willing to talk about what happened, or to process with me, or to at least acknowledge our loss, I really don't have the time or inclination.

I don't mean that every waking moment has to be about Jack's death, for we still have school and jobs and housekeeping and small talk, but I consider grieving Jack to be significant, important work and I want to face it instead of avoiding it.

Christmas has been like this, too. Going through the homemade ornaments and remembering the story surrounding each one is a way of leaning into grief and experiencing it, rather than trying to pretend that by leaving them boxed up, we didn't lose our sweet son. Yes, it is hard to see them, to touch them, but the ornaments provide a natural springboard to be able to talk about Jack.

When we hold up his preschool "Peanut Jesus" (a peanut in its shell, swaddled with toilet paper and nestled in a mini raisin box) or his pathetic reindeer ornament which is really just a bare clothespin with a googly eye stuck on it-- Rudolph the One-eyed Cyclops-- we are acknowledging and feeling our huge loss while celebrating great memories.

One tradition that is definitely a keeper is the Christmas morning scavenger hunt, passed down from Tim's family. Tim writes a poem that goes from one clue to the next and eventually leads the kids to a final, "big" present. One year found us all down at the mailbox in our pj's, having been led there by poetic clues which had the kids plug certain coordinates into a handheld GPS. Another time the kids had to open a certain computer file to find their next clue. And so on and so on...

Big presents ranged from an electronic keyboard to the air hockey table that Tim and I spent most of Christmas Eve assembling. I went through a dozen sugar cookies during the frustrating process before giving up around 2 a.m. Tim stuck with it, aided by about 4 rum and cokes. Christmas morning our neighbor had to sneak into the basement under the pretense of borrowing a tool to help us turn the table, now fully assembled but upside down, onto its feet.

We have a lot of sweet videos of the kids, always together, traipsing upstairs and down, inside and out of the house, Jack reading clues at lightning speed. Tim usually stays up pretty late working on the poems and I vacillate from being a bit annoyed that this is his contribution to Christmas, as I plan and shop and wrap and hide, to being grateful that this is his contribution to Christmas because it is so meaningful for our family. I predict there will be some tender late-night tears this year as Tim writes his clues for a sister instead of a sister/brother duo.

A month or so ago I found a little stack of paper scraps in the guest room with rhyming clues written on them. I asked Margaret what they were and she said they were from a scavenger hunt her brother had made for her just for the heck of it one random day. Here are the clues, in or out of order:

To find your clue step inside,
Go upstairs I have not lied.

Your next clue is out back,
Look under a pot and that's the fact.

Go back inside and take a peek
Under the bed where the dog sleeps.

Now that you have found this clue,
I think Margaret's bedroom will do.

For your next find go back downstairs,
Look near shells your clue is there.

Almost here you're getting hot,
Go to the kitchen and look in a pot.

To find your last one,
Go to the basement for some GAME FUN.

This is your last clue,
In the guest room there's something for you.

I asked Margaret what her prize was at the end of Jack's little game. She has absolutely no idea.

I guess just like with the now-dusty air hockey table, keyboard, and whatever else we gave the kids over the years, the thrill of the hunt, or the process, meant even more than the prize itself.

Why B Normal?

2011-12-14T14:54:00.000-08:00

In elementary school, I liked being a little bit different. For instance, I lived in a cool house. Not a fancy house, but a great big, drafty 100-year-old farmhouse surrounded by 60’s colonials and ranches and split-levels. I loved how I would hear people say at school, “The Underground Railroad runs right through that old house’s basement!” or, “That house was a hospital in the Civil War!” and I’d think, "Well, not exactly," but I loved how it made me feel a little bit different, or special. I found that being a bookworm and playing by myself most of the time set me apart, too, but I didn’t mind. Why put down “Gone with the Wind” just to fit in?

When junior high arrived, I didn’t want to be different in ANY way. I longed to be invited to boy-girl parties, and have feathered hair and Jordache jeans just like everyone else. Problem is, due to body type, and braces, and general “Anna-ness,” I couldn’t pull that off. Ever. I later came to see that being different in junior high probably protected me from a lot of dicey situations, but I certainly saw no value in that at the time.

As I got older, I managed to both fit in and be a little bit different at the same time. During high school and college, I had friends from a lot of different groups, and that worked for me. As a result of straddling different groups, I never felt completely enmeshed in any one, but that's how I liked it. In college, for instance, I’d go to frat parties with my sorority sisters and have a blast, but I wouldn’t necessarily join them in doing beer slides or drinking grain alcohol out of trashcans. I liked being a little bit different, and besides, some people are born to be designated drivers.

As a young mom, I wanted to be different enough as in, “Wow, her kids are GENIUSES, and so stinkin’ CUTE!” while also hoping certain issues I was going through were the exact same for other moms, such as, “My daughter won’t put socks on if she’s already brushed her teeth” or, “My son picks his boogies and eats them during every preschool concert!” Often, I didn't accept my kids' differences, or quirks, and tried to make them conform to what I thought was normal. But always, I tried to be real, encouraging other moms that we were all in this together and could do this hard, wonderful thing called mothering.

After I put my kids in private school, I sometimes felt too different, because I wanted to be part of two communities at once. I didn’t want to miss out on neighborhood/town connections, and I didn’t want people to think I was Judgy McJudge Pants for having my kids in a different school. I just wanted to fit in and have people like me. Sound a little like junior high, just without the mullet? Perhaps.

Faith-wise, I’ve always been comfortable being the woman who goes to church a lot and loves God, but not necessarily comfortable enough to talk about it or stand out as different.

So sometimes I’ve wanted to be a little different, sometimes not. But now? As the parent of a dead child? I don’t just feel different, I feel like an alien. This life, this world, doesn’t seem to fit me anymore. I can’t believe I look remotely normal when I walk down the street or drive in my car, because I feel so “off”-- so stricken-- with a new reality that I consider completely, utterly, unacceptable.
This is NOT the way things are supposed to be. Those previous "differences" in my life? Were infinitesimal in scope and fell neatly within the parameters of “normal.” This is not normal.

I don’t want to be the mom of a dead son. Not my Jack. Margaret does not want to be that sister, and I hate that this sad distinction will follow my zany, sparkling girl. And Tim? Quiet, affable Tim, whose most traumatic life event to date had been finding out, at an embarrassingly late age, that Santa wasn’t real? This kind of pain, this heartache, sets him apart in a way that he never could have imagined, not in his worst nightmares.

Because it is just not right.

We’re supposed to be talking about Jack going to HIS first boy-girl party and, unlike me, he was cute enough to actually score an invite. We’re supposed to talk about the school play or video game ratings, or S.E.X. We are not supposed to talk about whether we are getting grief counseling, when we’ll pick out a headstone, or how we’re going to change our Christmas traditions this year.

No. No. No!

This all too different, too brutal, too strange.

I must admit, that underneath this formerly stable, predictable life ran a current, planted in early childhood in the mind of a reader of books, that her life would somehow be different from those around her. But what did that look like to a young dreamer's mind? Perhaps becoming an actress, winning the lottery, or cracking a case a la Nancy Drew. Doing something unusual. I can't pin it down, but there certainly was a niggling desire to be different in some more significant way.

But THIS? This is NOT what I imagined.

Jack's Lanterns

2011-12-12T11:12:00.000-08:00

My sister, Jack's Auntie, has started a group called Jack's Lanterns as way for runners/walkers/riders of any level to join together and dedicate some of their races to Jack's memory. Money raised goes to Jack's favorite charity, Samaritan's Purse. I love how friends and strangers, scattered around the globe, can join this team together to help spread some of the light that Jack brought into this world. Non-athletes (like, uh, me) can contribute in his name on the secure website. Consider adding yourself to the team!

Here's what Auntie had to say:

We are a group of runners, riders and walkers who want to give meaning to our efforts.

We are inspired by Jack Donaldson, our beloved son, nephew, and friend. We will never forget him. His patience and good humor inspire us to keep moving when the going gets tough. His intelligence and attention to detail inspire us to do our best and to notice the needs in the world around us. His kindness and love for others inspire us to support a ministry he loved: Samaritan's Purse.

The name "Jack's Lanterns" is borrowed from the back of a relay team shirt at a recent race. It reminds us that Jack's light is still with us. Through Samaritan's Purse, we share Jack's light and help others in the name of the Light of the World.

A few of us are running our first full marathon in March. Others are running for the first time in a long time, or choosing new distances and events in honor of Jack. Please lace up your shoes and join us! If you would like to join our team, just let us know. We would love to have a virtual team in a variety of events throughout the year.

Donating through this website is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to support our fundraising efforts.

Many thanks for your support.

Luke 1:37 "Nothing is impossible with God."

Check out Jack's Lanterns Page!

Dream Weaver

2011-12-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

A while ago Margaret and I were looking through one of the "junk drawers" in the kitchen. We found a yellow folder with page after page of Jack's handwriting from when he was 9 or 10 years old. The pages were a Dream Chart he kept for 70 days. The first page had a rating key with two components -- a color and a number-- with which he rated his dreams each morning.

Green=Funny
Blue= Happy
Red=Scary
Purple=Weird or Other

After the color, came an overall score:

1=Terrible
2=Bad
3=OK (not bad, medium)
4=Good
5=Great :)

The next 7 Pages, labeled "Jack 1" through "Jack 7" each listed 10 dreams and their ratings.

Examples include:

Scaffolding: "Red, 1" or Scary, Terrible

Mysterious Forest: "Blue, 4" or Happy, Good

Christmas: "Blue, 4" or Happy, Good

Reality: "Purple, 3" or Weird or Other, OK

Sponge Bob #1: "Green, 2" or Funny, Bad

Exhibit of Fun: "Blue, 5" or Happy, Great

Public School: "Red, 4" or Scary, Good

Kidnapped by Playdoh: "Purple, 5" or Weird or Other, Great

Some of his worst dreams centered around the demise of Margaret's (now departed) hermit crab, Smiley, which doesn't surprise me, given how worried Jack was about that crab back in the day.

For five nights his dreams were titled...
"Smiley's Destruction" and were rated: "Red, 1" or Scary, Terrible.

Tim has taken comfort in seeing these dreams listed:
Down the River: "Blue, 3" or Happy, OK
Bounding, Swirling and Slipping: "Green, 5" or Funny, Great
and
Water and Things: "Green, 4" or Funny, Good

I have laughed about the ones I was included in:

Mom Goes Mad: "Red, 3" or Scary, OK
and
Bee Mom: "Red, 1" or Scary, Terrible

Most leave me intrigued and wanting more details:
Freedom: "Purple, 1" or Weird or Other, Terrible
and
Cathead: "Red, 1" or Scary, Terrible

I like Jack's Dream Chart for so many reasons, mainly because it represents what I love about Jack.

First, it shows perseverance, as I can't think of very many things I've kept up with for 70 straight days (diets? journaling? exercise routines?). I don't have that kind of stick-to-it-ive-ness at age 42, let alone at age 10. Jack could focus on something for a long, long time. As I've written before, he had patience with people and with tasks.

The chart is also so darn quirky and creative, traits I will always admire about Jack. It didn't serve to accomplish anything by the world's standards, but I guess it fulfilled a desire of Jack's to track something fascinating and try to understand or make sense of it.

The quiet way Jack maintained this list each day while his dreams were still fresh, reminds me of the way he operated at home: quietly, methodically, always thinking. Whether he was building, doodling, or working his way through a logic puzzle book, Jack was quietly doing SOMETHING.

His humor and creativity, which we're learning was quite evident in school (although not always in the most appropriate manner!) shine through in the names Jack gave his dreams, just as they did in the many elaborate games he made up to play with Margaret and his friends.

I can't really sum up why I love this chart so much, but I do.

I'll just ask, what's not to love about someone who takes the time to record and remember a dream like this:

"Desert Neighborhood Parking Lot Mansion On Our Hill Theme Park Foreign Food Wars" ???

By the way, that one got a Green, 4 (Funny, Good)

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Card Roundup

2011-12-07T07:03:00.001-08:00

1999 2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Thank You, Tim (the husband formerly known as "Tom")

2011-12-05T15:29:00.000-08:00

Many of you have been praying specifically for my marriage.

When you’ve been with someone for 20 years, as Tim and I have, there’s definitely more focus on carpools and sports schedules than on swinging from the chandeliers or eating chocolate covered strawberries. Kids and careers can make couples feel far removed from the giddy love felt when the biggest concern on their minds was how to coordinate costumes for the keg party on Saturday night or whether to choose fondant for a wedding cake. Factor in the trauma of losing your beloved child in a violent, senseless accident, and the damage to a marriage can be irreparable. Tim and I truly appreciate and desire your continued prayers for our marriage.

When I think of the two of us, I realize that except for God, there is no one who loves our two children as much as we do. No one. There is no one else who quite understands just what a loss Jack’s death is to our family, and to the world. This realization, this love, will always be glue to bind us together.

The single most hopeful factor in our marriage right now is that my dear husband does not blame me for the accident. At all. As a blamer myself, I find this astounding. As much as I love Tim, I am afraid that if he had been the one to let the kids go outside in the storm that day, I would have pulled up the car, waved Margaret into the backseat, and said sayonara to him and the dog. I don’t mean to sound flippant, but in a horrific situation like this it is so easy to want to pin blame, as if having someone to blame can help make sense of something so freakin’ senseless.

I know part of the terror so many people feel about Jack’s accident is that it could have happened to anyone. My kids. Your kids. Your grandkids. Kids go out in the rain. Kids are fascinated by creeks...even kids who aren’t big risk-takers and don’t leave their cul de sacs unattended.

But here’s the thing: I know with CERTAINTY that the accident would not have happened on Tim’s watch. I know Tim so well, and there is simply no way he would have let Jack go out that day given the particular circumstances. And Tim would normally have been home to make that call, but because the kids had no activities that night, he was a little later than usual. When the neigbhorhood kids knocked on the door, I made the call.

But Tim doesn't blame me. Not a smidge. Nothing.

I wonder how I could ever look my husband in the eyes knowing he blamed me for what could have been and should have been but is no longer? No more catch in the yard, no more pro baseball games, no more guys' movie nights, no more complicated math or logic puzzles that left Margaret and me saying, “Huh?”

I simply couldn’t. I could not live with the blame, and my subsequent shame. But from Tim, there is no blame. And that makes me love him more today than I ever have before.

As much as I want to blame someone, even if I am that person, I need to accept what I view as the grace Tim is giving me, in the same way I have accepted God’s grace in my life, again and again. And I will accept it. Because in order to be in a relationship, that’s what we both need.

I am absolutely certain Jack would not want our family to implode because of his death. He would not want us to try to prove how much we love and miss him by clinging to self-blame, recrimination, or even rumination over the maddening timeline of the accident.

So Tim is following nature, his instincts, by not blaming me at all. And I am going against my nature, my instincts, by not blaming myself. I hope this will honor Jack's memory and bolster our marriage in the process, because Jack loved us, and he loved this family.

A Wee Problem

2011-12-05T12:51:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking that if a woman of a certain age wets her pants just a teensy bit, timely damage control might be severely hampered if the woman happens to be wearing skinny jeans and tall boots. This, of course, is pure conjecture.

Twelve Weeks

2011-12-04T16:34:00.000-08:00

Twelve weeks. In pregnancy, 12 weeks signals the ability to breathe easier. You can start to tell your friends and family the good news. If you have miscarried in the past, or had trouble getting pregnant, 12 weeks is a reason for hope in what has been a scary, don’t-dare-to-hope time. Although a full-term baby is never, ever a certainty, 12 weeks is significant. It means something.

What does 12 weeks mean in grieving the loss of a child? 12 horrible weeks—one for each of 12 wonderful years with our son here on earth? There is a certain symmetry about it, but where does that leave us in a few days when we reach 13 weeks, yet our son will never be thirteen?

Margaret's Excellent Adventure-- LA Style, Part 2

2011-11-30T10:22:00.000-08:00

Thanks to YOU, and these very sweet people-- Coke and Dick Clark Productions execs-- We were able to go from this:

To THIS!

