Momentum

This was the background picture on my phone for the longest time. It's James with his sunglasses on before we went to the Saint Patrick's Day Parade last year in his first outfit of the day. I always thought he looked really cool.

Somewhere scattered in the cobwebs of my brain remain the concepts of momentum and inertia. If my faulty High-School Physics (the high point of my physics education) recollection serves me right, together the two have to do with the energy needed to affect movement. Inertia is roughly how much energy you need to get something going, while momentum is the force it carries as it goes. It's quite possible I'm wrong. Math and science, while interesting, were never "core competencies" of mine. Lazy child that I was, I always migrated towards the subjects that came easiest to me, English, History, and all things verbal. I can still remember the disappointment I felt when we graduated to junior high, when reading, and thus another easy grade, lost its place on the report card. Pre-Algebra proved a poor substitute.

Since James died, I've felt like what I've needed to do was gain momentum. In the first few days after he died we were going non-stop, planning the funeral, picking out a grave, attending to all the little thing that needed to happen, too terrified to pause and reflect upon what had happened. Afterwards, in the first few weeks that followed time and life morphed into some indiscriminate blur, the pain too raw and too tense for processing or understanding. Everything dissolved once that initial momentum faded away, when family and friends left for the lives they put on pause to get us through those first few days. Sometimes I think what happened to us is closer to hitting the stop button than the pause button, the film ready to be ejected, not resumed.

The act of showering became an achievement, one I allowed myself only so that I could put on clothes and drive out to my son's grave. I remember closing my eyes and thinking to myself "You have to get up. You can't do this all day. Just get up and drive." I'm sure I did more than that. I know I brought books with me. I finished several. The plots and titles are vague, as if I didn't keep them long enough in my short term memory to form any lasting impressions of the characters or the plot. The initial momentum of those first few days faded into an almost total inertia, drifting along responding only to those problems that demanded immediate attention.

Since then, things gradually improved, but maintaining momentum is not easy. The old physics concepts of equal force and what not evaporate. Small things disrupt the flow, derail the day. Leaves gathering in his swing outside, left long enough that they've begun to crumble, brown and dead. There's no reason to clean them off anymore as we once did, careful to make sure James wouldn't get dirty. Cleaning out the trunk of my car (years overdue) I discover packages sent home with us by the doctors we interviewed when Kara was pregnant, stockpiles of formula and guides that I dump directly in trash. E-mails from buy-buy baby in every inbox, the product of registering each address for 20% coupons to double up on big purchases. Like the rocker, the same one he died in. I researched rocker brands and styles to make sure we got a good deal. I've almost stopped all the e-mails now, clicking through pages of distractions to get off the lists. Sometimes these little things leap out at me and the inertia slides right back in, and I'm useless for the rest of the day, playing that image over and over again in repeat. The finality of his death comes back to me and I lose myself in it.

There have been many times that I wished for this process to be linear, for benchmarks, some kind of metric to measure my progress in. Some kind of guide that tells you how you should feel 175 days out from your son dying- Day 199 in the old count I used to keep here. Day 1 was the day James got sick. On Monday, it will be 180 since he died. Six months. Half a year, two months shy of James' entire lifetime. The laws of thermodynamics don't work though- not to measure momentum, inertia, or any of the starting and stopping in between. It's not terribly neat. Nothing about this is. The hardest part has been to understand that maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe that's just the way it is, and it doesn't matter how stuck in inertia you get our how much momentum you build, as long as you find your way. I've decided to stop worrying about how.

Thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers.

New Year's Eve

Here's James in one of my favorite cell phone pics of him, a candid James in the bath shot, from near New Years last year (how I wish the photos on my phone were time-stamped).



I never liked New Year's Eve. The fireworks, the lack of purpose, the hollow resolutions always fell flat to me. Always advertised as the biggest party of the year, I long felt I'd been sold a bill of false goods. I spent too many New Year's Eves at home and sick, recovering from one operation or another, nursing jello and resentment for my able-bodied peers. When I grew older, I became more annoyed because now it seemed I'd missed out on the foundational precepts of the holiday. The ball, the kissing at midnight, the countdowns. These all rang hollow to me, celebrations without context.

What after all, is there to celebrate? The year changes, there's nothing novel to it at all, it's not even exact- otherwise we wouldn't need leap years. One more trip around the sun, one of several billion before and several billion to come. Yet lately days have taken on arbitrary meaning to me, the 16ths and the 29ths of the month suffering under the weight of all that has come before. Time passes faster now, sometimes I feel as though I went to sleep one day and woke up six months later. The time we had with James feels so full, and all that came after so brief in comparison, abbreviated by what its relative lack of importance.

