Easter Week and Missing You.

I thought Easter would be really hard this year. I prepared myself for the grief to creep up my back and into my skull. I practiced breathing into it, forcing a smile back towards it, so that my boys wouldn't notice anything but the thrill of finding their baskets and over-sugaring themselves at Grammy and Pap's house. 

It wasn't hard. I didn't really feel much. I went for a run and I drank a few beers and the kids had fun and I went to bed. 

So you can imagine my surprise when yesterday, your absence hit me like a ton of bricks, a barreling train, a knife to the throat, no creeping sadness, just crushing hurt at the disappearance of your light from my life. 

Maybe I prepared myself too well for Easter. Maybe I just didn't give myself time to allow you to cross my  mind. 

I hope you aren't hurt that I avoid dwelling on you much, but the thing is.... I can't. I lose so much time. I think of you and suddenly, it's evening and I haven't done a damn thing. I get so lost in it, the overwhelming, all-encompassing, never-ending-ness of your death. It's a lonely and shitty place to be, you know? I would have called you to talk to you about it, to see what you would say, but you're gone and I can't. And so I sit and try to summon the courage to imagine what you would say. 

It just-- it feels like I'm drowning, my body, my head under water with my clothes and hair swirling, dragging me down, and I keep reaching my hands up above the surface, waiting for you to grab on and pull me out. I'm free falling from a tall building, a tower, a ledge, and I'm not scared but I wish you would catch me. I wonder if this is what it felt like to be you. 

And, you know, I thought that the summer days and the warmth and the sunshine would make me feel better and make things seem easier, but the truth is, I miss you so much more in the light of day. I just keep expecting you to show up. I keep thinking I could call you, maybe, you would pick up, maybe I could take the boys to finally see your place and go to the park like we said a million years ago but then things always came up for one of us so I didn't ever make it. I keep hoping you'll text me and tell me you're in the area and you were thinking you might stop by if I'm home. 

And then the tears come again and I am picturing you in a million ages and I keep thinking about leaning over the casket, how I watched a tear fall onto your chest, how if this was a fairy tale, my tears would have brought you back to me. 

I wish I hadn't wasted so much of your life being mad at you. If I could go back in time, I would do it over and over again, just to be with you. 

I miss you. 

Still so heavy.

I keep having this dream. I'm driving home from Mom & Dad's, but I'm younger. Or maybe I'm older. I'm not who I am today. It's nighttime and it's raining, pouring down, so hard that I can barely see the road..... but all of the houses have these ponds in the backyard. And there are helicopters in the ponds. No, actually in them,  underwater, with the thing on top spinning, making small waves, smaller than what they should make. The sound is deafening. They're looking for someone..... Someone is missing. They are looking so hard, and it is such a desperate search, they're in all of the ponds. It has this strange Jurassic Park feel to it.
The thing is, I know that who they are looking for isn't in those ponds. I don't know who it is, but I know that they are gone. I feel a grim and heavy weight in my soul over this, but I don't tell them that their efforts are fruitless. I let them hold onto their hope, even though I know there is no hope. I just keep driving.

I am floundering.
See.... I think, right now, the worst part about grief is when you begin to feel like you should be getting your shit together again.
Has it been too long to be falling apart this way?
I am so lost without you.
I can't concentrate on anything.
I can't breathe.
And I can't fucking feel right, it's like... there't this thin layer of film between me and any real feeling. It's there... but it's like I'm holding it with latex gloves. I can feel it, but I know it's not the real thing. I'm laughing and I am crying and I am raging, but I want to rip these gloves off and touch it with my bare hands.

I don't know who I am without you.
I don't know who I am at all.
I want to reach out but I can't bring myself to actually ask if anyone else feels this way. How could I? I don't want anyone else to feel like this.
 Like a part of me is literally gone, as if a part of who I am has been ripped away and now I am left to question everything I thought I knew.
Like how I knew you were invincible, even when I yelled at you that you weren't.
Like how I knew you would always be there when I needed to call you, even if I wasn't there for you.
Like how when I forgot details about some funny story from when we were little, you would be there to fill them in. Now it's just me, telling a story, not us, sharing a memory.
Like when I thought I might be remembering something wrong, I could always ask you, because you remembered everything.
Like when I thought I was totally fucked, you would always be there to tell me it would work out. And then it would.