And my personal fave: But we still had ANOTHER night of adventure ahead of us-- The AMA's themselves!

The afternoon of the show was pouring rain, with flood warnings even, because apparently we like to bring the gray cloud of doom with us wherever we go. The pictures you are about to see were taken in our hotel hallway, before we got soaked to the undies walking to the Nokia Theater sans umbrellas.

Margaret had an adorable navy dress bought for her by her friend K's mom. I wore the black dress I wore to my friend Cynthia's wedding 5 years ago, and Tim wore a snazzy borrowed suit with a new tie.

Despite the rain and cold, we rallied for our stint of celebrity-watching on the red carpet (Joe Jonas! Other people! Those little girls from Ellen who like to rap Nicki Minaj tunes! Lots of skintight, butt-skimming dresses!) and we had a fabulous time.

We had great seats at the concert, even though you couldn't see us on tv. Margaret and I waved pink glowsticks, singing along to the songs we knew. We watched with amusement and alarm as Jennifer Lopez shed more and more clothing. "Naked except for strategically placed bedazzles" is how Margaret and I described it later. Tim and I subtly wept during "Good Life." By the time the Hoff started shaking it in smiley face boxers, we were truly having a blast and were sorry to see it end.

The entire trip was a wonderful respite during a time of intense sadness. We laughed, told stories, and ordered room service sandwiches. We snuggled in beds made by someone else, watching "UP" on our tv while the rest of LA partied. We marveled at how uncrowded LA seemed compared to Northern Virginia. We saw an amazing awards show, got to gawk at some really c-razy outfits, and were able to gratefully accept the kindness shown us by so many people.

And the final kindness? This photo taken by Erin, who has been pulling for Margaret since day one, even having set up the JBLiftMargaret FB page.

The day of the AMA's Erin flew into LAX with her family for Thanksgiving break. She took this picture while driving down the highway toward the city. While Tim, Margaret, and I were people-watching, shivering, and heading into the show, look what was going on right over our heads:

In the Woods

2011-11-28T11:07:00.000-08:00

So Tim asked me to go on a walk this morning. I was thinking we'd go on the bike path or out in a neighborhood. Instead, he took me to some parkland in our town consisting of deep woods and a creek. We got further and further into the woods, so far that I figured he either wanted to make out with me or murder me and hide the evidence. Turns out he wanted to walk and talk.

As you may know, the past few days have been rough. Thanksgiving? Oh my goodness. That's really all I can say about that.

The bottom line is that while I KNOW Jack is in a better place, and I believe he wants me to share the TRUTH with you, that life does not end when the body does, I want him alive and well and eating tacos in THIS place. MY place. Right now.

One of the things that has sustained us over these weeks as we drive through our town are the royal blue ribbons on trees, schools, mailboxes, cars, and fence posts telling us that our community cares and has not forgotten Jack. The blue ribbons feel like a hug to me each time I see them.

As we walked deeper into the dense woods today I thought, "I hate this so much! What a freakin' waste! Everyone is going to go on with life and forget about Jack. I wish there was a blue ribbon out here." Less than 2 minutes later, I saw this: a deflated royal blue balloon and a ribbon dangling from a tree, right in front of our faces.

Wow. Wow. Wow. Thank you, God. I needed that sign. That love. That hug. Maybe you, sweet friend, need it too. Because this is all so hard.

Harder still because as we twisted and turned this way and that in the woods, we ended up having to cross over the stupid creek no fewer than 4 times. The creek that somehow connects with our shitty neighborhood creek. I was just not ready for that yet.

In a Mars/Venus situation that would seem comical if there were anything funny about seeing a 42 year old woman sobbing through the brambles and underbrush, the very setting that Tim hoped would be peaceful for us was torture for me. Torture. Each twist and bend in the deep, dry creek bed brought horrible images to my mind. I couldn't quit sobbing.

When we had almost stumbled back to civilization, we found the swing Jack and Margaret used to play on when we would take them geocaching down there. The swing, the spooky tunnel with dirty words written inside, and finally, the bike path were all within reach.

I tell you about the ribbon in the middle of the woods to encourage you, just as you have encouraged me by sharing the signs you have seen. The dreams, visions, songs on the radio-- the rainbows and incredible sunsets on numerous Thursday nights at the exact time of the accident.

And we won't feel greedy asking for more signs, more assurance, more comfort will we? No. Because we are sad. And we are slow learners. And God is patient. And so is Jack.

It's Gonna Be A Good Life?

2011-11-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

Many of you watching the AMA’s with us probably gasped when The Band Perry played, “If I Die Young.” Ouch. That was a hard one, but much harder still for me was “Good Life” by One Republic. All I could think when they sang, “It’s gonna be a good life…” was, "Really? I thought so too, but now I’m not so sure.”

I saw two of my dearest friends the day after the trip. Because they were in town visiting their parents for Thanksgiving, we had the chance to spend significant time together for the first time since Jack’s memorial service. Sitting in a booth at one of our old high school haunts, we looked at each other, eyes filled with tears, shell-shocked and still in disbelief at what has happened. Like other friends, they shared that they wake up each morning and must realize, once again, that Jack is dead.

We discussed the utter improbability that such a thing could have happened to Jack. We went through all of the events that led from having my kids safe and dry in our house, to their looking at a stupid playhouse in a neighbor’s fenced-in backyard, to standing in that yard beside a raging creek. We questioned how Jack, our Jack, was the only child who died in our area during that crazy storm.

Being together, crying together, was draining and wonderful and helpful because these friends, like so many others, love us and realize HOW MUCH we have lost in losing Jack.

These same friends walked beside me many years ago when one minute I had the mom everybody loved and admired, and the next I did not. As they recounted how they found out about Jack’s accident, we were reminded, without saying a word, of those other, dreadful phone calls I made to them when we were all 18 years old.

Over the years, these and other friends have felt the bittersweet tension of sharing life’s joys with me, while at the same time remembering my loss. As they benefited from adult relationships with their mothers-- through college, dating, marriage, babies, baptisms, and birthdays-- they were sometimes unsure of how much to say, knowing that even as I had moved forward and flourished, I would always mourn the loss of what could have been.

I never wanted them to feel uncomfortable or temper their joy, but I appreciated their unspoken acknowledgement-- usually just a caring look-- that showed they knew I was thriving and content despite significant loss. Their news included holiday gatherings, family reunions, multi-generational beach trips, and their children’s special times with grandma. I wanted them to share their news with me even if it hurt, because they were my friends, and I cared.

After my mom died, I was unsure of exactly how to move forward, but I decided early on that a positive life for me would be a testament to her as a mother. I respected myself, made good choices, and tried to live an optimistic, drama-free existence focused on what was important. And, when I was blessed to become Jack and Margaret’s mom, though I keenly missed my mother’s support every step of the way, I knew I would try to parent well, having been so well-parented.

I was sad that my mother and children didn’t get to enjoy each other. And I missed the adult relationship she and I could have had, the one that I saw my cousins and friends experiencing. Even in the poop-riddled, sleep-deprived, whiny throes of parenting babies and toddlers, I already looked forward to being a grandma. Not too soon, as in “My 14 year old just made me a grandma,” but all in good time, to give my adult "kids" the PRESENCE of relationship where I had felt so much absence.

I yearned for the chance to enjoy and support Jack and Margaret in their adulthood, our relationship unfettered by the stress and pressure one experiences while in the trenches of childrearing. I imagined holiday celebrations. Beach trips. Cruises. Enjoying the amazing people my kids had become. Even though Tim and I pinched every penny, I was determined someday to travel with family, as one of my most painful memories is the knowledge that my mom had registered for her first passport in her early forties and never got the chance to use it.

As I sat with these two dear friends Tuesday, I realized that now we had another gulf separating us. A huge, gaping gulf. Not only can they enjoy their dear moms right now, but they will be able to see all (DEAR GOD PLEASE!) of their children reach adulthood. Their children will grow and flourish. Jack will be forever 12. Spunky, spirited Margaret’s young life will be tinged with loss.

My feeble attempt at redeeming early loss by living life well and supporting my children into their adulthood now hangs in tatters.

All those years I tried to put one foot in front of the other and choose JOY because I knew that would honor my mother and God. I smiled. I laughed. I loved. I thrived! And over the years I learned there are many, many things one can and will get through without the help of a mom.

But a child? The precious child who first taught me how to really love?

Now I get up every day and choose LIFE in an attempt to honor this wise, deep-thinking, brown-eyed boy who loved us, loved God, and whose physical absence is like a cannon blast through our little world.

But in the getting up, in the living, sometimes I have to ask, “How much, oh God, how much?”

And Jack’s passport? Sits upstairs in Tim’s office. Not a frickin’ stamp in it.

Margaret's Excellent Adventure: LA Style

2011-11-23T08:03:00.001-08:00

I meant to write yesterday about our big trip, but jet lag and work got in the way. And then there were my crying jags, grumpy stares, and Tim "accidentally" dropping my $800 mouth guard in the toilet.

But today is a new day, and here we go...

Margaret's Excellent Adventure!

We had an incredible time. Your prayers were answered, and Margaret's wish came true!

Meg, who shared our story with her sister's best friend from Coca Cola, dropped off this embroidered "Bieber Bound" backpack Thursday night. I wish I had met her to give her a huge hug!

When we checked in at Dulles, the ticket agent said, apropos of nothing, "Oh, I thought there'd be four of you." Tim and I exchanged glances. So did we, lady, so did we.

The flights were easy, and Margaret even did her homework on the plane. That is one conscientious girl.

Our gorgeous hotel was in the LA Live Complex, right next to the Nokia Theater and Staples Center. Looking out our window was a little like being in Times Square, with the flashing billboards. We felt snazzy and very cool!
Friday night we got to meet our angels from Coca Cola, Jed and Melanie. They had been working on the Margaret/Bieber thing for weeks and treated Margaret like their number one priority, even though they were corporate big-wigs here to put on a major event. They arranged for our free flights, the hotel room, and tickets to the AMA's. Their generosity amazed us.

Saturday, after waking up at 4:30 due to the time change, we met with Melanie again and she got us into two rehearsals: Kelly Clarkson's and Daughtry's. It was interesting being behind the scenes. Kelly's new song was super catchy, and she was down to earth and friendly with her band. Daughtry's drummer was a little too intense for our ears. Oww.

After this, we met a few more people from Coke and Dick Clark Productions. Lynda, DCP's PR maven, knew our story and was also working the Bieber angle... hard. No one could make any promises, because so much depended on what kind of day Justin was having, how his rehearsal went, etc. Phrases like, "We can't be sure" and "We need to manage expectations" were bandied about. Seriously, we need to pray for that boy. I can not not imagine being 17 and dealing with the kind of fame, pressure and demands he faces each day.

We saw the guys from LMFAO, Lance Bass, Sarah Hyland from "Modern Family," and the curly headed dude from several Disney tv shows:

Then the waiting began. Justin's rehearsal was deemed closed, but we still hoped to get to meet him somehow. We stood with 4 Coke execs and Lynda, from Dick Clark Productions, in a hallway outside the rehearsal space.

Not once did these angels act like it was a burden on their busy lives to try to make Margaret's wish come true. They took it as seriously as if it were an important part of their livelihoods. They were warm, loving, and solicitous toward us. Cell phones rang and texts shot around, as the moment of truth approached. These were pros on a mission.

Margaret stood wide-eyed, as she looked down the hall. Justin's bodyguard and guitarist appeared, easily recognizable to her from his movie. A few more people, then Justin and Selena Gomez themselves! They all tucked into a green room nearby. What would happen next? Would we go in for a formal visitation, like with the Pope?

Nope, the entourage soon walked by us and entered the theater. More waiting. Then Lynda turned to us, and said, "You're coming in." She got us permission to be at the closed rehearsal! Two other young girls were there (the producer's daughter and Lynda's niece) as well as production people and Justin's entourage.

We laid low, not making eye contact with anyone as Justin rehearsed "Mistletoe." Five rows in front of us sat Justin's girlfriend, Selena Gomez. Between one of the takes, he snuggled up in the front row with her. He was such a cutie, and he reminded so much of another adorable full-lipped, brown-eyed boy that I know, I had to keep my mom-self from shouting "You're going to lose your pants, Justin, if you don't wear a belt."

Justin's guitarist came up to Margaret and the other girls and gave them guitar pics!

After the final take, JB and SG walked the short distance up the aisle past us to talk to the producer and see video footage of the rehearsal. Margaret was standing in the aisle at this point and JB brushed past her. I even saw her ponytail bob with the contact! Selena sat on his lap as they looked at the video. Ahh, to be 17 again!

Ok, deep breaths. This meet-and-greet was going to be now or never. They walked back down the aisle, really only a few feet, and JB stopped and said hi to Margaret!

He kissed her hand.

This hand:
He asked her how old she was (10), what grade she was in (5th), and where she was from (VA).

Then he asked if she enjoyed the performance ("Yeah. You were really good. It was amazing!") and if she was excited to go to the AMA's tomorrow ("Yeah, I'm really excited.") Margaret was calm, cool, and collected. He then shook Tim's and my hands.

Next, he put his arm around her and a Dick Clark photographer took pictures.
Oh good gracious. Mission accomplished!

Margaret got her "private concert" from the Biebs, AND she got to meet him. He was soft spoken and sweet with her.

The movers and the shakers moved and shook and got it done. All for a little girl they knew just from your Tweets, Facebook, friends of friends and this blog. There was no mention of the accident or of Margaret's loss. This moment was for her, and it was pure, sparkly enjoyment. The Coke and Dick Clark execs smiled and went on their way, off to produce and run a major awards show and a red carpet concert.

We could have gone to a bowling event with celebs that night, but instead tucked ourselves in bed at around 8:30, pulling the curtains on the flashing lights, savoring the day.

More later...

Soggy red carpet, why isn't LA crowded, and what were those things on Nicki Minij's rear?

Time after Time

2011-11-16T08:46:00.000-08:00

When a baby is born, you count his age in moments. You can’t believe that in such a short time, life could change so dramatically. You wonder how just a few hours before, life had seemed one way, but now you recognize a permanent, monumental shift. You had always know what love was, but now you experience a CAPACITY to love that makes what came before seem tepid and two dimensional.

At first you count your baby’s age in hours, then days. Eventually, just as you counted your pregnancy in weeks, you shift to weeks. It feels precise. 6 weeks, 8 weeks, 12 weeks old. It mirrors your baby books about what milestones to expect. This eventually grows impractical and unwieldy, and you switch to months. You can hardly believe that one day, sooner than you think, you’ll be thinking in terms of YEARS in relation to this child’s age. In fact, one day, you’ll probably take his age and use it to figure out how old YOU are.

With a child’s death, this sense of timing, of pace, feels similar. How could Jack have been alive and well mere seconds before I reached the water’s edge? They have been looking for him for hours. Jack has been gone a day! It has been one week since our world fell apart. Two weeks. Three. Could it be a month? Do we switch to months now? But his clothes are still here. His new school shoes he never got to wear sit by the door to his room. He still gets mail for goodness sake!

When we remember in weeks, we think of a Thursday, at 6 pm. When we think in terms of months, we will think of the 8th. Double whammy of pain. Will there really come a time when we mark the passage of time solely in terms of YEARS? What about decades? I believe so. And Jack won’t age, but we will. He will forever be not quite 12 ½.

When your child was young you marked milestones, and although you wished the particularly challenging days away, you somehow hoped to slow the years down, to savor his childhood. And now, with the death of a child, you grieve as the gap between the before/after of your family's history grows ever wider, but at the same time you beg for the years to speed up, because decades without him seem like too, too much.

Jack-ed Up Phone

2011-11-14T05:56:00.000-08:00

I was planning to write yet another post about my "Jack-ed Up" cellphone and title it "Jack's Thrift Store Playlist," because a few weeks ago, inside my purse at the thrift store, the phone started playing music again. I just let it go and kept track of the songs as they played in random order. This is music my husband put on my phone when I got it last year, but I do not listen to because to me my phone is...a phone.

