Christmas Decorations

I started putting up Christmas decorations.  I hung up Max's stocking, and Trinity's stocking.  They are right along side the rest of the family.  I am expecting some flack for this, but I NEED THEM THERE. I want to feel like they are a part of it, even though they are not.  I put up many of the same decorations, but put them in all different places.  As if that will make things better.  I have friends coming over to help me put up the trees, I am so grateful.  I have cried many tears putting up just the little bit I did tonight.

Max's Room

My therapist is like a bull dog, she just DIG, DIG, DIGS until she finds something that needs brought out.  Today, I was telling her that Wesley wants to move his bed out of his room and move a couch/pull out bed in.  We have told him no.  I know we are being unreasonable, but I have all kinds of things attached to moving beds around apparently. 

Todd & Wesley moved Trinity's bed out of Max's room the night he went to KC into the burb.  (Maybe if we never moved the bed, Max wouldn't have been able to take it back to KC and wouldn't have crashed....)  Max was going to bring home his futon from Trinity's apartment in KC and put it in his room.  The crash happened on the way home with the futon in the back.  (Which we couldn't recover, probably wouldn't have wanted to if we could!) 

So Max's room sits empty with no bed in it.  And for some reason, ???  I do not want Wesley to move his bed in there.  So I am supposed to journal about this and see if I can figure out what is behind this ... the things you deal with in grief don't seem logical all the time!

Trinity turns 19

Max's girlfriend turns 19 today.  Something that Max will never get to do.  It is so hard to go on with life when you lose someone so close.  I am so proud of Trinity and how she is courageously building a new life, a life she never would have chosen but was given, none the less.  She is beautiful and I am so glad that Max had her for the last 15 months of his life.  She made him very happy.  I am having a difficult time today watching her go on without him.  As she should, it just makes me very sad.

Missing Him

I have had a rough evening, my heart is so tender missing Max.  I was driving home from a nice productive day at work, and the words "Max McCutcheon was killed in a car accident on the turnpike" ran across my brain from the news reports that day, and I instantly started shaking my head.  Denial smacks again.  Only for a fleeting second.  I wonder how many times my mind will fight against believing this news.  Sometimes I sit back and wonder how this really happened to my family!  I just can't believe it.  This is not how I planned it! 

I asked for Max's fb friends to share a happy memory of Max with me, and I had a flood of wonderful things shared with me.  My sister-in-law posted several pictures of Max as a little guy.  I loved seeing them all and hearing each memory.  They did my heart good! 

My mom called tonight, she had been to Hobby Lobby looking at all the different things for Max's grave decoration for Christmas.  Ug!  I know it's coming, but I cannot hardly think ahead to tomorrow, much less a holiday without my oldest son.  How am I supposed to have Christmas this year with a hole in our family?

Support Groups

This week I meet with two grief support groups!  I was thinking back to a time not too long ago when I didn't even know such things existed because both of my sons were here with me.  To be honest, I STILL wish I didn't know about them for that reason.

My every other Tuesday group is for moms who have lost older children.  I just love it, a very intimate format, a very loving leader who lost a daughter 18 years ago in a train/car crash.  All the mamas have horrible stories and lots of tears, but we share them together and I am learning how to take care of myself in so many ways from this group.  We have a journal that we write in, discuss articles from, and do artistic and creative things in.  There are three "requirements" - walking, water, and a stress vitamin.  I drink plenty of water and have my vitamin, but I confess, I have not been walking every day.  Just going to work is work enough, I hardly have the energy for that many days.  I will have to do better...

Thursday is the monthly 'Compassionate Friends' support group for couples.  Todd & I have only been once before.  It is amazing the things you can share in a group of grieving parents, that to the rest of the world would sound crazy or morbid, but in this group, people nod along, or affirm that they too, have been there, felt that!  There were a LOT of people at the last one, and I can't wait to see them again.

Max died nearly 3 months ago.  And I have seen glimpses of being used to minister to other mamas who are hurting.  I find that simply amazing.  Because I have been so consumed with my own grief I can hardly get out of bed some days, and yet, God is using me to help others.  When I cannot breathe, they are there for me, and when they are wrestling with something, I can be there for them.  What a crazy journey.  I am truly thankful that God uses every piece of our broken vessel if we just give it to Him.