Looking back on some of the entries from our time in the hospital and then at home before we lost James, it really wasn't that long at all. Less than four weeks passed between the time when we found out James was sick and when we held his funeral, but that time was filled with so much. So many doctors, plans, and news. So much research into new types of cancer, evolving diagnoses and treatment protocols. Spurts of adrenaline- we have to do this now- interspersed with immense grief. And then, after all of that compressed into one little ball, nothing. It seems like a flash between then and now. Time itself seems split into two segments, there is Before and there is After, with the timeline delineated by a quick stab of trauma.

Perhaps that's why I'm excited to leave this year behind. I'm eager to see 12 on the end of the date instead of 11, because there are so many horrible dates that end in 11 and none in 12, so many days I'd like to leave behind, though I know I never will. Last year we took James to a New Year's Eve party and left early, as James himself quickly decided that he would have little patience for for fireworks and champagne. And Master James had complete decision making authority over all matters relating to the schedule. We made it home shortly before the New Year and it passed with barely a notice, fireworks cracking in the distance, the dogs alarmed. James slept through it all, and so we slipped into 2011 with no suspicions. This year, I intend to welcome 2012 gladly, eager for a better year. Suffice to say, if the Mayans were right about the apocalypse I am going to be very annoyed. I don't have the patience for any more life-altering disasters this year. So I'm eager to say good bye to 2011 and 2012. I just wish that we had James to share it with.

Happy New Year to you all. Thank you for all of your support and your prayers this year, we needed every one of them.

Together

I do a good job hiding it, but I'm bit of a procrastinator. It's very rare that I actually won't do something, but the longer I have to dawdle on something, the longer I'll take to do it. If anything, I'm better in a crisis, managing events that require rapid responses. This is a weakness of mine I'm aware of, but it does get me into trouble from time to time. In law school, I developed a bit of a routine to keep up with things. Monday through Friday I'd do my daily work, briefs, notes, etc. Friday nights off. Sunday evening for Monday's work. That left Saturday as a "free" day. Except it wasn't. To really get ahead and do well, Saturday needed to be an outlining day. For those of you fortunate enough not to have attended law school, outlines are like your own personal Cliff Note's for any given class. A brief summary of what's important and what you should study. The distillation of your notes. For me, Saturday was always a day for outlining, but as I mentioned, I'm a procrastinator.

The result typically was that every quarter after my first few (when I was too terrified to skip anything), once I thought I had the hang of it down, I'd occasionally skip outlining for a week or two. Like taking a second cookie or a second helping mashed potatoes, it's not something that bothers you at the time. Do it enough though, and eventually it adds up to a problem. So a few weeks in I'd find myself facing a particularly punishing Saturday, set up by my own laziness. Slowly, a sense of panic begins to set it in as you realize just how much work you've put off. I'd let it fester for a day or two, but always at some point it would end with a moment when I just decided to do it, to go in, kill a day, and just get it done. This decision was usually preceded by a little mental pep talk along these lines: "Pull it together Sikes. You need to calm down, relax, and get your stuff done. This is a waste of time. You will get nowhere doing this. Get it together. Now." For some reason my internal monologue calls me by my last name when I'm angry, much like a gym teacher. It always worked once I made the commitment.

The "pull it together" advice line is something I've used in other circumstances. Ones more important than my procrastinating on a few outlines. The first day of the bar exam, the kid on my left trembling, his fingers a nervous tap tap tap on the side of his laptop. My grandfather's funeral, sitting straight up in the pews with my eyes fixed on the casket, frightened that I'd miss the minister's cue to give the eulogy, even more scared I wouldn't finish it once I started. Before each and every one of my surgeries, fighting the nagging conviction I wouldn't wake up afterwards, even though I always did. A minute or two after we found out about James. I stepped full away from the doctor, knowing he didn't have any answers I wanted to hear. I stood by James' PICU crib, resting my hands on the railing and staring right at him, certain if I let go I'd fall down. Most of the time, it worked. The pep talk came and went, I got through it, and everything was fine.

The pep talk doesn't work anymore. Actually, that's not true, it works just fine on a lot of things. Not for James though. It's almost as if there's nothing to pull together, no core to form. The memories I have are scattered, woven together with everything and too distinct to coalesce into something I can hold together in a single moment or by an act of will. Even if I could, I don't think I'd want to. I can't summon willpower and finish this off to move on the next thing. It's been five months and I'm functioning. I've come a long way from the first few days and weeks where everything beyond my nightstand seemed too far away. I just haven't moved on. I haven't pulled it together and conquered. Maybe I won't. That's what they say in all the pamphlets, the ones the hospice sends to you once or twice a month. You don't "move on." It's more a reconciliation process. Or so they say. I just know that this isn't something I can will away.