This is what I heard in the thrift store:
1. Nobody Loves Me Like You
2. The Solace of You
3. We Live
4. Don’t You Know I’ve Always Loved You
5. Good Thing
6. Life is a Highway
7. Just the Way I Am
8. Let us Pray
9. Angel’s Heap
10. Don’t Stop Believing
11. Fields of Grace
12. This Day
13. Baba O’Reilly
14. Come Monday
15. Rock the Casbah
16. The Lost Get Found
17. All Star

I searched for meaning in the songs as I wandered the aisles of a place that once provided me with so much pleasure, but now felt empty and annoying. Many meant something to me, especially "Nobody Knows Me Like You," "Don't You Know I've Always Loved You?" and "Just the Way I Am." These songs are about God, but I imagined them as a conversation with Jack.

I laughed when I got to Angel's Heap because the title sounded so spiritual at first, but I think it's about having sex in a car. I turned the music off after the 17th song because, well, should I have just let it go until my battery died? What if only the first few songs meant anything, if any of them meant anything at all?

Anyway, this past Friday morning I walked down to the Bridge for only the second time since the accident. It's just too hard seeing how very, very far the bridge where they found Jack is from where he fell in the water in our neighborhood. I mean really, really far. It's too outrageous seeing a mere trickle of water, even after days of rain, in the shitty little creek bed, yet to know that on that one horrible night it was a raging wall of water that reached over the banks, the bridge, the road.

I took a picture of the cross that friends erected on the roadside. I wanted it for myself, and to share with you on the "Jack's Thrift Store Playlist" post.

So that night, on our way to pack shoe boxes in Jack's memory for Operation Christmas Child, Tim, Margaret and I ducked into a pizza place to get Margaret a slice. It was loud and crowded. I felt trapped. I was angry at all the families having a care-free Friday night.

I went to stand outside on the stoop and heard music coming from my coat pocket. Again? It was one of the very songs that had popped up in the thrift shop weeks earlier.

Which one? Check it out. Believe me, it's worth it.

Isn't it Ironic?

2011-11-11T08:26:00.001-08:00

...that Jack always wanted us to have a neighborhood Bible Study, but I blew it off. I figured that with the kid dynamics in our ‘hood everyone would end up fighting and that would be most unpleasant for the parents. The whole thing just seemed so…tiring.

But now, as a result of Jack’s death, a group of neighborhood dads is getting together every week with a pastor friend to talk about major life and faith issues?

…that we wouldn’t let Jack play violent video games or watch anything as racy as “Dancing With the Stars” on TV.

Yet, as a result of his death, we’ll be taking his 10 year old little sister to CA to the AMA’s? I have an inkling that some of the outfits and the lyrics will be a tad racier than DWTS. Any inside scoop on what Lady Gaga will be wearing this year?

…that even though I grew up in a family bed kind of household, I can count on one hand how many nights each kid got to spend in our bed over the past few years.

Yet now the three of us say our prayers, end with, “Jack, we love you. We miss you. We’ll never forget you” and tuck ourselves into one queen-sized bed?

…that when Jack was alive we severely limited our kids’ tv and computer use.

Yet in his absence Margaret is turning more and more to the TV to try to kill time in a house with no playmate and we are letting it slide?

…that a little over 2 months ago if you had asked me what I wanted, I would have said: “1)lose weight 2) less laundry 3) less running around”

And how I got all three of these things? But they suck. They really, really suck.

…that Jack never wanted to meet a celebrity because he thought it would be too awkward,

And now we are about to be wined and dined (or Coked!) by celebs thanks to the lavish generosity of Coca Cola, blog readers, and friends and strangers around the globe…possibly even getting to meet Margaret’s idol, Justin Bieber!?

And speaking of the Biebs….

[Don’t even get me started on the irony that our beloved squeaky clean celeb is embroiled in a Baby Daddy scandal (Innocent! Innocent!) right when we are heading out to see him.]

Isn’t it ironic:

…that this summer, two weeks before his death, when Jack walked by Margaret and me ooohing and ahhing over the sweetness of JB as we watched “Never Say Never,” Jack's response was, “Come on! You could show cute baby pictures of anybody and people would fall in love with him and say he was wonderful!"

And now, because of an impossible, improbable, senseless accident people all around the globe have seen you in your bee costume, Jack, and may have fallen a little bit in love with you too? Oh my goodness.
…
So Jack, what was up is down what was in is out. Our lives are weird and ill-fitting and and off-kilter and strange. You were a wise and observant boy, so I know the irony of all of this is not lost on you.

I guess I’ll close this post with a gratuitous baby picture of you, with love for your cuteness and oh so much more.

non-Monumental Issues

2011-11-09T16:38:00.000-08:00

One of Margaret’s shoes is missing. They are just thrift store flats, but they're cute, comfy, and they go with her dress for the big night.

The prime suspect is our dog Shadow, because although she does not chew shoes, she does have a weird habit of carrying a shoe in her mouth each time she goes out to pee. The leaves have fallen and the chances of finding a little shoe in the yard are nil, so I hope it’s in the house somewhere. Now you may wonder why I’m concerned that Margaret have this particular shoe for her adventure. Let’s just say you do not want her to be unhappy with her footwear or to get a blister on the big trip. Nope.

Reminds me of our trip to the Washington Monument this past August. I suggested Margaret wear sneakers and socks, an idea that was met with much scorn. She wore flip flops. After a pleasant trip to the top of the monument, Tim had the audacity to think that at ages 10 and 12, our kids (or I) could handle more than one landmark per DC outing. Silly man.

Against my better judgment, we started walking to the World War II Memorial which was right down the hill, and Margaret started freaking out about the heat, her aching legs, her feet, her… BLISTER! I got pissed, not at her, but at Tim for breaking my “one landmark” rule, and because I’d promised all of us Rocket Popsicles, which were clearly in the opposite direction.

Tim’s neck started to bulge and he yelled at Margaret and me, “Aaaargh! You’re both such... such…” The kids, wide-eyed, implored him to tell them what the next word was going to be, but Tim did not divulge. We were pretty sure it wasn’t a good one.

We hobbled to the memorial, the women-folk definitely not showing the reverence it was due, unless glaring and whining were proper protocol. Tim and Jack ended up walking all the way back to the car on the other side of the mall and picking us up, after Margaret and I had cooled off by the water’s edge.

Tim later told me Jack was great at talking him off the ledge on their long walk to the car. It was a good bonding experience for them as they commiserated, whether with or without words, about the lunacy of their female counterparts. Now lest the boys get off scot-free, I could mention Jack's "My coke is too small mania" in Jamestown last year or Tim's "You are such...such..." outburst in Washington, D.C. Oh yeah, I already did.

Margaret's problem that day was a blister on her foot. My issues are usually the heat, the cold, the humidity level, my bladder, or perhaps blood sugar. Margaret and I liked to think we were doing our part to help prepare Jack for the world of women. The car pulled up, we got in, and all was right in the world. Sans the Rocket Pops, of course. Good times.

Man, I really hope we find that shoe.

Operation Christmas Child

2011-11-07T11:23:00.001-08:00

My sister and her kids drove 5 hours each way to see us for less than 24 hours this weekend. It’s just so wonderful and terrible to see them. Seeing her son, just 9 months older than Jack, is heartbreaking. I love my nephew; I need him; I am so sad for him; I am jealous my sister has him to hold.

Weekends are the worst around here. Too much tv. Too much computer. Too much time. Too much quiet. Margaret doesn’t want to do anything we used to do together like hiking or geocaching. Which leaves us with more tv, or shopping. I’ve been to the mall more in the last 2 months than in the past several years. I don't blame Margaret. I don't want to do anything I used to want to do either.

When my sis and the cousins usually visit, we sit in the kitchen talking, or engaging in parallel play while reading magazines and sipping tea. We leave the kids to their own devices. Outings? Meh. Not usually. The kids would be having too much fun to want to go anywhere.

But this time we needed an activity, so we worked on our Operation Christmas Child boxes for Samaritan’s Purse. This was one of Jack and Margaret’s favorite charitable activities because packing a shoebox full of toys and goodies to enable a child somewhere in the world to experience Christmas is a tangible way to spread God’s love as well as count your own blessings.

Last year we packed 10 boxes, but Jack said “Next year we’ve gotta do 20!” Margaret and I started shopping for items in the spring and summer as we would see things on sale. After Jack died, we asked people to contribute to Samaritan’s Purse in Jack’s name. Many, many people did, and we are grateful that through our loss, children are receiving Christmas gifts all over the world.

We were joined on our shopping trip by my sister, her kids, and Jack and Margaret's favorite babysitter from when they were younger. This week Margaret, Tim, and I will lead the 5th/6th grade youth group at our church as they pack boxes. Next week we’ll join Tim’s colleagues as they do the same. We already know my car will hold dressers and chairs and junk off of the street. I am excited to see how many stuffed shoeboxes will fit in it.

If you are interested in making shoeboxes with your family, here is the information about what to put in them. You will also find drop off locations listed. Many Chick-Fil-A restaurants give out free shoeboxes and are drop-off spots. My blog friend Ellen is doing shoe boxes with her students in honor of Jack and they are including things Jack would have liked such as Legos, Puzzles, Hot Wheels Cars, balls, and brain teasers.

Box collection takes place next week, Nov 14-21.

Thank you for considering this service project for your family.

Margaret's Excellent Adventure

2011-11-06T17:30:00.000-08:00

I bet you would love to hear about Margaret’s Excellent Adventure, made possible by… YOU!

The fruit of your tweeting, Facebooking, emails, blogging, calling, begging, and of course praying really started bubbling up a few days ago. Friends of friends (and a sorority sister!) who work for People Magazine in NY woke up before dawn on Halloween, dressed as Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice to try to win tickets for Margaret. Oh yes they did. Hats and all! They got plucked out of the audience and got to go back stage to plead Margaret’s case to anyone who would listen. Incredible!

Others reached out to a friend, an amazing woman and exec at NBC, who generously gave Margaret 2 VIP tickets for the Nov 23 Bieber Today show concert!

We even had phone messages from our local news station wanting to know what was up with all of those tweets! Your campaign certainly got noticed.

So while I was processing this exciting info, and LOVING how you were loving on my little girl, I got another call. The best friend of the sister of a woman who lived in our town until a year ago (are you following?) and who grew up a few streets away from our house, spent the weekend arranging THIS:

Tickets for the 3 of us to attend the American Music Awards in LA where Justin Bieber will be performing! Oh yes. Airfare and hotel, too! And if possible, a meet and greet —all courtesy of Coca-Cola, who puts on the show. Wow.

So I went from “Will I shower before work today?” to having the words: “Today Show, People Magazine, Dick Clark, AMA’s and Justin Bieber” spinning in my head. Oh my.

I decided it was time to clue Margaret in on all of this, for I do not believe that a complete surprise is the right approach given the shock she has endured losing Jack so suddenly.

She, of course, was THRILLED THRILLED THRILLED, and when I told her the two awesome opportunities-- the Today Show and the AMA's-- she said, “Can I do both?” Yeah, it took her about a millisecond to get used the idea of traveling the country and seeing Justin, her main man, perform not once but twice! However, we made her choose and she chose the AMA’s because she’s never been to CA before. In fact, she hasn’t been on a plane since she was 3 years old.

YOU did this.

Your phone calls, your tweets, your prayers, your willingness to reach out on Facebook and through your blogs to a family you may only have heard about in the “virtual” world…every little bit made a difference. Whether or not your phone call or email was the one that secured these awesome opportunities, you extended yourself to try to bring some excitement, some distraction, and some pleasure at a time of deep mourning.

And you know what? Margaret was not surprised. Sure, she was VERY surprised that her heartfelt shopping list would lead to her getting to hear JB perform. But when I told her everything YOU had done to make it happen, she was happy, but not surprised. Living in a world where people care about and help each other did not surprise her one bit, and for that I am even more grateful. YOU did that.

It was a generous outpouring of love from people who, to a large extent, have probably felt pretty helpless in regards to our little family, especially since no one can give us what we truly want and need-- Jack back here with us. I will never be able to know every detail of what each person has done for us or be able to thank you adequately, but please know what you have done has touched us deeply.

When I’m going through hell, and unfortunately that it what it feels like most days, I’m so glad you are on my side.

...

So in a few weeks, look for us on the red carpet! I’ll be the dazed one with gray roots on my head and gratefulness in my heart for people I may or may not ever meet. Margaret will be the one flashing her tin grin, with purple braces for JB, of course.

Thank you.

Risky Business

2011-11-03T17:18:00.000-07:00

I think the shock of what happened is starting to wear off. I tell myself that perhaps this is one of the longest crazy-ass dreams ever, and I’ll still be able to wake up from it. When I awake, it will be September 8th, the second day of school. I’ll be worrying about how to fit all the baseball and soccer practices onto the family calendar and wondering when sweater weather is going to start.

Jack will still be alive and well.

I think one of the biggest hindrances to getting me to stop rowing down the river of DENIAL is the fact that Jack was not a big risk-taker. He was not a real rough and tumble kind of guy. Jack was more comfortable building with Legos or sitting around on his friend David's back porch while they cracked each other up than being all that adventurous.

When I worried about Jack, which was often, it was that someone would DO SOMETHING TO HIM, not that he would be in an accident. My fears centered around bullying and sexual abuse since Jack was small for his age, quirky, and on the quiet side.

That's why we were careful about Internet use and choosing a summer camp, and were extremely selective and prayerful about sleepovers. I knew the statistics, and they weren’t encouraging. Tim and I were considered too overprotective by some.

So we did worry. But about an accident like this? So sudden? So violent?

Inconceivable.

As a toddler, Jack would walk to the very end of our little driveway and his toes would not cross an imaginary line there. When my friends found out I wasn’t a spanker, they would ask, “Yeah, but what if Jack ran into the street? Would you spank him then?” “Uh, well, I’m not thinking that’s going to happen,” was my reply. Naïve, perhaps, but he was just so cautious.

When he was in second grade, I did have to yell at him to be more careful on his bike in our cul de sac, but in general I spent more time trying to get him to be more adventurous than to be more careful.

“Jack, do you want to ride this roller coaster?” No way.

“Skateboard?” Not really.

“Go in the ocean?” No. 10 years of beach trips, and the sand suited him just fine.

“Shoot a rifle off of Uncle John’s back porch?” No thanks.

“Ride your bike outside our cul-de-sac?” Uh-Uh.

“Walk to a friend’s house in another neighborhood?” Nope.

"Go on a dirt bike?” Are you kidding?

This is the kid who, thankfully, was alarmed when his neighborhood friends played with matches and ran home to tell me immediately. “MOM, there was even lighter fluid nearby!”

After Jack completed the slowest time imaginable on the dinky go-kart track during a beach trip, his friend Nathan said, “Sorry you lost, Jack.” Jack was like “Huh?” The snail’s pace had felt plenty fast for him.

Jack carried his car booster seat with him on outings until he was a rising 5th grader, and even as a 12 year old felt the safety of the back seat suited him just fine, thank you.

He chose to attend the one-week session of his beloved summer camp rather than the two that most kids his age did, because the longer sessions had "high adventure" activities and he was worried he’d be pressured to do something he wasn’t comfortable with.

How different is childhood today from our childhoods of being outside all day long, our parents not having a clue where we were. Night sledding. Being dropped off at the mall. Getting rides home from goodness knows who. Going to the pool by ourselves all day, every day. Riding bikes to the 7-11 or into Washington, D.C., with nothing more than a dime in our pockets for a pay phone call.

Jack did love the outdoors, and the increasing freedom that growing older allowed. Unless, of course, there were bees around, which would send him running. He loved to geocache, hike, go caving and climbing. He and his friends climbed onto the neighbor’s (low) carport roof from a stone wall. He liked to climb trees and rocks. He loved to ski with his dad.

So he wasn’t a couch potato, but he was not a big risk-taker either.

I find it strange that in all my Mama-worrying, and I did my share, I was focused on social and sexual risks, but an accident like Jack's never crossed my mind. I still don't understand why neither I nor the other parents who let their kids play outside in our neighborhood that day recognized the risks, even those who knew the kids going to the creek.

