I have spent months and month thinking about and replaying conversations I had with Timmy. We talked a lot on the phone each day and to be truthful... most of those conversations were forgettable. They were just the typical - I need to run to Walmart and why won't Savannah get her school done and I wonder what we should have for dinner types of conversations. Timmy would call just about every weekday morning when he woke up. It would be around 10am our time. Then he would call again around 4pm and then usually again around 9pm. We talked a lot about nothing at all and sometimes about everything. I wish I had paid more attention. I took it for granted. Tim told me something awhile back that may be the sweetest and kindest thing he ever said to me. He said he firmly believes that because we homeschooled Timmy that he was used to talking to me everyday. Afterall, when you are 11 years old, in the 5th grade and are home all day with your 1 year old sister and your mom... who else are you gonna talk to? Tim says he thinks it got our kids in the habit of sharing their thoughts with me. It just continued when Timmy moved 3500 miles to Alaska and even when he went to the other side of the world in Iraq. Only in Iraq instead of phone calls in was im's. It was a gift. A gift that sometimes I didn't even realize I had. I know it now and it is painfully clear from the silence of my cell phone. Anyway, that wasn't what I was really coming here to write about - but I got sidetracked. In one of our conversations, I remember complaining about Savannah and Sebastian. Something I probably did a lot. To be honest, the last few years were HARD in a lot of ways and I wasn't feeling all that great about the world. So, sometimes I was just plain and simple an Eeyore. So, Timmy asks me, "Why do you always complain about your kids... the ones you wanted so much?" It was pretty darn blunt... that was my boy... just like his mom. I sorta stopped and I said something to the effect that I was tired and stressed and did I mention... tired? He laughed at me. He said something about me getting old. Yep - that would be correct. I am older and more tired and more busy. So, I complained a lot about really nothing at all. Just to be complaining, I guess. In all the months I have been thinking about things, I try to find whatever good I can in this horrible journey I didn't ask to be on. One of the things that came to my mind was that I needed to enjoy Savannah and Sebastian more. The way I did Timmy. When we had Timmy - our lives were much, much simpler. We had pretty easy jobs, very little bills, not a whole lot of stress. Our life was predictable. For 9+ years we lived that way. I don't know why it changed, but it did. The day I found out Timmy had died, I did something that I still don't quite understand why or how. I went to the bookshelf and I got a book for Sebastian. I hadn't read him bedtime stories nearly his entire life. I am not exactly sure why I didn't, but I didn't. I had always read to Timmy and I read to Savannah until Sebastian came around. I didn't understand exactly why that came to my mind on that night. I was beyond numb and not thinking at all, but I thought enough to do that. Since then, I have been reading to him most nights. Earlier this week, I had some clarity on that when I remembered him asking me, "why do you always complain about the kids?" There IT was... the simple good that comes from the bad. When you lose a child you love more than your very own life, you need to make some sort of sense of it. I think that I have learned to enjoy my other kids more. That is not to say that I don't complain about them. Just ask my mom - she will tell you I still complain plenty. I will always have Eeyore deep down in me somewhere. I just try to do it less and less and I try to focus on what makes them the best gifts I could have ever received. That is finding good in the bad.
I have spent months and month thinking about and replaying conversations I had with Timmy. We talked a lot on the phone each day and to be truthful... most of those conversations were forgettable. They were just the typical - I need to run to Walmart and why won't Savannah get her school done and I wonder what we should have for dinner types of conversations. Timmy would call just about every weekday morning when he woke up. It would be around 10am our time. Then he would call again around 4pm and then usually again around 9pm. We talked a lot about nothing at all and sometimes about everything. I wish I had paid more attention. I took it for granted. Tim told me something awhile back that may be the sweetest and kindest thing he ever said to me. He said he firmly believes that because we homeschooled Timmy that he was used to talking to me everyday. Afterall, when you are 11 years old, in the 5th grade and are home all day with your 1 year old sister and your mom... who else are you gonna talk to? Tim says he thinks it got our kids in the habit of sharing their thoughts with me. It just continued when Timmy moved 3500 miles to Alaska and even when he went to the other side of the world in Iraq. Only in Iraq instead of phone calls in was im's. It was a gift. A gift that sometimes I didn't even realize I had. I know it now and it is painfully clear from the silence of my cell phone. Anyway, that wasn't what I was really coming here to write about - but I got sidetracked. In one of our conversations, I remember complaining about Savannah and Sebastian. Something I probably did a lot. To be honest, the last few years were HARD in a lot of ways and I wasn't feeling all that great about the world. So, sometimes I was just plain and simple an Eeyore. So, Timmy asks me, "Why do you always complain about your kids... the ones you wanted so much?" It was pretty darn blunt... that was my boy... just like his mom. I sorta stopped and I said something to the effect that I was tired and stressed and did I mention... tired? He laughed at me. He said something about me getting old. Yep - that would be correct. I am older and more tired and more busy. So, I complained a lot about really nothing at all. Just to be complaining, I guess. In all the months I have been thinking about things, I try to find whatever good I can in this horrible journey I didn't ask to be on. One of the things that came to my mind was that I needed to enjoy Savannah and Sebastian more. The way I did Timmy. When we had Timmy - our lives were much, much simpler. We had pretty easy jobs, very little bills, not a whole lot of stress. Our life was predictable. For 9+ years we lived that way. I don't know why it changed, but it did. The day I found out Timmy had died, I did something that I still don't quite understand why or how. I went to the bookshelf and I got a book for Sebastian. I hadn't read him bedtime stories nearly his entire life. I am not exactly sure why I didn't, but I didn't. I had always read to Timmy and I read to Savannah until Sebastian came around. I didn't understand exactly why that came to my mind on that night. I was beyond numb and not thinking at all, but I thought enough to do that. Since then, I have been reading to him most nights. Earlier this week, I had some clarity on that when I remembered him asking me, "why do you always complain about the kids?" There IT was... the simple good that comes from the bad. When you lose a child you love more than your very own life, you need to make some sort of sense of it. I think that I have learned to enjoy my other kids more. That is not to say that I don't complain about them. Just ask my mom - she will tell you I still complain plenty. I will always have Eeyore deep down in me somewhere. I just try to do it less and less and I try to focus on what makes them the best gifts I could have ever received. That is finding good in the bad.
