What about...."the birthday party"

You may want to grab the tissues now.  Sorry, but I think I should share this...........

So, today's post on fb reads:

Jason's Birthday

Again we will have some of his favorite foods and drinks and would love to have everyone together to remind us of the 24 years we had with him. Bring your Jason stories and share some good memories with us. This is an open invitation, so please share this with anyone you know that would like to come.


Exactly how does one "celebrate" the birthday of a child that is no longer with us?  Then I remembered an email that I sent once to a special person who was dealing with this in her way and worried about me and my pain.  I think I will share this with you, it will help everyone understand the birthday party.

First off, no one can ever cause me more pain – my bag of pain is completely full and most of the time runs over.   I’ve read and learned a lot about how to handle things and one thing I know is that one life touches many others and in different ways – therefore, I am not the only one in so much pain.  That was kinda the purpose of the birthday party!  I want to get to the point where I can celebrate the fact that I was blessed with him for 24 years – but this is difficult too because right now it is difficult to find any blessings in this situation.   Everything seems to be difficult, but most of the time I want to hear people talk about him – but then it hits me like a wall – he's not coming back.   You see, it feels like we’re still waiting for him to return from some sort of vacation and then WHAM! We realize the difference.  I always thought that I was given the task of “Chasin’ Jason” for a reason and that everything we went through with him would make sense someday, that somehow it would positively affect someone’s life and that it would all make sense – I thought that he would probably make a wonderful father because he had been on the rock bottom of life.  So now….none of it makes much sense. 

I am very good at suppressing my emotions (most of the time) until I can get away from people, but not always, sometimes it’s in stores, at the office or at school.  So my thoughts are to keep busy (right or wrong) it works most of the time.  It’s the time when we’re home alone that’s the hardest.  We talk and cry and talk and cry and a little bit of that goes a long ways, you see I have permanent “crusties” on the outside corners of my eyes and it hurts!  The back of my neck is raw from the psoriasis and I can’t get my hair colored because  my scalp is all inflamed.

So…..  I get up every morning and move forward I was put on this earth for a reason and I know it was not just to endure this pain.  There simply has to be more and I need to find it and hold on to it.  I look at sunsets differently now, birds don’t scare me quite as much as they used to, I don’t worry about denting my car, I don’t worry about mud on floor, dogs on the bed and I will use my good dishes everyday and put my mother’s quilts on my bed if I want to.   Priorities in my life have been changed and set!

I don’t want to ever forget Jason and I want to make sure no one else forgets him either.  I want to know that other people think of him and remember things about him, it’s painful and sad but it will hurt more if people forget him and the things he did (okay, there probably are  a few things he did that we could forget, but even those things now make me laugh)

Okay, so I am my biggest cheer-up leader, it works sometimes so I keep trying.  Don’t think  I have a complete handle on things – I don’t – I just take one day (and a cheer) at a time.

I don’t know if any of this will help but it should help you see where I am in dealing with everything.

Chin up! Chin down gives us turkey necks!

I promise much lighter blogs in the future, but sometimes you just gotta "put things out there".

So, this is usually the point where I wrap up the blog in relationship to what was written.  With that -  Hug your children and tell them how much you love them! - Oh hell, hug everyone, it makes ya feel better!