So here I am, exactly 8 weeks after the accident, and I still find it so hard to believe that that Jack is the one who is gone.

I keep saying,

Jack?
Jack?
JACK???

Really???

I just never would have guessed that.

Here's hoping I blog in my sleep and this is all just a very bad dream.

P.S. Roller blading was something Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to try. Look at these pictures of Margaret helping him out at a birthday party in December. Blurry but so sweet And that's not a miniskirt he's wearing; it's a long t-shirt.

Oh Shirt.

2011-11-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

As I wrote before, Jack’s sheets had been changed the morning of the accident. His dirty sheets were downstairs by the washer and accidentally got washed by friends before I had the mental capacity to consider saving them. All of his clothes were clean and folded.

So, for weeks one of my best friends has been praying fervently that we would find something, anything that smelled like Jack. A week ago I went into his room and spotted a gray long-sleeved Ski Utah tee crumpled on the floor. I hadn’t seen it there before. I picked it up, nervous yet hopeful.

It smelled like Jack.

Margaret and I shoved our faces in it, inhaling deeply. Thank you God, for this gift!

So yesterday I was folding laundry and picked up… a Ski Utah shirt.

Crap. I’d washed it.

I'm a Belieber, Part 3: Facebook Status Style

2011-11-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

You are AMAZING! Your outpouring of love in the form of tweets, blogs, calling in favors, dressing up in costume, FB posts, phone calls and of course prayers MADE SOMETHING HAPPEN! No details for you yet, but our little family will be taking a trip in NOV to see JB perform. Seriously! Faith in humanity restored yet? Sure hope so. You should be proud!

Thanks and XO, Anna

P.S. K-Mom, if you are reading this, I would love the pictures of the sky one week after Jack's accident.

Heaven

2011-10-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

Heaven had better be:

Better than any stinkin' Youth Group costume party…

And being trapped inside a Lego Factory over a long weekend with plenty of Cheez-its and Dr. Pepper.

And the buzzy feeling you get when the person you have a crush on crushes on you back.

And sledding down a huge hill with your best friends until it’s cocoa time.

And a wonderful, fumbly first kiss.

And skiing black diamonds with your dad in Colorado.

And a high school debate trip to New York City with fun but slightly lax chaperones.

And praising God at a retreat and finally getting how much He loves you.

And sitting around with your friends at college laughing until your stomach hurts.

And falling in love.

And watching in person as the Yankees win the World Series…again!

And surprising your little sister by flying in for her college graduation.

And doing work that fulfills you and honors God.

And dancing with your mom at your wedding.

And holding your newborn baby-- staring at your wife thinking, “We made this?”

And giving that baby a bath and zipping him up in footy pajamas.

Oh yeah, and sex.

Heaven had better be more wonderful than sex.

Okay, God? Good.

Halloween

2011-10-30T19:11:00.000-07:00

Jack, thank you for...

2011-10-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

Your honesty. You did not lie to us. You did not sneak around. A mom we’ve never met told us how at baseball camp this summer you were trying to get her son out at second, and the ump called him out. But you told the ump that no, you hadn’t quite tagged him. Your honesty and integrity gave us great optimism for your future, because you firmly had our trust.

Your humility.

Your willingness to dumpster dive. Thanks for all the times you helped lift old broken furniture from the curb into the car for one of my many projects. I remember when I had you jump out of the car on the way to school to pick up a weird horse head thing that turned out to be solid marble and super heavy!

Snuggling. During the lice fiasco of 4th grade, when I was going psycho and didn’t want to put my head near anyone else’s pillows, you pointed out that I was becoming a tad obsessed and that it was cutting down on our family’s closeness. Thank you for that wisdom-- wisdom that led to several more years of snuggle time.

Your generosity of spirit. You were happy for other people's joy and success and celebrated with them. I remember how happy you were when Margaret won an American Girl Doll at a toy store. I would have been all up in my mom's business about why I couldn't get something of equal value. You just smiled and celebrated with her.

Not badgering. When you asked us for something and we said no, you accepted that. You accepted that the reason you couldn’t play the same video games your friends could was because we loved you and we thought Grand Theft Auto and those other games were trashy. Your lack of badgering made us want to work with you and give you more privileges. Win-Win.

Accepting, if not embracing, my cheapness. I love the way you came home from school on the last afternoon of your life and said, “Mom, did you buy all my binders at the thrift store again this year?” When I admitted I had, instead of getting mad, you just asked if we could maybe wash off the .69 written in grease pencil on all the covers so everyone wouldn't have to know about it.

Obeying your parents. I remember the Saturday before the accident, when you stayed up late with your cousin in the basement. It was time for lights-out and you asked if you could finish the ½ hour show you were watching. You had seen the first ½ of the episode about 4 times and wanted to see the end. I said no, and you turned it off. Your cousin finished it for you both when he was here for your memorial service one week later.

Forgiving Us. You forgave us our parenting mistakes, again and again. Whether it was our accidentally catching your chubby little baby tummy in the zipper of your footy pajamas, or coming down way too hard on you for things that were really OUR ISSUES, not yours, you forgave us.

Forgiving others. You didn’t hold grudges. When neighborhood spats occurred, and someone or other would yell, “I’m never playing with you again!” I would have written them off. But not you; you always gave it another shot.

Bettering yourself. Whether it was doing 100 sit-ups and push-ups a night trying to finally ace that damn Physical Fitness Test, learning to show patience and flexibility during neighborhood games, or practicing your baseball fielding with Dad in the yard, you worked to better yourself.

Your empathy. When you were very young, you worried A LOT about my dear friend Cynthia. You said, “How is she ever going to find someone to marry if she works in an old folks home?” When she (finally!) did get married, you were ecstatic. You prayed that she would be able to have babies and were so relieved when she did.

Your gentleness. You did not yell at me. As a kid who yelled at her parents a lot, I really appreciated that.

Never wearing a muscle shirt. Okay, there was one that time in 4-year-old Vacation Bible School, but that was mandatory.

Talking to us. Even though you were quieter at home than at school, you were great to talk to, especially at bedtime. You asked mature, thoughtful questions. Sometimes you would say in the dark, “Um, I have another word to ask you about.” I loved that you could do that without being embarrassed. The night before you died you were trying to understand a friendship that was changing. Thank you for talking to me about it.

Liking things that we could stand behind. Thank you for discussing houses and Shakespeare with me and the Yankees and books with Dad. I have a feeling you were a rare 4 year old for being into Origami and word games. Thanks for being obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine and Legos. I know if you had been into Pokemon, Bakugon, and Super Heroes we would have developed a taste for them, too, but I’m glad we never had to.

Your faith in God.

Making us laugh. You and your sister kept us entertained every day. I would have loved for you 2 to have the chance to make each other laugh as grown-ups.

Never blaming. You must have gotten this trait from your dad, not me. I could drop a can of corn on my foot and look around for someone else to blame. And now, I want to blame everyone and everything for what has happened to you, but that’s meaningless, and it's not what you would have done. So, even in this time of pain, yours is the example I want to follow.

There is so much more to thank you for, Jack. Like every family, we had good times and bad, but the good FAR outweighed the bad. I am reluctant to post this, because it is such a small representation of what made you special.

I am thankful to God for giving me an intelligent, quirky, gentle, strong-willed, respectful son to love. And that love will not end.

Roll It

2011-10-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

I was trying to explain to my sister how everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in our lives has changed since that terrible night. Our hopes, our plans, our dreams for the future, our home, the rhythm of our days.

“Even the way I wipe my (rear) has changed!” I blurted out.

Say what?

Well, when your world is turned upside down in an instant, chances are you are not capable of running out to the store for essentials like TP. Instead, your amazing, wonderful, supportive friends will buy it for you. And if their love and support for you is measured in rolls, let’s just say that they love you a lot. We’re talking Jumbo-Pack Love.

And chances are pretty high that these amazing, wonderful, supportive friends will buy you the GOOD stuff, not the cheapo flimsy ply you’ve been purchasing for your family for, well, about a million years.

And while you are exceedingly grateful for the generosity and thoughtfulness of your friends, you’ll note during several, uh, private times during the day-- as if a moment really could go by without your realizing it-- that EVERYTHING indeed has changed. Even the way you wipe your, um, rear.

I’m guessing this will be one of the easiest changes to get used to.

Monday Musings...

2011-10-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

So I’ve come to realize that PMS and Profound Grief are not a winning combination.

Of course I’d gladly embrace the former every day of my life to be spared the latter, but that’s not a choice that’s mine to make. Last week I found myself silently railing, to no one in particular-- random cars driving down the road, strangers in the grocery store-- “Blank you and the horse you rode in on!” I don’t really even understand that expression, except, of course, its intent, but I was spewing it, inside my head, again and again. I found this slightly troubling yet liberating at the same time.

I remember reading “The Green Mile” years ago and being taken aback by the warden’s sweet wife, who was dying of cancer, as she spewed out every epithet in the book. Such was the depth of her suffering. I wondered how she could have the thoughts to formulate those words, when she had probably not used them in her entire life.

Now I realize I do not even know what the vocabulary of my grief will be. Ugly words? Ugly thoughts? Soothing words? Edifying thoughts? We will see, day by day by day.

When people say how strong I am, I don’t know how to respond. Because all I am doing is getting out of bed and trying to function through the day. I am eating. I am laughing. I am crying. I don’t feel that I am any stronger than someone else who does stay in bed. And, really, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

23 years ago, when my mom died suddenly, I was 18 and had just come home for summer break. Three days later, I got a job hostessing at the local restaurant where our family had eaten 3-4 nights a week ever since Mom decided she was fed up with cooking.

So that summer I pulled on my jean miniskirt, laced up my Keds, and smiled and joked my way through my shifts. I stayed busy during the days and wandered the house crying at night. It’s just what I did. My father, brother, and sister did things differently, and that was okay, too.

Tim, who misses Jack terribly, has found comfort in being with people. Watching baseball, football, playing cards or going out for a beer. Getting together with a group of neighbors to discuss where God is in all of this. In the first days and weeks after the accident, I couldn’t understand why my normally shy husband was becoming a social butterfly. He went to museums. He wanted to have people over. He had a catch with friends. I wondered, ungraciously, “Does he miss Jack or does he miss having a catch?”

He took another friend geo-caching, which was our family’s favorite hobby. Huh? When we talked about it, it became clear that Tim likes being in a group because it is a welcome distraction. Being with friends buoys him up, even when they aren’t talking about Jack. And doing the things he did with Jack, such as going to a cherished geocaching spot or watching a baseball game, helps him feel closer to Jack.

Me? I don’t want to be in a large social setting right now, even though that is more in my nature than Tim's. It's too hard to be with people talking about toenail polish, standardized tests and the like. I know that will get more bearable, but for now I would rather be with just a few people who are willing to talk about Jack. I want people to know that talking about Jack isn’t going to “remind” me of what we have lost. Believe me, we know.

I also find great solace in messages on facebook and comments on this blog letting me know people are praying for us, even when I don’t have the energy for face to face contact or to write back. These gifts from you are accessible to me any time during the day or night.

In the week ahead, with lots of “firsts” coming up, such as our treasured Halloween parade and trick-or-treating, we wonder how we will navigate them. Tim suggested maybe standing at a different parade spot with different people, while I want to say at “our” parade spot of 12 years. Who knows what we'll do?

Despite our different personalities and grieving styles, which we are grateful to be able to understand and express to each other, both Tim and I LOVE to hear how God is working in people’s lives as a result of Jack’s life and death. If you have something like that to share, I hope you will.

Sometime in the past year, as we were getting out of the car, Jack said to me, “I think I may want to be a missionary, but I might be too shy.”

Margaret replied, “I don’t ever want to be a missionary. They have TERRIBLE toilets!”

Fairly accurate statement, I suppose.

I told him there are ways of being a missionary even if you are shy.

Perhaps, through the way he is still touching people’s lives right now, Jack is getting to be a missionary without ever having to say a word.

I'm a Belieber, Part 2

2011-10-21T16:43:00.000-07:00

Thank you for all you are doing to help put a smile on Margaret's face by somehow connecting her to Justin Bieber. I am humbled and grateful.

As several of you have pointed out, Justin Bieber will be on the Today Show November 23! I am convinced we can get Margaret invited up to see him perform. If you are willing and able, please send emails, tweet, call in connections, and cajole.

Thank you so much for your continued support.

And please keep praying for us...we can feel it!

Rare Bird, Part 3

2011-10-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

At the end of 6th grade, Jack's class had dinner at the Olive Garden. The highlight of the evening came when the parents read a "charge" they had written for their child. Tim and I took turns reading ours to Jack as we stood in front of the group, each with a hand on Jack's shoulder. We got choked up, of course. There's a lot of inside information in it, that only Jack's classmates will understand, but Tim suggested you might like to read it anyway, especially since our friend wrote that beautiful poem, Rara Avis, for us a few weeks ago:

"Jack, we remember the day we dropped you off in 1st grade, a shy 6 year old kid coming to a brand-new school. Even though you were sad to leave your other school, you grew to love DCS.

Each year we would say you could stay as long as the school didn’t move. I wonder if the main reason DCS never found a new location was the strength of one boy’s prayers.

From day one, you excelled at your schoolwork, teaching us more than a thing or two along the way.

You particularly enjoyed the chance to be creative with special projects. If they could incorporate legos, drawing, or acting, even better.

Some highlights included:
The Vine Snake
The Hill of Difficulty
The Hobbit Map and Paper
And of course, playing Edmund and Macbeth.

Non-academic highlights included:
Cricket races on the playground
Challenging your classmates to “The Game” in which they had to travel the world to figure out where something was hidden
AND developing a private language between you and your classmates.
Hello? Who is Stebe?

You grew a lot during these years, dealing well with personal challenges. When we think about you, Jack, we realize you are one of the strongest people we know.

God has given you gifts, academically, spiritually and creatively.

We pray, as you go forward into middle school, that you will strive for excellence, not because God wants you to be perfect, but because He wants the BEST LIFE FOR YOU and wants you to use your gifts for His work.

That includes putting in full effort, and respecting your teachers, your fellow students and yourself enough to make great choices.

God wants people to see there are many facets to you—not just an entertaining guy—but also someone who is bright, someone who stands up for what he believes in, someone who OVERCOMES obstacles, and someone who has a heart for God and people.

We hope you will continue to share with us what is going on in your life, and if we don’t understand at first, that you won’t give up.

It reminds me of the cardinals we witnessed hatch and fly away this week. Their parents were with them every bit of the way, protecting them, providing for them, and encouraging them. This is what we want to do for you.

As the fledglings found their wings and flew away, you said, “They just grow up so fast.”

So true.

Jack, parenting you is an honor and a privilege, and we know the day is coming soon when you’ll be flying on your own.

When things get hard, and they will, please remember:

Nothing is impossible with God.

We are proud of you, Jack, and we love you very much."

Wednesday "Wramblings" and Walmart

2011-10-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

Today was my first trip to Walmart since the accident. I’ve been dreading it, because the last time I went was with Jack, just the two of us, to do some last minute stocking up on back-to-school snacks. He was in a great mood. You would have thought my willingness to buy pudding and two flavors of goldfish made me mother of the year.

We were in a bit of a rush, so I let him stay by himself in the toy aisle looking at Hot Wheels cars (an interest he and his friend had recently renewed from early childhood) as I ran to the refrigerated aisle. He rolled his eyes as I said, “Don’t talk to ANYONE!”

I felt panicky that he was out of my sight, and I made a mental note that even though he was about to start 7th grade and was probably more than ready to be on his own, I wasn’t ready . I wasn’t yet ready for him to be apart from me. When I told him I’d buy him 3 cars just for the heck of it, something he didn’t ask me to do, he was thrilled, even though it only cost me a whopping three dollars. Later that night he ordered another car off the internet, which arrived the day after he died.

Jack and I also searched unsuccessfully for a Latin/English dictionary, since he couldn’t seem find his old one, not that he looked very hard. After the accident, when I emptied his backpack, I saw it zipped up in one of those little-used front pockets where it had been since June. Sheesh.