But now you're gone, and I just am in total disbelief.... but if I am really in disbelief, then why am I so heartbroken? Why do I cry every night, as quietly as I can, why do I cry in the car, why is your favorite band the only thing I want to listen to, why do I wish I was locked in my room growing up with you across the hall telling me to come out?
Why do I picture you standing here, asking me what's going on, picture you shifting you weight from foot to foot, never standing totally still, and then feel like I have a puncture in my lungs, a slow leak, letting out the air I need to breathe in?
God, I hate this more than I can put into these stupid fucking words that don't mean anything because they aren't bringing you back to me.
And I want to not be mad, and I'm not, but I want to scream at you anyways because I was counting on you, you know? And you fucking let me down.
I'm sorry. Because I hate that I think that, and also because I don't REALLY think that.  I hate that because I let you down so much more and I wish that I could turn it all around, reverse the clock, save you, save you, save you.
When in reality, this probably hurts so much because I always knew you would be there to save me. To say the right thing. To listen to me bitch. To laugh at my kids. To do everything first. To let me know it's not so bad.
And time isn't slowing down, the world doesn't care that I need more time and every day is further away from the last time I saw you laugh, the last time I called you, the last time I laughed at some horrible meme you posted on facebook, the last time I heard you change the words to a song to a version you liked better.
I just don't know how to be without you.
I wonder when I will figure this out.

Messages to my dead brother; part I

When we were younger, after Mia had died, I did this thing. I imagined all of the people I loved dead. Systematically, I went through each loved one. I have continued this weird evaluation ever since. I imagined how it would feel to lose you many times. If I love you, I have imagined how I would feel if you died. I pictured the immediate and I pictured the future. It's not even a conscious thing anymore, it's just a weird tic, a gigantic cry for help, a defense mechanism from the horror of losing a piece of the fabric that holds me together. I have to admit, my imagination must be awful. I never mustered up the shattering heartbreak that is you being gone.

Chat Conversation End

It's Been 4 weeks.

Time is funny now. It's been a month since you died, but my world seems to have come to a stand still, so a month doesn't seem right. I've begun to process how life is without you and I have to tell you, I hate it.
I never knew how much I counted on you being there until you were gone. That's a shitty thing to admit, huh?
I spend most of my time holding it together, because I don't want my kids to have memories of their mom crying all the time. I just want them to have a happy childhood. I want them to not worry.
But the other day, I listened to a song that made me think of you, that I didn't know would make me think of you, and I cried so hard my vision blurred and I felt my body being stretched into a million shattered pieces, and Silas walked into the kitchen and sat beside me until I pulled the pieces back together.
It is amazing how much care a little boy can take with a broken grownup.

I call Mom every day now.
I cry in the car anytime I'm alone.
I wish you were here to tell me it was going to be okay. I wish you were here to be angry at. I wish you were here to cry with. I wish you were here to help me.

I wish I would have helped you.
I think back to a specific night, the one before you birthday this year. You were spiraling. You called me, you had nowhere to go. You had overdosed two nights before, I knew you were still using because you didn't want me to know. I told you to go to a hospital. I told you to go to a hospital and then rehab.
I know you wanted me to ask you to come stay the night.
I wanted to tell you to come over.
But I was afraid. I thought that you needed to do it on your own. I thought that I should listen to what the experts said. I called Mom to tell her what was going on. I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing, but I know that she wanted you to come over too. But I wanted to be absolved of it, of this sin of turning my brother away.

