Snug as a bug in a rug...

I'm only one mom out of billions that says this at bedtime.  I am sure of it.

This is not going to be a happy post.  I have a lot on my mind due to some recent events and I have to get them out..it's the irrational motherly fear in me and if I don't let it loose it's just going to sit and fester like a wound.

Nick and I have these friends.  We've always gotten together for dinners, lunches, a birthday party or two...we have standing Detroit Tiger game dates (this is all them..I'm the odd Boston man out). 

These friends had a little boy right after Thanksgiving that they named Andrew.  They hoped and prayed for him to come along for a while.  They were as happy as they could be even though he had some heart issues.  He had surgery and all was well, he was just waiting to come home.  Instead of coming home he passed away unexpectedly. 

I know this isn't about me in the least..but death does weird things to people..the death of a child will wreak havoc on your mental status if you don't work it out I'm finding.

As a person you think, oh..how terrible, I can't imagine, that's horrible.  As a mother you wonder how are they getting out of bed in the mornings?  How do they find the strength to even open their eyes?  I have three kids and I can tell you that it's the most unreasonable and irrational thing...all three of them make me whole, but if I lost even one of them I would feel as if I'd lost everything.  Mathematically, physically, scientifically..any way you look at it it makes no sense but it's no less true.

It is my worst fear realized...by people I know and love and that deserve nothing but happiness and bliss.  I honestly can't even find words that come close to describing how sorry I am for them.  In fact the words "I'm Sorry" feel and sound a pretty pathetic attempt. 

They woke up that morning and had a world and lifetime of possibilities and joy ahead of them.  Piles of laundry, countless late nights, mounds of dishes, hundreds of disagreements, dozens of birthdays and Christmases, thousands of snug as a bug in a rugs...and it was heaven.  Okay, so it may not sound like heaven but trust me..I would never lead you wrong. 

It was why they got up and made the trek to the hospital early in the morning and stayed until the wee hours of the night..or in the mother's case, why she never left.  It was just that.  That word.  It's very powerful.  She was finally a mother..and when she went to bed that night....

I can't even say it. 


I know you never stop being a mother..but what do you call a mother that no longer has children?  Your children define you...they are the reason you are called "mother" after all.  It changes you, that word.

I think the second day could only be worse in one way.  They had to wake up and realize it all over again.


I just had to get all this out...to work through it because they are constantly on my mind and probably will be for awhile.  Andrew will be buried on Wednesday..in the midst of the world moving and flowing like nothing is wrong.  People will get up and go to work or school...they'll cuss and swear and say how much they hate this and hate that.  They'll rush here and there and yell for the kids to do their chores, homework.  Somewhere a kid will think their parents are the biggest assholes on earth and maybe even wish they were never born.  It will still be heaven. 

These parents that should be celebrating his long anticipated arrival home will be putting him in the cold, hard ground instead.  There will be no warm hugs...no snug as a bug in a rug.

I'll be spending the remainder of that day breathing in the scent of Aiana's obnoxious teenager perfume that I swear has permeated the walls in and around her bedroom..and smelling the warm coconutty smell of Aurora's hair while she reads me books that mostly annoy me.  I'll be sending Avery a million and one "I love and miss you bunches!" texts and waiting for the reply that always comes.."I love and miss you more then bunches".  Thanking the heavens above that they saw fit to bless me with three healthy kids and trying not to think too hard on the fact that I'm not sure what I've ever done to deserve them.  I'll hug them tighter and take a few extra minutes tucking them in..snug as bugs in rugs. 

My hope in writing all of this down...my goal to try make sense of it is to tell you that no matter how bad it is.  How loud they scream and cry, how many times they break a cell phone, how many mounds of laundry and piles of messes they create, and the marathon late nights that the parents out there are still in heaven....it's a messy heaven, but heaven none the less.