Thank all of you for your continued thoughts and prayers. The holidays are hard, and it's good to know we have people to lean on.

Twenty Nine

I'm a day late with this, but here it is.

For me the 29th is always harder than the 16th. The 16th at least represents some sort of finality, an unmistakable conclusion. It is an end point. The 29th is full of possibilities, unanswered questions that tug at edges my composure. The improvements are noticeable but incremental. October 29th was more unbearable than November 29th. Even the monthly counting itself represents a fascination that should have been ebbing. James would have been 13 months old, over a year and rapidly heading away from the period in which age is measured in months. I don't tell people I'm 335 months old for instance, and I suspect neither to do you. At first we measure in days, then weeks, then months and before you surrender to years entirely you're in elementary school, lording your five "and a half" over classmates. James will never make that progression, and so just as he's frozen in time so are the units in which I keep calculating his age. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Five 29s gone. Almost half a year. I'm sure one day it'll stop, but I wonder when.

Each time,it seems something else strikes me in exactly the wrong way. Today for some reason is was the background picture on my phone. It's of James and Kara, posing before his last photo shoot with photolanthropy. We coaxed a smile from him and he's bouncing on Kara's hip. We don't know what's coming and we're happy. It was one of our last good days, before salt, swelling and the tumor caught up to us. His pictures are everywhere of course, but today each time I turned to my phone the dateline under the time of "Tuesday, November 29th" grabbed me. When will I change the background? There will be no new pictures. What would I have changed it to? James walking, talking, chasing the dogs? Rhetorical questions, all. It's always something.

For me, the best response is usually to do something. What isn't necessarily as important as the act itself. Work, find a new book, watch a movie, work out, it doesn't really matter. The important thing is to have something to do in order to prevent the rhetorical questions from devolving into a rhetorical narrative. I'm not suggesting reflection isn't important, it is, but for me at least it's important that it be at least purposeful. Four hours in bed focused on loss rarely helps me. There's a place for it, but I try to leaven my reflections with the good things when I can. James made me smile much more than anything else. When I can remember the good things as they were, not in the light of what isn't, I feel better. I still mark the time, but I can remember the 8 29s we had to celebrate and cherish them accordingly. This is sometimes easier in theory than practice.

So today it was the phone. We'll see what December brings. I've attached a photo of the last of James' weekly pictures. This is from his second full day in the hospital. He'd had surgery and been under general anesthesia multiple times within 48 hours of this picture, but the boy just can't stop smiling.

Thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers.

Days

Below is something I wrote the Day after James' funeral. I still keep a journal, and this is what I wrote that day. I was looking over it tonight and one line struck me. Back then, almost four months ago, I wrote that I didn't have a time table. When I read that tonight I started to wonder if that was changing, if in the intervening months I'd decided that there was a time I was going to allot to this, the same way I might schedule a meeting or plan a budget to buy a new car. I've always found a certain degree of comfort in schedules. I like to know when and where I can expect to deal with something and prepare myself accordingly. When I read this tonight it struck me that I still, after all this time, have no timetable. I can't even schedule when or how I think of James, whether it's smiling when I stumble upon a giraffe walking stick we got from the zoo, or freezing when I open my trunk and see the base of his car seat still there. For some reason I was fine taking it out of the backseat but couldn't bear to take it out of the trunk. So now I just don't use the trunk. I don't even have a timetable for when I'm taking that out, let alone when I'm going to deal with everything else.

What I am beginning to realize is that perhaps this never ends. Perhaps I'm not going to "get over it." Perhaps I'll just live with it and manage it. I don't necessarily mean that in the sense that I will lead the rest of my life morbidly depressed, but in that James and his loss are never going to fit into a neat, compartmentalized box in my life. There is never going to be a file I can index and store for this, it's always going to be there, the good and the bad. I've come to believe this isn't necessarily a bad thing. James was an amazing gift, and it was the highest privilege I have ever known to be his father. I don't want a timetable for getting past that.

The picture is a James "self-portrait" I handed him my phone with the camera on and let him play with it. He took a few select shots of himself on accident and this was one of them- he's trying to put the phone as close as he can get it so that he can get at the baby in the picture. I loved watching him do that, and I like to remember things like that, the way he played, his objectives. I don't want to forget those things.

Thank all of you for your continued support and prayers. It's been very comforting over the last few months to hear from all of you.