I wish I would have told you to come over.
I think about that all the time.
I wonder if you would have known that you could always stop by... I wonder if things would have turned out different.
I remember when you came home from Florida, I remember you saying you didn't like being away because it was weird, not having somewhere you could always just go. "There's something about not having anyone," is how you said it, and I remember that made my heart stop for a minute, and I wonder if that's how you felt. It brings an awful metallic taste to my mouth and I hope that you knew that we were all always here, we just wanted you to really be here too.
I hope that you are finding some peace up there. I miss you every day.

Dear Mia....

This year, on your birthday, I didn't make any posts about you on social media. I thought of you when I woke up, when I ate breakfast, as I scrolled my feed, but it felt distant to me. Kind of surreal.
I remember thinking that this is a new stage for me, that maybe this is what truly healing from your loss was like. I felt sad, because at the end of the day, when I went to bed, I thought of you again, and I thought I should acknowledge your birthday better, that maybe I was betraying you somehow by not.
But I went to sleep anyways, because you are dead and no 'happy birthday' post was going to change that.
And then, a week later, Justin died, too. And I am floundering.
So now... on the anniversary of your death, I don't know what to do.
You have been gone longer than you were alive this year. This year, you have been dead for half of my life. Am I forgetting you? Am I losing you more because of this?

I have spent hours... whole days, weeks, imagining you. Who you would be. Who I would be if you were here. This week, I wonder if you had lived, would Justin also have lived?
Would we have partied the way that we did in high school and after? Would you have joined us or warned us?
I picture you as an adult, as a 23 year old woman. You would have worn your hair long, I am sure of this, after the chemo had stripped you of your hair, if you had healed, you would have grown it out. Long and wild and sassy. I picture you as a mixture of me and pictures of girls who I think look like you.
I wonder what you would have decided to do. I don't know, so I picture you in all kinds of professions. I wonder what you think of me now. I wonder if you miss me, too.

Did you know that he was going to die? Is that why you eased my grief for you in a week that normally tears me apart? Did you know that I would be so bitterly jealous of the two of you being together again, while I was left behind to learn how to live without you both?
To be clear.... I don't want to die. I just want to talk to you again. And it is so unfair.
In my darker moments, I wonder if I have done something to upset the universe to have this happen.

I find it impossible to separate my grief for the two of you right now.

I cry for you, because I wish that you would have gotten to experience growing up. I cry for both of you because I wish you could know the things that growing old would teach you. I cry for me because I wish that I could share this life with you so badly.
I picture us at family functions, forcing our kids together, cracking jokes about Mom and Dad and people we knew growing up. Telling our younger siblings that they got it so much easier, even if they didn't.
I picture us at our kids weddings, at their graduations, at a bonfire at the bottom of a hill, camping out, laughing.
I pull up to our parent's house, and all I can see, everywhere I look, is the two of you, so vividly that sometimes I think you're really there.
I hope that you are. I hope that you're checking in on me from time to time.
I hope that I can live a good life, so that when I see you again, I have so many stories and experiences that I can describe to you.
I love you,
Until next time,
-Jaimee

Justin. 2 days later.

I am 5 years old and it is freezing outside. It's hard to move in my bulky snowsuit, but you are in the pine trees and calling for help, so I crawl forward with tears on my face because my hands hurt and I can't find you. You must have heard me crying, because you appeared out of nowhere, your 7 year old face creased in concern. "Jaim, I was only playing!" you exclaimed before noticing my angry red hands, "Oh man. Here, take my gloves," you said, shoving them onto me. Then, an afterthought: "Don't tell Mom, okay?"

I am 7 years old, and you are pretending to be a wizard from Harry Potter with your friend, and Mia and I keep shouting 'VOLDERMORT,' and a few days later, you let me start reading your books, and I feel like you think I'm cool.

I am 8 years old and you and your best friends are letting me ride on your quads and dirtbikes with you, and teaching me how to drive them at the bottom of the hill.


I am 10 years old, and you come running inside with a war cry. You have your paintball gun in your hands. You yell, "GET DOWN ON THE GROUND EVERYONE!" and shoot the ceiling. You didn't realize you still had a paintball loaded, and the ceiling bursts and is splattered with pink paint. I can't quit laughing as you frantically wipe paint off and arrange the plaster so that it's not as noticeable when you walk in and you ask me if I think they'll notice right away.