This past weekend I read Elizabeth Edwards’s account of a colossal meltdown she had in the grocery aisle when she came upon her dear son’s favorite soda. Brought to the fetal position, on the floor of a public place, by Cherry Coke. I get it, Elizabeth. I get it.

For me, at Walmart today, it was a little bit of everything. I avoided looking down the toy aisle, or at Halloween costumes, but the truth is, our kids are everywhere, in every aspect of our lives.

Dill pickles, picante sauce, Resees Puffs, and goldfish. Pudding, school supplies, and a favorite yogurt flavor. Each felt like a stab to my heart.

On Monday Margaret and I donated our “Jack Food” to a food bank, because what’s the point of keeping unopened boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats or cans of Spaghettios as a shrine to my kid?

So today I was restocking, trying to find something that would appeal to us, when very little seems to. It was hard.

After the food aisle, you could have found me among the soap, sniffing all the varieties of teen-boy body wash, trying to find Jack’s smell. You see, the cleaning lady came the morning before the accident and stripped his bed, so no smell of him lingered there. His other clothes were clean-- sweatshirts washed and ready for the new school year.

So today I bought some Old Spice “Pure Sport” for a kid who can no longer use it. Damn, he smelled good. I still can’t believe he didn’t get the chance to get old and stinky. Over the summer he informed us that he did, indeed, have B.O., but Margaret and I checked him out, a face in each pit, and begged to differ.

Even the cleaning products got me down today. I couldn't locate our laundry detergent or any of our "green" cleaning products. "Must EVERYTHING change?" I thought.

So today is hard, as was last night when my hand reached instinctively for four plates to set the table. I realized that for years there’s been no counting, just a connection between mind and body to grab the perfect stack of four.

And we went to cheer on his baseball team, which was brutal because those gorgeous young boys were having so much fun. There was such a sense of learning and camaraderie, and very little pressure. Just boys playing their favorite game under the lights. Tim and I kept looking at each other saying, “He would have loved this!”

And there were the binders. The “new to you” thrift-store binders filled with only 2 days worth of middle school work. A friend emptied out Jack’s locker and brought them to us. I had avoided looking at them for a while. You see, in classic parent style, Tim and I had micromanaged the school life of our eldest. Oh yes we did.

He always had stellar grades, but we were even more focused on the non-academic areas of “self-control,” “works well with others,” etc. In 6th grade we noticed that Jack’s handwriting, which had become pretty sloppy over the last few years, was completely illegible! We considered this a sign of disrespect toward his teachers and Tim, in his usual “chart-loving, self-improvement” fashion, was on it. Middle school was a big deal, and Tom wanted Jack to start out on the right/write foot.

He printed out cursive sheets for Jack to practice on this summer. You know, “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” Yep, at 12 ½, Jack was back to first grade penmanship sheets, but he did them.

When I opened those binders, representing just two measly days of school, I wasn’t sure what I’d see, and whether the pages would be sloppy or neat. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to see.

But nothing prepared me for the loss of breath and rush of tears when, upon opening the binders, I saw page after page of the neatest, most deliberate handwriting I’d ever seen.

I can’t explain it, but it kind of killed me just a little bit more.

Rare Bird, Part 2

2011-10-16T17:23:00.001-07:00

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

I am amazed and grateful at how gifts of comfort come at just the right time. While this post may come across as long and convoluted, I hope you’ll hang on for the ride.

First of all, I feel as if the poem I posted on Friday was divinely inspired. While my friend’s son and Jack hadn’t played together since preschool, and she and I had only seen each other a handful of times in recent years, she chose a bird as her primary image to beautifully convey Jack in the poem. It could not have been a more perfect gift to us. We treasure it.

I had already written the “Rare Bird” post but was unable to publish it Thursday night because the electricity went out, shutting down my computer. As you know, Jack died on a Thursday evening during a terrible storm, and the lack of electricity was a big factor in his death.

So here I was on another shitty Thursday, shortly after 6 pm (the exact time Jack disappeared), alone in my dark house, a crazy storm raging outside my window. I asked God, “Seriously????” but was filled with a sense of calm, knowing that many, many people were praying for me at that instant. Instead of replaying the horror of that night in my mind, as would be my nature, I was able to sit calmly for hours until Tom and Margaret got home. One of the reasons I could be so calm was a little bird.

As had happened in another part of the house one week before, I heard a bird singing, so loudly and beautifully that it seemed to be inside the house. The first time it happened, I was in the family room. It was sunny and calm outside, so I didn’t think much of it except, to note, “That is one LOUD bird.”

But how a bird could sing during such a storm was beyond me. I just cherished it as I sat on the living room couch in the dark, a little smile on my face, knowing that when the electricity came on I already had a post ready to share with you about my boy entitled, “Rare Bird.” I loved that.

What could have been a horrible night was the opposite, because of many prayers and the visit of a little songbird. Margaret and Tim eventually came home and the three of us tucked ourselves into our queen-sized bed, the electricity still out. We were able to laugh and talk before falling asleep, which was far different from the moaning sobs that stormy night 5 weeks ago.

The next morning I told them about the bird and as I did, the loud singing began again. We looked around and found a cute brown songbird sitting contentedly in a flowerpot on our screened porch. He must have gotten trapped inside and ridden out the storm there. We let him out, and I smiled again. Bird.

What I hadn’t told you yet was that a different friend, whom I have not seen in 20 years and who, therefore, had never met Jack, had been lifting us up via loving emails each day. Several of her emails over these past few weeks, in addition to prayers and hugs, mentioned sending a little blue jay my way. Well, umm, okay. Not sure what that meant. And I’ve never really liked blue jays, but I decided I’d take all the love I could get.

It wasn’t until she read Friday’s blog post, that this friend let me know what she meant in those previous emails. She had seen a particular bird often since the accident, and each time she saw it was filled with a sense that my Jack was MORE THAN OKAY. When she would look at the blue jay, the words, “Rare Bird” came to her, again and again, which she found odd, because blue jays are not rare. After reading the poem on Friday, and seeing the title, "Rare Bird," she immediately KNEW that the “rare bird” she had been thinking of was not a bird, but was Jack.

She was able to pass along to me many comforting assurances about Jack, and because of the beautiful poem, and the bird that had sung to me Thursday night, I was able to hear her and be comforted. Wow.

Well, there’s more:

So yesterday, while we were getting ready to go to go to a school picnic, something we dreaded because Jack wouldn’t be there with his friends, my cell phone started playing music. I say cell phone, because even though it’s an iPhone, I am not a music-girl, and I didn’t even know it had music on it. Turns out, Tim loaded some songs when I first got the phone, but I had no idea.

The song playing, “The Solace of You,” was one of our favorites when were dating many years ago in our Mix-tape days. Tim and I were able to smile, hug, take solace, get in the car, and do something hard.

The music would not have touched me if all of these other things hadn’t happened to help me be open to the idea of COMFORT coming to us through varied ways. I would have just thought-- “Wow, my cell phone is jacked up!”

So, I realize I’ve been being eased into accepting this comfort, from the Bible verse showing up on my phone that first terrible night, friends telling me they sensed Jack was reunited with my mother in heaven, and the prescient Bible verse Margaret found last summer. It goes on and on.

Just as God has used numbness and shock to NOT let me feel the weight of this grief all at once, he seems to be giving comfort in just the right doses, lots and lots of doses, to bring me solace.

So later last night, when I heard music playing on my phone inside my purse, I wasn’t all that surprised. It was another song from our dating years. When I asked Tim what it was called, he said:

“’Song Bird’ by Fleetwood Mac.”

Of course it was.

Thanks, God! Thanks, Jack!

I'm a Belieber!

2011-10-15T19:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, I need to admit I will have very little understanding of some of what you are about to read in this post, but the lowdown is that thanks to your comments and enthusiasm after reading Margaret's sweet, poignant "grocery list" last week, I'm now starting to believe there will be a chance my little girl will get to meet Justin Bieber!

Why? Well, you have emailed Ellen, you have called in favors to your brother's ex-girlfriend's college roommate's mom. You have tweeted. No stone is left unturned!

You have pulled together to put a smile on Margaret's face, and I have to believe that something great will come of it.

Here's the thing. I don't tweet. I don't even understand it. I tried to understand it for about 5 seconds before doing what I usually do-- throw up my hands and ask my sister to figure it out for me. I may only be 18 months younger, but I know how to be the youngest child.

Then, I asked her to try to explain it in simple terms for me (and anyone else out there who might be a tad technologically challenged).

Those who are seasoned tweeters can laugh at my cluelessness-- laugh away as long as your tweeting fingers are moving! If you have any tweeting advice, like about hash tags (?) and key words (?) please let us know in the comments.

So, without further adieu, here's my sister:

How to Tweet:
Go to www.twitter.com and create an account. You do not have to use your real name. If you have a business account and want to create another just for this fun project, that is also easy to do.

Once you have created your account, use the search button (like a magnifying glass) to find the following people to follow. Click the person, then “follow.” You can also start from one of my tweets and click on the other names to follow from there. Easy peasy.

@JBLiftMargaret (our semi-official, Go Margaret identity)
@justinbieber (the real person!)
@scooterbraun (his manager)
@studiomama (his mom)
@bieberarmy (huge fan club)
@theellenshow (Ellen does lots of fun things like this to help people)
@tumblegrom (family friend)
@tumblegrommom (the brains behind this operation)

Unless you have followers, no one will see your tweets. SOOOO, tweet directly to the people above by starting your tweet with “@justinbieber” or whoever you want to have see the message. Please also include “@JBLiftMargaret” in your tweet to tie them all together (see Heather’s tweet below). You only get 140 characters so sometimes it is a challenge to get the size down. I have tinyurls for some links to the blog (Yes, I found out how to do that, too! See above) and the Fairfax Times article (Thanks, Heather! See below) that you can copy, or you can just re-tweet (RT) our posts. To do that, click the little thing that looks like recycle arrows. Except square. And only two arrows.

Heather's sample tweet: @justinbieber please hlp ease Margarets pain, her bro Jack was killed in a flood last month tinyurl.com/3gkdc2 She<3s U! @JBLiftMargaret

I included the link to Margaret’s shopping list in most of my tweets. Every time I read it I long with all my heart to give her what she really wants, Jack.

Since we can’t do that, let’s try to do this. Justin Bieber gets tons of requests on his time, so it will really take an OVERWHELMING amount of attention for this to happen. I think we can do it.

In the meantime, I am just thankful for something to do.-- Auntie

Rare Bird

2011-10-13T21:04:00.000-07:00

Jack did not nap until he was 14 months old. That was not fun. But he made up for his crabby, exhausted babyhood with early development in a few areas that amazed and delighted us. For example, he used baby sign language from a ridiculously young age.

Above his changing table was a mobile made of origami cranes. Every time I changed his diaper, I would give the mobile a swing, and the paper cranes would swoop and swirl above his head. Jack made up a sign for “bird” that let me know he wanted to see his birds, or any bird for that matter. It was a little wave of the wrist, hand held high, and he did it OFTEN.

On that same changing table, at 7 or 8 months, he spoke his first word, “bird.” I videotaped it for daddy at work so he would believe me. No worries there, because once Jack started talking, he never stopped. And spelling, and rearranging the letters of the alphabet forward and backward, and sounding things out—like the word “semaphore” in 3-year-old preschool. At the time, I had no idea what a semaphore was. Jack filled me in.

Thus started the circus act of “Mommy and Jack,” as I proudly showed people all the amazing things he could do. He seemed so mature for his age, doing intricate puzzles and mazes, and building things. It wasn’t until later that I realized that while those things came so easily to him, other things didn’t, such as transitioning from one activity to another, handling disappointment, or staying quiet in class.

The realization that my beloved wonder-child was not perfect rocked my world. It helped me to quit being so smug and judgmental of other people’s parenting, to consider that other people struggle in ways we cannot see, and to be more accepting when baby #2 came around with her own distinct personality.

My inward celebration that I had hit the jackpot (the jackpot!!!) with my 2 particular kids never once slackened, but my heart did grow bigger, and I’m thankful to Jack for that. And so grateful that time and perseverance helped Jack grow into himself-- a smart, funny, caring, likeable 12 year old boy who loved God, his family, and his friends.

In those early years, we spent a lot of time bonding with babies and mommies in our home and at the park. This daily time together kept everyone sane. One of those dear mom-friends, in setting out to write our family a sympathy letter, instead wrote us an incredibly beautiful poem, and I’m honored to share it with you here:

Rara Avis
for Jack

“Bird” he signed,
Pudgy fingers fluttering.
We marvel and clap.

“Bird” he spoke,
“Starts with B”. So smart, so young.
We wonder and smile.

”Bird!” he yelled.
Too loud for the classroom rules.
We correct and sigh.

“Bird”, he imagined,
In stories, games, and colored bricks.
We admire and dream.

“Bird”, he joked
With apt and joyful humor.
We recall and laugh.

“Bird!”, he declaimed,
Confident upon the stage.
We bravo and beam.

“Bird” he became.
Why must he fly home so soon?
We call out and grieve.

“Bird” we weep,
“Come back here! You’ve flown too high.
We cannot see you!”

“bird”, he whispers,
“Let my wings enfold your heart.
We will meet again.”

Thank You, Jack: Patience

2011-10-12T14:55:00.001-07:00

Jack taught us much about patience, and not just because being a parent requires patience, which it surely does, but because HE was a patient person. He was patient with us when we made rookie mistakes raising our eldest, or “Practice Child,” as he once called himself (See Thank You, Jack: Forgiveness at a later date).

Even from Jack’s youngest years, he realized there was value in waiting.

For example, Jack would ask for Lego gift cards for his birthdays and Christmas. He saved them up from season to season until he could buy something he REALLY wanted. Just this summer, he took $400 in Lego cards to the mall to buy special sets he had wanted for so long. That took patience. It actually pained Jack to see friends “squander” their money because it was burning a hole in their pockets when they could have saved it up.

Jack was patient in the face of estrogen or low-blood-sugar-induced-mania from his mom and sister. He kept his mouth shut. He didn’t engage. Sometimes he just quietly walked away (See: Mom’s Great Wolf Lodge Meltdown, Class Party Psycho Mom, or pretty much any post labeled “Molly” or "Vacation").

Jack also saw value in waiting for a project to come together. When he, Margaret, and their friends had lemonade stands this summer to raise money to decorate a clubhouse, he was in it for the long haul, making up weird songs by the side of the road to keep morale up, never expecting parents to jump in and pay for everything as some parents do. He simply enjoyed seeing the project progress bit by bit.

Doing a 3,000-piece puzzle would be like Chinese Water Torture to me, but for Jack and his dad, it was an enjoyable exercise in patience.

I think of our favorite TV show, “The Amazing Race.” Tim and I watched for years, but we did not feel the kids were old enough for it. On Monday mornings, Jack waited for my edited synopsis of what happened on the show the night before. He kept better track of the contestants and their idiosyncrasies than I could, without ever seeing the show! Each new season, he would ask, “Is this the year we can watch Amazing Race with you?” For a long time, the answer was “No.” When we did start watching as a family, 2 seasons ago, he was overjoyed.

And speaking of tv shows and movies, Jack loved it when Margaret had a sleepover at someone else’s house, because that meant he could watch guy-type movies such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Transformers, and Pirates of the Caribbean. You see, when our family watched movies together, it was most often something that skewed younger and more girly, usually about a girl and a dog-- you get the picture. But Jack knew that if he waited, with the DVD’s in their paper mailers for days, weeks, and sometimes months, he could watch something special and guy-ish with his dad.

Patience.

It was harder for Jack to be patient with himself. He could get very upset in class. And, during one sports season, he had major trouble accepting close losses. Later, he would beat himself up for getting so upset. “Mom, why did I act that way again?” But Jack persevered, grew, and matured, and in later seasons was able to serve as an example to younger boys who might have been struggling with similar issues.
.
Jack also had to be patient as his body grew. He did NOT like being so short, or so thin. He did push-ups and sit-ups to grow stronger and began eating a lot of foods he had spurned when he was younger and his diet consisted primarily of cheese.

