Day 85 of 365 Days of Being Thankful

        Today I am thankful for the Easter gifts my friend Debbie sent me!  All of the things in the photo above are for Amy except for the rainbow! Dan and I will take them to the cemetery on Sunday after church.  The rainbow was painted by her granddaughter Brielle, aka the craft queen. Who could not love and be thankful for this adorable colorful rainbow painted by a very talented New York painter? It makes me happy just to look at it!

  Brielle even signs and dates her crafts for me!  I just love receiving the things she makes. Debbie also sent us all candy!  Olivia and Olya love when we get a box from Debbie because they know she always sends something for them.
          Debbie is just too funny for words!  She should do stand up comedy!  The last box I sent to her was for Valentine's Day! She said to me "I hope all the candy was for me because I ate it all!" We both lost our teenage children the same year.  Debbie is the close friend I wish I never had cause to know, but I am so thankful that she is in my life.  We are united as bereaved moms and close friends.  When we were all at Debbie's daughter's wedding, her husband Vinny said to Dan, "you have three daughters? You poor bastard!"

And, yes, even though I didn't need to eat my bag of candy, it is half gone already! Debbie and I use to be in a chatroom on MSN which has now closed all chatrooms.  We met the first year our kids died.  Every night about 8-10 of us would be in the room chatting. That chatroom saved my mind and my soul.  I knew that there were at least 10 people in the world who knew exactly how I felt. I didn't leave my house for four months and only then, because I had to go back to work. I went to work and then came home and sat on the couch until the evening when the other moms came in the chatroom. We even all met in NY one weekend.  Looking back, I should have joined a support group but I didn't have the emotional energy to go out to a group. I also met my friend Chris, another bereaved mom, who lives in New Zealand.  Chris lost her little daughter Lucy the same year I lost Amy. Lucy was only four when she died.  New Zealand and the U.S. have different time zones.  I was up most nights because I couldn't sleep and it was daytime for Chris so we would chat for hours. Chris had two preteen daughters at the time that Lucy died.  She later decided to have another baby and now also has an adorable son.  Bradley must be about  14 now. Yesterday was her birthday, so Happy Birthday Mate!
         About two years after Amy died, I went to a Compassionate Friends support group meeting.  A woman who sat next to me told me that she had just lost her husband and three kids in a car accident.  I said to her, without thinking, why are you here?  And she said to get some support and I hugged her.  What I meant was...........why are you alive?  I never said that to her but if that were me, I would have jumped in front of a train or taken an overdose of sleeping pills. My life is so hard without Amy, I just can't imagine how hard it would be to  lose my entire family at one time.  I remember the story about Madonna Badger, a woman from CT who lost her three daughters and her parents in a house fire many years ago. I think about her all of the time.  How can one move on from that?  I saw an interview she did with Oprah on Super Soul Sunday.  I only heard the end of it.  But the basic message was that she was can go on because of the love she had received from her daughters and her parents and that love sustains her.  Poor woman.  Most of the bereaved parents at that Compassionate Friends  meeting had lost infants, or toddlers or had miscarriages.  They had photo books of their deceased babies that they would photo shop with new holiday outfits. They passed the photo albums around.  I never judge how any bereaved parent copes but that just so weirded me out personally and was so upsetting that I couldn't think about going back to another meeting. So I am also thankful for my online support group that helped me through the first few horrible years of my grief. I think that bereaved parents need to get support in a real support meeting or a church bereavement group, a chatroom, or an online support group.  I now belong to two support groups, one I help at and one I run and organize. I just love all the moms in my daytime support group so much.  They are some of the nicest moms I have ever met and they are all so supportive of each other. It often amazes me that the people with the biggest broken hearts have so much love and support to offer to others. My friend Lisa is so funny.  She always says "I couldn't leave work fast enough to get to the meeting."  My best friend Priscilla is in my nighttime support group. She is such a role model of strength.  Her daughter Krissy left behind a baby girl when she died.  Priscilla is very close to her granddaughter even though she lives six hours away.  Priscilla visits her once a month and attends all major functions:  dance recitals, First Holy Communion dress shopping, First Holy Communion, etc. Her granddaughter Keara has a dad that fosters the relationship with Keara's mom's family and that is a wonderful thing. Priscilla even took Keara and her father camping last year and brought along her other granddaughter so that the girls had time to be together. Priscilla and I are jealous of each other.  I am jealous of Priscilla because her deceased daughter left a child behind for Priscilla to love.  And Priscilla is jealous of me because I don't have a grandchild left by Amy.  Priscilla says she worries so  much about her granddaughter growing up without her mom.
      My friend Kim, from the nighttime support group lost two sons.  Her pain is definitely more difficult than the rest of our group.  She is always upbeat and sweet.  She is raising her grandson who is the son of one her deceased children. Kim is so pretty, she looks about 35!  She has long blond hair, she told me that one of her deceased sons loved her long hair so she keeps it long for him.  How sweet is that? My friend Carol, who started the nighttime group, lost her son Sean in a motorcycle accident.  She had her son's motorcycle key copied and gave one to each of her three daughters.  When I heard her say that, I got a lump in my throat.  Bereaved moms do whatever we can to keep our children's memory alive. And we do whatever we can to help other bereaved moms because we know the depth of their pain and sorrow. I feel so fortunate  and thankful to have wonderful friends who have supported me during this lifelong grief journey.