I am 12 years old and Mia is dead on the bed beside us. Mom is crying and you are around the corner. I am watching you stare out the window and wondering if you or I will ever be okay again.

I am 13, and I have been self-harming when you walk in and I drop the knife. You check on me for months afterwards and demand I quit wearing wrist bands once I have healed. You tell me that we have lost enough and you don't want to lose me too.

I m 14 years old and you pick up my friend and me from the movies. You have one of your friends with you and you say, "I bet I can knock that barrel off the road man." When you bust the front passenger side, you talk me into telling mom she did it.
I had just turned 15 and we had "Freyerstock" on the porch and I was convinced that someday, you would be as big as Blink 182 because you were so fun to watch.
I am 15 and you are yelling at all your drunk friends to not talk to me or even look at me at a party.

I am 16 and crying in my closet because my dickhead boyfriend has decided to torment me by saying he doesn't want to go to Kennywood anymore, even though we had plans and tickets already. You ease down onto the floor of the closet across from me and you tell me that he is not worth it, that I am worth more than this, that I shouldn't be with someone who would make me cry and to "Tell him he better watch out because if I ever catch him around here after I saw him make you cry like this, I'll beat his fucking ass."
I am still 16 and on the phone in my room when you pound on the door and tell me to hang up. I am annoyed when I open the door. "What?"
You grab the back of you neck and shrug a little with that smirk you got when you were doing something you shouldn't. "..... Kassie's pregnant?" you said, like a question, like you weren't sure. You smiled so big while I howled with laughter. You were so excited to be a dad.

I am 17 years old and we're at the courthouse, and you bring over Delaney so I can hold her for the very first time. You kiss her toes and fingers and promise that you will see her soon. She looked just like you.

I am 18 years old and we're driving somewhere. I don't know where. My Own Worst Enemy come on and you start singing and dancing around while lighting up a cigarette and I am not even a little phased as I light my own and we went off the road.
I am 19 and we're sitting on the couch while I tell you I'm pregnant and don't know what to do.

20 and you're holding my first son for the first time.
21 and too wrapped up in my own life to see you starting to slip.
22 and crying on the phone in my car, on 228, asking you if you were going to quit. Telling you that I don't want you to die.
23 at a corn maze after you came home and you're chasing my second son around and I am so happy to be spending time with you.
23 and visiting you at Gateway with my kids after you relapsed again, chasing them around, thinking you looked healthier than you had in months.
24 and you're in the hospital, holding my last baby.
24 and on the phone with you, talking about nothing.
24 and it's Christmas and I'm begging you to get clean.
It's Christmas and I am crying in my room on the phone with you and I am pretty sure you're high.
24 and you're 26 and I don't want you to die.
You've turned 27 now and you are still too young to die and you're my big brother and I don't know if I will be okay without you.
I am still 24 and I am telling you to get your shit together. I am 24 and I am telling you that I don't want you to die and you tell me that you don't want to die, either, but you don't know if you want to get better.
I am 24 and you send me a message on facebook and I message you back but when you video call me, I don't pick up because the kids are fussing and I am tired and I will call you back this week.
I am 24 and you are dying and everyone else keeps telling me it is so weird because they woke up that night but I slept through it. I slept the whole night and I didn't dream of you but at work mom came in and she told me you were dead and the only thing I could think was that I never called you back.
I am 24 and you are dead.
I miss you so much.
I wonder if I will ever be okay again.

How I Battled Post-Partum Depression with Beachbody {No, really.}

DISCLAIMER: *I would like to start this off by saying: PPD is nothing to take lightly. While my case was not severe enough that I felt I needed medication, there is no shame whatsoever if you do. If you ever feel the urge to self-harm or harm others, or if you have trouble coping to the point of disrupting your life, please call your midwife or OB, and do what you need. This is my experience, and I share in case it might help someone like me.*

As I grow closer and closer to the due date of my third baby, I've been reflecting a lot on how I felt at the end of my second pregnancy.... of how I felt after I had him....