I remember taking a walk with him, my arm around his shoulder. Up ahead were his dad and grandpa. I told him that what he was seeing was his future. Being so thin and wiry as an adolescent was hard, but when his friends were dealing with beer guts in about 20 years, he would most likely still be built like a 16 year old—just look at Dad and Popi! Jack smiled and told me that it didn’t really help very much right then.

Patience is hard.

And you know, I KNOW that Tim, Margaret and I are going to survive this devastating loss, this nightmare. This ripping away in an instant of what was dearest to us.

I know that in my mind and maybe even with a teeny, tiny part of my heart. I know that, but it doesn’t really help very much right now. But I’m not going to rush it. I’m going to try to be patient.

Thanks, Jack.

You Say Potato, I Say Nut Sack

2011-10-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

A few weekends ago, I was sitting in the kitchen with my sister and her son. Her son is exactly 9 months older than Jack. You see, 13 years ago I came home from a few days of helping my postpartum sister take care of her sweet baby boy and gave Tim the “green light,” if you will. The result? Two boys like brothers from another mother. One short, one tall. One from the country, one from the 'burbs. Each the other’s biggest fan.

Jack’s cousin misses him terribly.

He and his mom sat at the counter sharing Jack stories, as my mind reeled with should have beens. I said to myself, “Jack never got to have a phone, or send a text, or go on a date! He never got to read the latest book in the Inheritance Series, which I already promised I’d buy him for Christmas. He’ll never get to ace his PSAT’s, be in a high school play or go to the freakin’ prom! He’ll never fall in love! He won’t even get to be a teenager! He’ll never get to sit around with his friends doing gross teenage guy things like using words like 'nut sack' or lighting their farts on fire. Never, Never, Never!”

Eyes filled with tears, I looked up at my nephew, who was still reminiscing, and I heard him say this to his mom:

“We loved looking at that book together. Jack thought it was so funny that the guy’s last name sounded just like “ball sack.”

So there IS that, I suppose.

Not Fall, Too!

2011-10-11T11:46:00.000-07:00

I saw a gorgeous tree today with green and orange and red leaves, the first full glimpse I’ve had of fall, and it made me want to gouge my eyes out.

I thought, “Not fall, too, God! Not fall!” Because fall is my favorite time of the year with colorful leaves, the promise of a fresh start, new school supplies, pumpkins, sweater weather, and good hair days.

And truthfully, it has probably been my favorite because the other “popular” season, spring, was so brutal for so long. For me, having lost my mom in spring when I was 18, that season meant the pain of audaciously beautiful flowers, Mother’s Day, and Memorial Day— a season which obnoxiously insisted on glowing every year, despite the pain it represented. The fertile promise of spring seemed wasted on me. The pungent smell of soil, which used to entice me, just reminded me of loss.

It wasn’t until 12 years ago, when Jack came along and changed everything, that I was able to reclaim Mother’s Day as a day to rejoice. Mother’s Day? I was now a MOM! What an honor. What a privilege. And over the years, experiencing spring through the eyes of the kids, of buds and blossoms and rain puddles, I was able to enjoy the season again, too. Spring was Jack’s birthday, but was also my rebirth.

But now? Fall sucks. And Back to School? Not ever going to be a time of rejoicing for me, I don’t think.

So what does that leave me with? Summer? In Virginia? With frizzy hair, mosquitoes, humidity, and kids playing in the street late into the night, but not my kid? Of family vacations with one extra space in the room, on the couch, and at the table?

Or winter. Are you kidding me? Don’t even get me started on the short, bleak days, the ice storms, and…Christmas.

So the seasons and the cycles and all the things that make us look forward in anticipation? I’m not feeling it. At least not today. That glorious tree seems like a personal affront.

The View from the Backseat

2011-10-10T06:13:00.000-07:00

When we got a new car a year and a half ago, we specified Captain's Seats. After 8+ years of being crammed next to each other on a 2-person bench seat in the minivan, Jack and Margaret could use some personal space, we figured.

What we noticed, though, was that Margaret kept sticking a foot across the way, or reaching out to poke Jack. She would do anything to get all up in his business, including leaning way out over the aisle to try to put her head on his shoulder. In short, she missed him.

How much more must she be miss him now that he's not in the back seat with her at all.

Even though I wanted him to grow- grow- grow, I guess the fact that he never got big enough to move to the front gave Margaret a little more time with him.

I'm including our last video clip of them-- a blurry little snippet, just a few seconds long, because it seems to capture a little of their relationship. Margaret is bored on our beach trip evacuation, so she's holding up the camera, pretending to look at pictures, but secretly filming Jack as he is engrossed in a game.

He throws out his summer's favorite phrase and answer to anything: "my butt." She uses a funny voice to try to engage him, but he's not biting. Finally, he throws her a bone. He says something to crack her up and then flashes his million dollar (okay, $5,000) smile.

It's the little things, and the big things that make this so darn hard.

If it Could be So...

2011-10-07T08:32:00.000-07:00

Tim and Margaret were running errands on Tuesday and Margaret made a list of what she wanted:

Oh how I wish it were that easy. We want him back too.

Seriously, though, if ANYONE has any connections with Justin Bieber, please use them! This is one time I think it's perfectly acceptable to play the sympathy card.

And speaking of famous people, for Jack's Little League banquet in June, he had to fill out a questionnaire about himself. One question asked what famous person he'd most like to meet. His answer? "No one." After two emails back and forth between the sweet mom in charge and me, I finally asked him why he couldn't just choose someone. He said, "I just think it would be really awkward to meet someone famous. What would we talk about?" Good point.

That kid knew how to make me smile.

The Bridge: One Terrible Night

2011-10-04T15:35:00.001-07:00

A few weeks ago I thought my biggest problem in the world was that I’d gained 10 lbs over the summer. I may have mentioned it to you here a time or three. But as you know, everything has changed:

We sat around the table doing homework by candlelight a la Little House on the Prairie. The electricity was out, and we were psyched. Driving home a few minutes earlier had been an adventure, as we made our way through flooded streets that looked like a river of chocolate milk. We saw our favorite tiny ponds overflowing their banks. We drove home a different way because we knew that the little bridge on the road outside of our development would be flooded, and it was.

We planned to make nachos for a snack, but with no power for the microwave, that was a no-go. I put out apple slices with peanut butter and we talked about how great school was going, particularly how excited Jack was about English, and Science, and Bible. This was promising news from the brand new world of Middle School!

The rain picked up and a knock came at the door. Friends, playing in the rain. Giggles all around, with a “Go for it!” from me and they were out the door. I don’t know how many times I’d told them of the crazy fun my sister and I had tromping through and even “swimming” in the flooded dips and valleys of our yard as kids, but I do know I had told them. Dear God, I wish I had never told them. My last sight of them was 5 soaked, happy kids, walking down our driveway toward the cul de sac, Jack, in his school uniform, doing a full spin with a huge smile on his face.

I crawled under the covers and by camping lantern read a magazine article about a family that left their affluent lives behind to live in an RV and serve the poor, city by city, in two month stretches. Could our family do something like that without killing each other? Not a chance, but I liked the fantasy, so I folded down the page to share at dinnertime.

Here’s the thing: I may have heard thunder at this point. You know those parenting moments when you let something go on too long against your better judgment, but you do it anyway? It could be a play date that quickly turns to crap just because you needed a little more adult time with the other mom, or a party you know you shouldn’t let your teenage daughter go to, but you are too tired and fed up to deal with any more drama, tears and arguing. So I’m pretty sure I heard thunder, but I didn’t listen.

I talked to my husband on the phone and said we might go out to dinner because the lights were out and all sports practices were canceled. But we decided traffic would be awful and we’d just forage from the fridge when he got home. So I let the kids stay out longer, later, until just after 6. After all, it was much lighter outside than in.

Then my husband called from the road and said he saw lightning, and I heard thunder in earnest, and went to get the kids. This meant getting in the car because I didn’t want to get soaked. What is fun for 10-12 year olds is not so much for 41 year olds. When I reached the cul de sac, they weren’t there. My daughter walked down the street toward me, having felt a strong urging that she should come home. I had her get in the car and asked where Jack was. “In Joe’s back yard,” was her reply.

Not a single thought of our neighborhood’s paltry little creek entered my mind at this point, only the danger of lightning, so I waited a few seconds wondering which gate I should use as I harrumphed about having to go out into the pouring rain. I walked down the steep, steep steps of the backyard that led to a normally anemic little creek of steep banks, rocky soil and a few inches of water. I had never been in this backyard before.

As I called Jack’s name, Joe’s mom leaned out the rear window of the house and said “Jack’s not down there with them.” I turned around and told her he was. Who knows how long this exchange took? 2 seconds? Three? More?

I could hear the peals of laughter of boys having fun down below, and I quickened my pace. I continued down to the bank where I saw just 2 boys, not 3. When I shouted, “Where is Jack?” They answered, laughing, “In the river!” In their shock, it must have looked funny to see him slip/slide in up to his waist, and then see him floating away, either immediately, or a bit later. For certain they were used to Jack making them laugh, and the mud and the rain and the playing were part of an afternoon that had truly felt like a celebration of sorts. Until it wasn’t.

Our crappy little creek was now a raging, raging river with walls of rushing water barreling up over the banks, and Jack was gone. How late was I? One second? 10? A minute? Two? It could not have been more than that.

Shouting his name, running through underbrush, losing my flip-flops and holding up my soaked pants, I had the feeling that he was already gone. But I’m kind of like that. A defeatist, if that’s the word. I watched my own mother die in a hospital bed and never even said, “Turn away from the light! We want you to stay with us, dammit!” I’ve never been a fighter and have always just kind of felt like bad stuff happens, so why not to us?

But this was my CHILD, so my self-talk went something like, “Don’t give up, Anna! Do what other mothers would do. Don’t give up. Jesus help me, DON’T GIVE UP!” But truthfully, I couldn’t see how my 70 lb child could have survived even a few horrifying seconds in a current that was making 2000 lb cars bob along the roads.

Yelling for one neighbor to call 911 and another to look for Jack, I ran to the car and began driving. I had to get out of the neighborhood and down to a bridge, where I knew the rushing water led. Traffic was stopped because of the flooding. I drove the wrong way down a two lane road honking my horn at oncoming cars, and I got close, but I became fearful of our safety. I could feel my mommy-saving instincts folding up inside of myself as hopelessness set in and seconds ticked away, so I turned back, driving through a neighbor’s yard in order to turn around, leaving deep ruts that are there today. I didn’t think it would be many, many precious minutes before rescue workers could arrive.

Closed roads, no electricity, that fact that rescue workers couldn’t get there and weren’t familiar with the creek's name, one middle-aged cop sent to mosey up and ask me questions like my son’s name, our address, where he went in, and whether Jack could have been pretending, talk of a “500 year” or “1,000 year” or whoever-the-hell-cares-year flood of epic proportions. A fenced-in yard where for 7.5 years my kids had never, ever played, so the fact that it opened to a creek at the bottom was completely off my radar. A neighborhood creek that was such a non-issue for us that we’d never once warned the kids about it.

And the bridge. I tried to tell the workers to go to the bridge, yet I couldn’t even remember the name of the major road that we’ve lived off of for 8 years to explain what I meant. Neighbors ran along the banks, and some went in the water, endangering themselves to try to find Jack; Jack and Margaret’s friends watched in shock. Soaked through, I wondered what moms did in situations like this. Should I pull off my soggy yoga pants so I could run freely down the banks in my underwear without falling? Or was all of this just too, too crazy?

I held my friend’s hand and knelt cursing and praying on the grass. But I didn’t go in the water. I quit yelling. I went home to wait, just as the police told me to. I didn’t run to the bridge, where they found him 2 hours later in the murky darkness.

A night of shock and terror, made more macabre by police with flashlights inside our darkened house, and a sobbing little girl saying, “But I don’t want to be an only child!” Prayers and preachers and sobs and words like “identification” and “medical examiner” and “autopsy.” Friends holding us and sitting with us, and my sister driving through the night to be there. Sobbing to my husband 100 times saying,“I am so, so sorry! I am so, so sorry!” and not being able to stop.

There’s so much more to tell you, of news trucks crowding our street, of neighbors shielding us and carrying us, and of love, love, love pouring out from our friends, our family, our community, our God. Of miracles big and small. Of friendships strengthened and relationships renewed. Of the growing impact of one little boy’s life.

But those are not the stories for today. This is the horrible story that hurts to write and I know it hurts you to read. The story of going to a funeral home. Of deciding to see my son’s body. Of keening and screaming and running out the door, only to be greeted by a news camera across the street, with a well-coiffed reporter on an impossibly sunny day mercifully not realizing that the shrunken, shriveled woman in a 12 year old boy’s sweatshirt, staggering through the parking lot looking for refuge, for any car to sweep her up in, was the prey she’d been stalking all day.

The reporter didn’t realize that this was the broken woman who had told her kids to go ahead and play in the rain. Who had warned her kids about lightning and salmonella and sexual abuse and pornography and STD’s and bullying and collapsing tunnels of sand and snow, but who had never given the creek one single thought.

A woman who, while completely and utterly confident of her son’s immediate presence in the loving arms of the God of the Universe, would feel physical and mental anguish every moment of every day but most keenly when, at least 4 times every single day, she had to drive over the bridge where they found her little boy.

The View From the Back Seat

2011-10-03T06:19:00.001-07:00

After Margaret's soccer game yesterday, as Tim drove a little too fast and swervy on the highway for our tastes, this is what we heard from the backseat:

"We're coming, Jack! We're coming!"

Gotta love that little girl.

For some of my favorite backseat chatter from the kids, check out this post.

I'm Your Worst Nightmare

2011-09-27T16:17:00.000-07:00

...or at least I know I’m living it right now. And I hate that. I want to inspire you, make you laugh, and make you feel better about this whole hard, wonderful mothering and life thing. But instead, the very thought of me breaks your heart. When I cross your mind during the day, or for some of you even in the middle of the night, it’s like a sucker punch to the gut, isn’t it?

I’d love to encourage you and charm you right now, but all I can say is, this grief thing? A million times worse than I ever could have expected or feared. I thought I’d done pretty well when my mom died when I was 18 and she was 46. You know-- kept putting one foot in front of the other, wrote a slew of thank you notes, and stayed true to the kind of upbringing she had given me.

But THIS? Dear God! This?

Where being home is untenable and being out is unbearable and the longing is unquenchable.

There are many glimmers of good things happening as a result of my little boy’s life, many, many good things such as families growing closer, people leaning on God, and a community loving on a broken family. I aim to share those things with you on this blog because, as my sister says, “I don’t believe God caused this to happen, but I believe He can redeem it.” Amen, Sister.

But do those good things make the aching abate; do they make us miss our wonderful little boy any less? Hell No. Would we rather have our boy back in place of all of the amazing transformation that is occurring as a result of his short but generous little life? Hell Yes.

By the way, does anyone else find it interesting that after almost 4 years of blogging in anonymity and using very proper language (except for an occasional reference to pantiliners) that now, when my “cover is blown” and people know who I am, I feel the need to curse more than ever before? And, now that my former English students know who I am, I can’t seem to stop beginning all of my sentences with “And and But?” Oh well. I really don’t give a crap.

The truth is, there has been so much going on here, by way of warnings and comfort and…otherworldliness…that it can only be from God. The foreboding both Tim and I got one week before the accident when we found out some important dynamics in our environs were shifting. The weird moment on our evacuation ride home from the beach when Margaret turned to Jack and told him she had a feeling he was going to die young (He just kept on reading Oliver Twist.) The unbelievably prescient Bible verse God gave Margaret six weeks before the accident. The list goes on and on. I do not know what to make of it, but it is surely something.

For those of you who were unable to be at Jack’s service or listen to it online , I want to make sure you know of something very special that happened the night he died. Our electricity was out because of the storms, and if I ever post the gut-wrenching account of what happened that horrific night, you’ll understand more about the role the lack of electricity played in Jack’s death. But it did serve as a measure of comfort as well.