Day Twenty Nine

Today marks either the first day of the rest of my life or the last day of the best part of my life. I suppose it's a question of perspective. After James' service yesterday, family has slowly migrated home, back to their jobs and their lives. Friends have faded, though still supportive, the sense of urgency fades. James is buried, commended to the earth and claimed in faith. All that remains from now on is what we do with ourselves. We are left to grieve, to mourn, and to recover as best we can.

I wish I could say that I spent the first day of this new period well, meditating on James life or reflecting positively in some way. God knows I would have liked to. Instead, I did virtually nothing all day. I woke. I dressed. I showered. Each act took too long, a little more time than you might expect. Forty minutes to get out bed. 20 for the shower and getting dressed. Pauses were long, and frankly I completely lost track of time on several occasions. Focus comes irregularly, and all too often sharp on the wrong images. The background picture on my phone. The cluster of toys on the hearth, still unmoved. We haven't gone through anything yet.

I went to dinner with a friend I'd scheduled yesterday. Thai food, drunken noodles with a touch of spice but nothing overwhelming. If I hadn't scheduled the dinner yesterday I seriously doubt I would've done anything at all today. And maybe that's ok. Maybe there is no time table for what I'm doing here, maybe there's no way this ought to look. Kara and I both love schedules, exact timetables we can rely on and trust completely. I am obscenely punctual. But we can't schedule this. And so I lose days in the cemetery, days I never even knew were there. It's humbling, and incredibly enlightening at the same time.

Looking for the small blessings

Well, it's clear I'm not sleeping well.  Since I typically start blogging about 1:00 in the morning, you can tell I'm not sleeping!

In fact, I think it's pretty obvious I'm not doing so hot these days.  But- I'm trying to be honest about it.  My friends know- we're calling it my funk.  One that I can't seem to get out of.  I am so thankful for sweet friends that allow me to be in a funk.  And accept me how I am.  And understand that it's ok to be in a funk that it (hopefully) will not last forever.

My aunt told me a few weeks ago that she read in a book (she thought it might have been Elizabeth Smart's book) that Elizabeth began to look at the small blessings in her life.  And little by little she felt better.  I've been thinking alot about that lately.  Currently, I am up to being thankful for coffee.  That's about as far as I get.

So I am way behind blogging about all the ways that people have been blessing me- I have so many half-written posts, but one thing happened last week I have to share.  On Friday I went to Waco to visit some of my old (former) coworkers.  (That was for you, Candice!) On my way to Waco, I stopped by Hamilton, TX.  My sorority sister, Ashley, and her husband own a monument company.  They are so kind, and are just being so supportive and understanding throughout this whole headstone process.  As Matthew said earlier, it's not something that you even conceive of doing until you have to.  I'm so thankful to know people who can guide us so lovingly through the process.

After stopping in Hamilton, I drove to Waco.  I, of course, got behind some army convoy on a 2 lane back road, and it ended up taking me FOREVER to get to Waco.  Best laid plans, right?  I was so excited to get to Waco because the day before, I received a package.  An anonymous friend had given a brick in James's honor in front of the Bear Habitat. 

So when I got to the Bear Habitat (formerly the Bear Pit for all of us old people), I was greeted with this:

When I received the package last week, I probably cried for an hour.  I was just so overwhelmed with gratitude.  Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to find out who it is from!  But I am so glad to have a little piece of Jamesie on campus.  Baylor's campus is one of my absolute most favorite places in the world, and James would have loved the bears.

It's funny, because I've been thinking about putting that exact phrase on his headstone (or on a bench we are going to put near his grave).  I know I'm a little obsessed with that poem, but I just love it.  Nothing else seems to sum up how I feel.

Once again, I am so thankful for friends in Waco (and other places!) that can hang out with me even through my funk.  I just think that it is true, you are bound to meet incredible, amazing people no matter where you go.

I'm also thankful for school.  I honestly don't know what I would do if I didn't go everyday.  It makes me (halfway) function, which is good.  I'm learning a ton, and my classes are going well.  I'm starting to think about the MCAT which is terrifying.  It looks like I will take it in May, which doesn't seem as far away as I thought it was!

Ok so maybe I've gotten a little farther than coffee on my blessing list now.  Thanks for going on this journey with me- right now it's an up and down kind of ride.  And hopefully I don't mean that in a bipolar or schizophrenic way! 

 

And to close, a picture of my baby.  A terrible quality cell phone picture, but I love it.  He is almost exactly 5 hours old in this picture.  I love this little wrinkles.  Such a perfect, sleeping baby.  It was like once I got him on my chest, he knew that's where he belonged.  And I knew that was where he belonged.  Heart to heart.