These pictures were taken at about five days post-partum from my second son.
I remember trying so hard to get back to normal, as soon as I could. I didn't really allow myself much grace in trying to adjust to my new life as a mom of two.
I put on a pretty happy face though, because I wanted so much for everything to just be.... perfect.

I started working out at three days PP.... I was desperate to get back to the way I looked and felt in the months prior to getting pregnant with him. The weight didn't come off the way it did with my first, even though I had been much more active with my second pregnancy than my first and had nowhere near as much to lose.

More than that.... I felt very overwhelmed with life in general. I was lonely. It's a lot harder to pack up two kids under 2 years old than it was to pack up one baby, so I didn't go out a lot. There were issues in my family that made it a lot harder for my mom to get out than it had been with my first.
I think, in general, there was just much less of a fuss than there was with my first baby. Maybe that was my fault, but I just felt very alone.
Drew worked a lot and we hadn't gotten my older son's diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum yet (not for almost a whole year yet still), and his meltdowns baffled me and I felt a sense of guilt, like I was somehow failing him as a parent but I didn't know why.

I cried every single day.

And I took a lot of my anger and hurt at feeling so alone out on Drew.... I wanted someone else to blame for how I was feeling.
Luckily, he's an amazing guy, and even when I was raging against him and said things that probably hurt him, and even though we went through some pretty knock-down crazy fights in those months.... bottom line was, he supported me and he loved me through it, even though I know he didn't understand my outbursts and tears a lot of the time.

I wanted to just... feel better. I didn't actually recognize my feelings as what they were symptoms of for a long time. I felt so much crushing guilt at not being deliriously happy and at not soaking in the time with my second son fully. I felt like there was something wrong with me, and I just wanted to be normal. I took a lot of happy pictures and hid my emotional crap from the world.

This was one of the only raw emotional photos I have of me from those first months:

I kept on working out... and I kept on feeling like crap. I hated the way I looked. I hated the way I felt. I just wanted to feel connected. Most of the time I hid my face. I didn't want people to see me, because I hated seeing me.

So... then I saw this coach from Beachbody posting about Insanity Max:30. The results from the infomercials were incredible. I decided I was going to buy it. 

I posted in a mom's group on Facebook that I was in, asking about any results that people might have. One of the moms was in something she called a "challenge group," and she added me to it. 

There was this incredible community of people in this group... people who all were working on bettering themselves, all who were pushing play on these workouts and pushing themselves to their limits. It was so inspiring to me, when I wanted to quit, I would get a notification with a picture of someone's sweaty selfie and new personal best. 

I felt my body starting to change, and as that happened.... I felt my attitude starting to change as well. 

I felt happier. I felt more confident. I craved conversation and instead of feeling awkward about it.... I sought it out. I started reconnecting with friends. I laughed more. I was nicer to Drew.  I enjoyed my kids more... I enjoyed everything more. 

And so I decided that I needed to pay this forward. If working out with a community of people online  as opposed to doing this thing on my own could honestly make this much of a difference in my life, in my personal well-being.... how could I not want to be a part of this? 

It wasn't just about the feel-good endorphins that working out intensely released. It wasn't just about the results that I saw that were unlike any that I had ever achieved before. It was about the people who believed in me when I didn't believe in myself. 

It was about having someone tell me that I can do it, even when I don't want to. It was about being able to be myself, work out with my kids, set an example, and know that I had people that would hold me accountable. 

This company, the community of people, the programs..... they helped me help myself. They helped me enjoy my life post-baby again. They helped me feel like I was part of something. 

You don't have to battle your demons alone. You don't have to stay stuck in a rut of disliking yourself. You don't have to just deal with it. 

Find something that you love, find something that you can believe in... whether it's with beachbody or with anything else that makes you feel human. 

I believe that you can. Because I've been there and I believe in you, too.