I sat on the couch weeping, rocking, keening, and reading the Facebook posts that poured in all night. The electricity came on at about 2:30 in the morning and Tim came downstairs to plug in our cell phones. When he plugged mine in, instead of my password screen and regular app screen coming up, a Bible application, open to a particular verse, popped up. The only one who had ever used that app was Jack, for school last year, under a fair share of duress at Bible memory verse time. Here is the screen shot:

What comfort. What a gift. Thank you.

Then, this week, as the numbness started to wear off and the pain seeped into my bones, I plugged in my phone for charging and something else popped up. This image is from a different Bible memory app, also used only by Jack, almost a year ago. Here’s the screen shot:

Just a picture of Jesus, with the words, Follow Me.

Believe me. I’m trying. I’m trying. I won’t quit trying.

And on the past two Thursdays since his death-- in a month of rain and clouds and the kind of days that have elementary teachers turning toward the bottle at the thought of one more indoor recess-- at sunset, at the exact time that Jack was missing that horrible Thursday night, the rain stopped and we were met with the most amazing, vibrant, multi-colored sunsets we have ever seen. The sun set right over the paltry little creek bed, now almost dry, where Jack left this earth in a rush of raging water. Many friends in our town saw the sunsets and thought of Jack.

So there are feelings, nudges, and blessings, and we know God is part of all of this somehow. And I don’t want us to forget about that as we navigate this waking nightmare. So I’ll write what I can here.

And we don’t want you to forget about us, either. All four of us. Our sweet Jack and the three left here to mourn, and miss him, and figure things out.

Not-So Outrageous Fortunes

2011-09-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

We were eating Chinese food supplied by my friend Michele last night. With all the love pouring in from friends during this wretched, wretched time, I will not be cooking again until nearly 2012.

Having 3 at our table for four was excruciating, as we tried out our "new normal" for one of the very first times.

We talked about the beef and broccoli, and I said how Jack would have probably done his whole dramatic fake throw-up thing if we made him eat it. Margaret defended him, saying that during all of those years of forced broccoli consumption, it had been REAL throw up. Ewwwww. Kind of like when we made her eat quiche.

I guess you can imagine our dinner table has not always been as...sedate...as it was last night.

Fortune cookie time came, and Margaret opened hers first.

It was a tad too "alternative lifestyle-ish" for her 10 year old sensibilities, so she passed it on to her dad:

I hope so, I sure do. Please pray for us.

Then came Margaret's new one:

Yes, Dear God, yes please.

And mine? Sounds about right.

Then we told Margaret about how, when we were dating, Tim and I got two of the EXACT SAME FORTUNE COOKIE MESSAGES one night.

They read, "Being Faithful to a Trust, Brings its Own Reward." We thought that was pretty cool and that maybe, just maybe, after nearly FIVE YEARS OF DATING it meant this whole "Tim and Anna" thing could work for the long haul.

We asked Margaret if she thought that sounded romantic.

"Romantic? I'd just call that budget cuts at the old fortune cookie factory!"

It's good to have laughter amidst all of these tears.

How to Contribute in Jack's Name

2011-09-20T17:28:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for your love and support. I am almost, almost but-not-quite-yet ready to get back on here and write and rant and process and share and cry with you, my friends.

But first, I know a lot of you have been asking for ways to make the world a better place in Jack’s name. In addition to one of Jack’s favorite charities, Operation Christmas Child at Samaritan’s Purse –- (there is a button on the second page of the donation process to select a memorial card), there will be a scholarship set up in Jack’s memory at Dominion Christian School. If you would like to contribute to this fund, please send a donation to:

Dominion Christian School
10922 Vale Road
Oakton, VA 22124

There is an additional fund that our family will be able to use for future projects in memory of Jack. We are excited to include Margaret in these decisions. Any contributions to this fund may be sent to:

Jack Harris Donaldson Memorial Fund
Apple Federal Credit Union
PO Box 1200
Fairfax, VA 22038-1200

Thank you for your loving support during this heartbreaking time. Above all else, we are grateful and dependent upon your prayers as we figure out how to live and breathe. Your outpouring of love has been amazing, and we are thankful that so many of you have been touched by Jack’s life.

Listen to your Auntie

2011-09-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

Read at Jack's Memorial Service on Monday:

This is a message from Anna's Sister, Jack and Margaret's Auntie.

There is much more to say about Jack than I can possibly take the time for today. School friends remember him as smart and kind and funny and the life of the party. I’d like to tell you about the Jack I knew and loved and will celebrate for the rest of my life.

I have always marveled about how smart Jack was – he was an artist, a brilliant reader, a mathematician, and a serious student of the Bible. He was so gifted in so many ways. He loved creating stories and solving mental puzzles. During our last visit he and his mom solved a logic puzzle that the rest of the family had to Google to solve.

And as most of us know, Jack loved his Legos. Jack’s passion for Legos was bigger than life – they were not just a toy to him, but a creative element and a very likely future career. Even when he was very young, he built complicated sets that would challenge adults. My kids and I always thought that Jack would become an engineer or an architect. He was curious, careful, methodical, and tenacious in his studies and his relationships.

He was always conscious of doing the right thing, even when everyone around him didn't see things his way. In that way he could be very serious. But he also had a lightness about him. I understand that he could get silly at school, but the Jack I knew was the kid I would want my kids to hang around to keep them on the straight and narrow.

Things weren’t always easy for Jack, but as he grew into himself, he settled into a place of joy that I pray each one of us will find again someday. He was an authentically joyful person. We know that joy is different from happiness. I am not trying to paint Jack as constantly giddy. I am talking about a deeper joy despite circumstances. What a lesson. Jack found joy in school, his friends, baseball, his church and above all his family.

He so loved his Sister, Margaret. He knew Margaret was special…full of light and life and love. He knew he was blessed to be her brother. Jack never teased Margaret like other brothers do- he never took his little Sister for granted. He was Margaret’s partner, her playmate, her best friend, her protector and her comforter. She was all of these things to him, too. Margaret’s loss is immeasurable.

Jack was also such a gift to his cousins. He and Isaac loved late night talks about anything and everything. He wow-ed his cousin Caroline with his intelligence and humor. Jack was a great listener. He cared about them and who they were and what they loved. He became genuinely excited about their interests. He often put his own ideas and desires on the back burner to allow others center stage. And doing this made him happy, not jealous. This was the source of Jack’s unique joy – it came from his unusual ability to internalize the joy of others and keep it for himself. To let it become a part of him. He did not express envy in the face of others’ success, or boredom when people expressed interests he didn’t share. He was able to take on the joy of others and keep it for himself. Instead of allowing the joys and successes of others to diminish him, he allowed it to fill him up. Jack also was the joy of everyone who loved him.

This tremendous loss is ours, not Jack’s. I am confident that Jack is blessed and whole and perfect and finally getting all of his questions answered at the feet of his Savior. My prayer is that God will somehow redeem OUR loss in this life. I am desperate to find ways for Jack’s legacy to live on in my life. I am determined to find redemption in this heartbreak. …I am aiming high. In Jack’s honor, I want to-

Be kind. Jack was a gentle, loving and kind soul.

Pay attention. To details, to other people’s feelings, to God’s work in my life and in the world.

Think. Quiet time is time well-spent. Jack asked good questions and took this time to think through good answers. He also knew that some questions would not be answered in this life, but that contemplation has value anyway.

Play. Be creative, experiment, think things through from every angle and share my gifts with the world. When I enjoy something, I want to enjoy it BIG. And play together. Throw a ball in the yard, even if the to-do list beckons. Snuggle and chat at bedtime, even if it is late.

Never give up. Focus on my call, my art, my joy, my task and see it through.

Be patient. Good things are worth waiting for.

Internalize the joy of others. I pray that God will help me learn to do what Jack did…. To find my own joy in the joy of others. I want to relish other people’s happiness regardless of my own circumstances, like Jack did. My beloved nephew Jack was unimaginably selfless for a 12 year old. Jack found the secret to lasting joy. Borrow it from others and keep it forever.

In closing, I will tell you one last lesson we can learn from Jack’s life. I believe that Jack’s ability to find joy was a gift given to him by his parents. There is no parent on Earth who loves his or her child more than Tim and Anna love Jack and Margaret. Not a day of Jack’s life passed that they failed to tell him how much they loved him, how proud they were to be his parents. There is no child who felt more secure in his parents love than Jack did. He was taken from us too early, but somehow Anna and Tim filled a lifetime of love into Jack’s twelve years.

So Please- for our Jack –

Be Kind.
Pay Attention.
Think.
Play.
Never Give Up.
Share Others' Joy.

And every day- tell your loved ones how treasured they are.

Untitled

2011-09-14T11:38:00.001-07:00

We'll talk. We'll talk about the regrets and what-ifs and the senses of foreboding. We'll talk about an ache so deep that it can't be named. We'll talk about the excruciating pain of looking at neighborhood kids playing outside my window today, on a day that is impossibly, infuriationgly sunny. And the feeling that I want to hug those kids so tightly, or scream at them because they are alive and my kid is dead. Or both. We'll talk about backpacks still on hooks and clothes in the laundry basket and favorite foods in the fridge. We'll talk about how my kids' blog names were different from their real names so no one would come murder us in our beds. We'll talk about how I really don't give a shit about that now. We'll talk about news cameras. We'll talk about neigbhors holding us up when we couldn't stand. But for today, my friends, when THERE ARE NO WORDS, I'll share with you what I read at Jack's service yesterday. Because, though spread far and wide, though we may not have met in person, you ARE my friends, my people. And when I was speaking in the church, I was speaking to you too. I love you.

"It’s impossible to sum up what Jack meant to us, and I know you understand that. Some of you knew him from school days where he was lively and fun and, if rumors are correct, where he may have driven at least one preschool teacher into early retirement. Some knew him through church, scouts and baseball, where he was quiet and reserved. Many of you are family and friends, who were able to see other sides to him, and some of you never had the chance to meet Jack at all. Thank you to those who have shared Jack stories with us. Please keep them coming.

Now we’d like to share a tiny bit of what he was like with us, in our family, in our HOME.

Jack was a witty, creative, sensitive and loving son. He loved the rituals of family life, whether it was holiday traditions such as going on a poem scavenger hunt to find his “big” present each Christmas, eating our annual Christmas Eve lunch at Chevy’s Mexican restaurant, staying until the very, very, very end of the Halloween Parade no matter the weather, or enjoying ice cream for breakfast on the first snow day of the year.

But he also enjoyed the simple, everyday rituals of family life such as always sitting in the same place in the balcony Sundays at church (POINT TO BALCONY), and discussing the Yankees box scores in the paper with his dad each morning. He loved the four of us squeezed together on the couch, our dog Shadow at our feet, as we watched our favorite shows. On weekends at dinner he would just say, “Tonight?” which was shorthand for “What are we going to do together tonight?” Jack loved this family. When he asked whether he could do something that we didn’t want him to, we just said, “That’s not what Donaldsons do.” And he didn’t argue about it. Not once.

You already know Jack’s passion was Legos, but he also enjoyed board games, doodling, logic puzzles, hot wheels cars and using his imagination to create clever games with his little sister. Those of you from school, fondly remember the games he made up just for YOU, and the strange, new words and phrases he introduced into your vocabulary like STEBE and “What the Johnny?” Thank you for letting Jack be Jack. He loved you.

You will hear a lot today in conversations about how funny Jack was, and he did keep us laughing at home, but you may be surprised to hear he was not a natural clown or even an optimist. Jack faced personal challenges that made certain situations quite difficult for him. Sometimes he wanted to be a more happy- go-lucky kid, like those he saw around him. I’ll never forget when he said to me, “Mom, “I know I’m a glass half-empty kind of guy, but I’m trying to be more glass half-full.” And he never quit trying.

I remember telling him, when he was very upset about something, “Your emotions may seem too powerful to you, and that is hard, but they are part of what makes you YOU. I love you, I love the way you are made, and I am proud to be your mom.” During these times of struggle he never said, “Why me?” but instead leaned on his special verse from the Bible, “Nothing is Impossible With God.”

Jack loved his neighborhood, and was a homebody at heart. We decided to cancel our pool membership because Jack just couldn’t be bothered with going ALL THE WAY across town to the pool. When his dad and I talked of getting a new house someday, Jack said we shouldn’t, because we could never find a neighborhood as nice as ours. His happiest memories this summer were playing with the neighborhood kids and his sister, whether it was soccer in the Smith’s yard, playing Manhunt at night, having lemonade stands, or swimming in the neighbors’ pools. I think he would be proud of how our neighborhood has come together to show so much love to our broken little family during this horrible week.

Jack was a great big brother to Margaret. One of his favorite things about our annual beach trip was getting to share a room with her. He thought she was cool. He appreciated how she wasn’t a “girly girl” and would gladly play pretty much whatever he dictated. They had very different, yet complimentary personalities—vivacious Margaret and more serious Jack, a little like their Mom and Dad, you know?

Often, when he wanted to see if someone in the neighborhood could play, he brought Margaret out as a scout to do the talking for him. She also tried to help keep him organized by helping him turn in permission slips that otherwise would have sat in his backpack for a month. I think they knew each other better than most siblings do. Margaret was constantly giving Jack unsolicited advice about his hair. Speaking of hair, let’s pause to remember Jack’s great head of hair. Margaret and I liked for him to keep it short, so we could always see that cute little part in the front that we called “Jack’s Floop.”

We were so happy to have the kids in the same school so they could be together and share those memories. It’s something that helped keep our family close. We were looking forward to 2 more years with them together at school. This year I asked if Jack would tutor Margaret in Latin. I offered to pay him $1 to tutor her, and pay her $1 to PUT UP with him as a tutor.

The most tender part of the day for Jack and his dad was their evening catch in the yard when they talked about his Lego creations, their fantasy baseball team, and the Yankees.

The most tender part of the day for Jack and me was bedtime, when we would snuggle in the dark. This is when he would open up and really talk about important issues. Each night, whether it had been a great day or a hard day, ended with my telling Jack how much we loved him and how very proud we were to be his parents.

And we were, ALWAYS-- he was so quirky, and tender and gentle toward us. The whole family got excited about what Jack was excited about, whether it was playing Macbeth in the school play, or trying to predict who would win America’s Got Talent.

Our time with Jack was too, too short, but I’d like to tell you a story about some bonus time I got with Jack that I cherished. One summer I was driving Jack to camp in Pennsylvania. When we pulled up at the gates, there was no one there. NO ONE. I looked at Jack and I was about to cry, because I had gotten the day wrong! He gave me a HUGE smile—a cross between “my mom is a nutcase” and “hey, this is pretty cool!” We got to spend a day and ½ hanging out in a little Pennsylvania town together, having rare one on one time, and we even went to Frank Llyod Wright’s Fallingwater, a dream for Jack, the budding architect. Bonus time. Precious time.

You’ve heard that Jack was a deep thinker. He wondered about a lot of things. In fact, as a five year old he said the first thing he would ask God when he died was why the heck He created mosquitoes. I think he knows now. The rest of us will just have to wait.

I want to tell you that the concept of eternity scared Jack. It just seemed, well, a little too long to him. Then, 2 years ago at summer camp, he had a conversation with his counselor. They discussed heaven and eternity in a way that helped Jack to stop being afraid. In fact, he was excited about heaven! He didn’t understand why people were afraid to die because he truly believed that there was no better place.

Sometimes at funerals, people tend to portray the person who died as perfect. Jack, who consistently insisted on the truth, would not have approved. We would all agree that Jack was NOT a perfect person, nor are you, nor am I. We do not have to be. But we do know Jack was an amazing, generous, gentle, loving child who blessed our lives and was the PERFECT son for this family.

Our handsome Jack, our sweet boy, died in a tragic, senseless accident. We all wish we could turn back the clock. Our hearts are breaking for what could have been.

But you know what? We truly believe our homebody Jack is HOME now, in a better HOME than any of us could ever imagine."

For more about the service, please see my friend Glennon's blog.

Our Beloved Son

2011-09-11T06:21:00.001-07:00

His Life Verse: "Nothing is Impossible with God." Luke 1:37

5th and 7th Grades. Wow.

2011-09-07T06:12:00.001-07:00

Charlotte

2011-09-02T07:54:00.000-07:00

My friend Kathy is a planner. When we get together for girls’ weekends, she has incredible restaurant suggestions for us. She knows which art exhibits are coming to town. She and her husband actually go on vacations together because she researches and plans and budgets for them, rather than sitting around wondering, “Why don’t we ever dooooo anything?” Kathy plans; Kathy achieves.

For Kathy, planning meant college, and law school, and marriage, and 2 kids. Which did happen, but not the way she planned.

When her second daughter, Charlotte, was a baby, Kathy noticed that it took Charlotte longer to do things than it had with her first daughter. Those of us a few more years into motherhood told her not to worry, that Charlotte was just fine. I must admit we probably thought Kathy just didn’t get the whole “babies develop at different rates” thing. We may have thought Kathy needed to relax a little.

But Kathy knew. She knew something was different about Charlotte. Kathy spent hours and hours teaching Charlotte to crawl and walk, when other babies did that on their own. When cutie-pie Charlotte started talking, but then lost those words shortly thereafter, Kathy’s friends and family finally began to fathom what Kathy had been trying to tell us all along.

Doctors’ visits, profound fear and sadness, whispered words like “autism,” and feelings of hopelessness entered Kathy’s well-planned life. No one knew what was causing Charlotte’s delays. And no one in our small sphere of friends even had the context to deal with what was to come. You see we were still in the pregnancy and potty training stages where we talked about lack of sleep, chafed nipples and pre-school spats. Depression, OCD, divorce, bullying, learning disabilities and other messy topics hadn’t yet entered our lexicons.

And then came Rett.

Charlotte was diagnosed with Rett Syndrome, a neurodevelopmenal disorder that affects girls almost exclusively. It is characterized by normal early growth and development, followed by a slowing of development, loss of purposeful use of the hands, distinctive hand movements, slowed brain and head growth, problems with walking, seizures, and intellectual disability. Rett girls cannot speak. Many are in wheelchairs. Every two hours a girl is born with Rett Syndrome.Who knew?

As Kathy said, “We were circling the drain.” The sense of loss for the life Charlotte could have led was staggering. The stress of making decisions for Charlotte’s care was enormous. This was not what Kathy planned for her precious little girl. Kathy felt doomed to a life of sadness.

But slowly the fog began to lift. The planner in Kathy used those skills to educate her family about Charlotte. She helped organize events to fund Rett research. She marshaled her talents to get Charlotte an array of help from amazing teachers and specialists. She plugged into a school system with vast early intervention resources, which even placed Charlotte in a special-needs preschool class right next door to her big sister’s kindergarten.

And most importantly, Kathy bonded with other moms with children with severe challenges and realized she was not alone. And do you know what she saw when she looked at these women? They laughed. They cried. They ran. They had sex with their husbands. They drank wine. They went to Disney. They had more kids.

More kids? “Two and then Through” became a thing of the past. On the practical side, Kathy and her husband did not want their older daughter to bear the sole responsibility for Charlotte’s care when she grew older. So Kathy and her husband jettisoned their plan for two kids and well, forged ahead, if you know what I mean.

But if Kathy hadn’t already learned some lessons about planning before, she did now, when the doctor told her she would soon give birth to not one, but TWO beautiful, healthy girls. Twins!

An orderly life of work and play and 2 kids, is now the busy, bustling life of a house of 4 girls. A happy house that rings with laughter, and tutus and art tables and…. personality!

Charlotte is cherished by her sisters and their friends. Through her, they are learning about differences and love. The twins, even at age 3, already nurture and care for big sis Charlotte. She has a calm, content demeanor. She loves the water, going to school and camp, and her adoration of Troy Bolton from High School Musical went unabated for years. She likes to steal food off her sisters’ plates, which makes the whole family smile.

Kathy would never have envisioned this house full of girls for herself. Just as she would not have envisioned having to share her house with home health aides and specialists and large-sized diapers. Planning and structure are still there, because they are so needed, but so is a degree of acceptance and relinquishing control beyond Kathy’s expectations. This acceptance has led to a rich life and the kind of life lesson none of us asks for but some of us get.

As Kathy wrote to me, “...I am grateful that Charlotte taught me never to give in to sadness. And because of Charlotte being who she is, we now have these two creatures who make me laugh every day. It is hard to imagine not having the twins, but I know for a fact that I never would have tried for another baby if Charlotte had been a typical child…I am sure people feel sorry for me because of Charlotte’s diagnosis. And I know for a fact that people feel sorry for me because I had twins. They are probably so thankful that they are not me. And that’s OK. But I know for a fact that I am lucky. I have four daughters and I love them all with my whole heart. And they are all wonderful and needy and loving and frustrating and sweet and annoying. None of them are “perfect”—except to me!”

Kathy prays that medical research and breakthroughs will help Charlotte and other girls with Rett, and she hopes you and I will be a part of that.

To learn more about Rett Syndrome, or to make a donation for much-needed medical research, please visit the International Rett Syndrome Foundation.

And today, in whatever situation you find yourself, when you may be thinking as Kathy did, and as I sometimes do, “This is NOT the life I signed up for,” remember that you are never alone.

Pottery Barn Hack-- Metal Baskets

2011-08-29T10:32:00.000-07:00

Do you ever save pics to your computer, and then "lose" them? I haven't figured out Pinterest yet, but when I do, I hope to be better organized with my inspiration photos.

Well, this itty bitty before and after project has been waiting for you for a while, but looking for the (gone forever!) inspiration pics took me longer than the actual project did.

This project was inspired by dark metal baskets in the PB catalog holding fresh white towels. You'll have to trust me on this.

I found 3 Elfa hanging drawers at the thrift store for less than $2 each.

Then, I spray painted them with Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.
Voila! Industrial-chic towel baskets!

Love them! Alas, my bathrooms are too small to have them sitting jauntily on the floor like in the PB dream-world.

What other uses can you think of for these refreshed cuties?

Vacation Round-up

2011-08-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers,

Thank you for weighing in on whether or not I should read the bathroom copies of Us Weekly, etc., on my beach vacation. For the record, I did NOT. Considering, however, that we got evacuated Thursday morning because of Hurricane Irene, there's really no telling if I would have held-out had we stayed at the beach an entire week.

Highlights of the trip:

Hanging out playing cards and drinking wine with dear friends.

Reading Oliver Twist aloud in the car.

Watching back to back episodes of Friday Night Lights thanks to Tom and Netflix.

Private pool.

Perfect Weather, impending hurricane notwithstanding.

Date night with Tom. Out by 5:30, back by 6:30. Are we sizzling or what?

Yes, I'm wearing a shirt.
Speaking of back by 6:30, when I saw the pics Molly took of us before we left, I realized I was having An Inch of Gray Emergency. Nothing like capping off a hot date with some Root Touch Up on the deck. What a guy!

North Carolina Aquarium. We even saw box turtles mating.

Evacuation Trip to Great Wolf Lodge.
My face looked a lot like the kids' did when I realized that after almost a week of earnest-- okay obsessive-- lice prevention at the beach house (plastic bags, sequestered pillows, lots of laundry), I would have to rest my weary head at a KIDDIE RESORT. Oy vey.

Fine dining.

Yes, that's leftover beach house fridge salad, saved in a cooler for dinner at Great Wolf Lodge. Tom wanted to pizza delivery; I wanted the buffet. He thought the buffet was too expensive. Soooo, we ordered the kids the buffet and we adults sat there with ice water, scowling at each other.

Instead of breaking down and ordering, which I really should have done, I stuffed my face on bag salad, cheese, and Oreos back in the room, before falling asleep in bed-- with Molly. Nothing like keeping the aggressive in passive/aggressive.

Tom and the kids had fun on the awesome slides...

but none of us feels compelled to go again. It just wasn't really our vibe. If we're not even going to spring for meals there, you can bet the resort didn't get buy-in from us for: building our own wolves, having a robot serve us ice cream, getting kiddie pedicures, filling plastic cups with candy ($8!), and sporting temporary tattoos.

Let's remember that when Tom took Jake to Legoland in California, he bought him a $3 Lego mini-figure as a souvenir, and when I took Molly to the American Girl Doll Store in NYC, I got out of there having spent just $19. I would tell you that our entire honeymoon cruise bar tab amounted to $2.50, but that's simply too depressing.

Simply put, it was time to come home.

So now we're home, the laundry is in the machine, and we're awaiting a hurricane that may or may not batter the East Coast.

And you? What are YOU doing as summer winds down?

Beach DO or Beach DON'T?

2011-08-22T10:51:00.000-07:00

As I mosey down the boulevard of broken boogie boards, also known as a family beach vacation, I desperately seek the advice of my wise friends.

The dilemma:

If your rented beach house had a basket chock full of tempting and trashy magazines such as Us Weekly, Star, Cosmo, and People, would you read them?

Yes, you say?

Well, what if this basket was in the main BATHROOM of said beach rental?

Would the gross-out factor of reading a magazine that has been read by many strangers, in the most intimate of settings, override the siren song of learning about what Nick and Vanessa are doing, whether Lindsay is in jail or not, or who will star in the movie adaptation of "The Hunger Games"?

For now, I'm going with the gross-out factor. No promises as the week progresses. What do YOU think?

A-Door-Able!

2011-08-18T11:42:00.000-07:00

Sorry to be so quiet these last few days.

I was taking our side door (and primary entrance) from this:

To this:

I was hoping the black would tie in with our new sensor-light (Lowe's) and also help hide some of the inevitable grime the door gets. The old paint was matte and off-white which showed EVERYTHING.

I love it! What do you think?

I hesitate to go through the steps I used because there are only two, and I'm not sure if you should copy me. I just taped off the windows (annoying!) and painted it with 2 coats of oil-based black paint I bought on clearance at Lowe's. The grill around the window is plastic; the door itself is metal.

If I were to do it again, I'd do it in a less smelly, more environmentally friendly way using primer and latex exterior paint.

For a step-by-step lesson on painting a door using that method, check out Sherry and John's blog. They happened to paint their door the most adorable yellow the same day I painted mine.

Good thing I still have a front door-- I may need to go yellow!

What's in Anna's Head

2011-08-12T08:46:00.000-07:00

So I've written before about some of the crazy stuff that goes on in my head.

Like when I wake up and think maybe, just maybe, I've lost 10 lbs in the night. Then I step on the scale and become, well, genuinely disappointed.

How if I get an email or a phone call that indicates that someone "needs to talk" to me, I immediately assume I'm being fired, chastised, blamed or upbraided for some unknown offense.

Or how when I was all of 10 or 11 years old, I'd keep my movie ticket stubs in case I needed to prove my whereabouts if hauled into the police station for some crime I didn't commit. This from a pre-pubescent girl with a Dorothy Hamill haircut and terry cloth jumpsuit.

Or when I'm at an awards ceremony and hear, "The next recipient knows what it's like to grow up a poor, African-American boy in rural Alabama..." and I'll think, "ME? Could it be? Me!!"

Or how whenever someone didn't want to date me, I'd just assume he was gay. Not that this didn't happen to me a few times over the years (Hello, Ill-fated Study Abroad romance!) but it certainly couldn't have been true EVERY time. Could it?

Well, lately I'd kind of convinced myself that one of my friends, who wasn't ever available to hang out with me, must be suffering from debilitating depression, and/or agoraphobia. How else could she possibly stand not being graced by my presence or that of my charming family? Let me tell you it's kind of hard to keep this fiction going when she seems to have a rather full and fulfilling life even without my taking a central role in it.

So, on this beautiful Friday, I'm just wondering if anyone else is up for sharing some of the weird/unfounded/narcissistic stuff that pops into your head?

Anyone?

Crickets.

Before and After: Pier Chest

2011-08-09T17:19:00.000-07:00

My computer seems to be happy tonight, so I'm putting up another post while I can!

Found this Pier Chest on the side of the road. Peach paint, except for 2 drawers that had goopy brown paint. I was afraid that some of the hardware was missing, but was thrilled to find it in one of the drawers. Yay! A big THANK YOU to whoever was throwing it out.

This was the perfect time to try Annie Sloan's Chalk paint for the first time! I used Duck Egg.
No priming or sanding; I just painted 2 coats on with a brush. Then, I brushed wax on 2 of the drawers, but I didn't like how it looked kind of streaky and weathered, so I just painted another coat of paint right on top.

It left a lovely, matte finish.

I sprayed the hardware with Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint.

I like how it looks like it is smiling at me. What do you think?

Linking up to Piece of Work Wednesday at Primitive & Proper.

Almost-FREE Decorating Ideas

2011-08-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

So my computer died and I can't upload photos from my camera. I have to limp along on a borrowed computer and use cell phone pictures. If you can excuse the poor photo quality, I'd like to share 4 no-to-low cost ideas I used in Molly's tween bedroom re-do.

1. Ribbon drawer pulls. This inexpensive dresser previously had TWELVE knobs butterfly knobs that Molly didn't like anymore. I did not want to pay for 12 new ones, which would probably have cost more than the dresser itself, so used satin striped ribbon for drawer pulls. Because the drawers glide open easily, the ribbon is an easy, inexpensive solution that will last a long time.

2. Carpet tile area rug. The shag rug we wanted from Target was 60 dollars, which was more than I wanted to spend. I went to a carpet store and asked for carpet samples. They gave me as many as I wanted for free! I put them in a pattern I liked, flipped them over, and used duct tape to secure them to each other. When I flipped them over again, I had a rug for ZERO dollars!

3. Spray painted hardware. On the room's other 3 dressers (yes, I know-- too much furniture!) I spray painted the hardware to match the room. This should be an easy change when Molly wants to change her color scheme again (ugh!)
4. Duct taped stool. Molly's new bookcase is very tall. Fortunately, Tom secured it to the wall for me. Still, I needed a way for Molly to reach the top shelves. We found an aged (gross!) step-stool on the curb and I covered it with turquoise duct tape. Nearly free and super fun! Colored and patterned duct tape is very popular with the tween and teen set right now. In fact, I think Molly's favorite part of her room was the extra roll of duct tape I gave her to go with it.

Before:

After:
So there you have it. If I've learned one thing from my kids, it's that their taste in room decor does not last forever. Having some free-to-low cost projects helped me create a fun room without breaking the bank.

Molly's Room, Before and After

2011-08-08T13:09:00.000-07:00

Extreme Makeover, Tween Girl Edition has wrapped up over here. Okay, maybe it wasn't that extreme, but between priming, painting, gluing, moving and fluffing, re-doing Molly's room while she was out of town kept me pretty busy last Wednesday-Friday.

For those who haven't been with An Inch of Gray from the beginning, let me show you some before photos of Molly's room, which we last painted a mere 3 years ago.

We did a leopard print and pink theme that we were both excited about, but that we grew tired of before the paint even dried.

BTW, can you tell Molly is a dog lover?

The blinding pink paint was annoying from the start, and the chippy white paint on most of the furniture was more shabby than chic.

I primed and painted the ceiling, painted the walls a very bright blue (B. Moore Tropicana Cabana), and repainted the white furniture, spraying the handles blue. Although the paint is extremely bright, I hope we'll enjoy it longer than the pink.

Unfortunately, the big surprise was ruined when Molly glanced at her cousin's facebook page in New England and saw what I'd been up to.

Fortunately, she LOVES it! We went out together to pick up a few trendy lime green accessories at Target yesterday to make it truly her own. She is tickled (blue!) and grateful for my hard work.

I must admit, however, that I may have created an HGTV monster, because she did observe that the paint lines between the ceiling and the walls could have been a tad crisper. Sheesh!

Here are a few Afters. Let's hope this room carries her well into her teens:

New bookcases: Target.

Old curtains and bed skirt: Walmart. Bedding, lamp, storage ottoman: Target. Bedside table: dumpster dive.
Chair: Target.

Old dresser was my mother's.
Old mirrored dresser-- my sister and I called it "The Underwear Drawer" growing up. Can you imagine why?

Tune in tomorrow when I share with you 4 almost-free projects in this room!