Well, today is the first of the painful summer anniversaries. One year ago tonight, I was hospitalized with severe preeclampsia (used to be called toxemia, for those who haven’t been pregnant in a long time).
I am so grateful for all the people who helped out during my nineteen-day hospital stay, people who:
- took care of my kids
- cooked for my family
- brought treats to my family
- helped fix up my house
- visited me in the hospital
- brought/sent me snacks
- brought me stuff to read
- brought me everything from slippers to a goofy pen to a back scratcher
- brought me flowers
- and, especially, prayed for me, Paul, and the rest of our family
I’m also really grateful for our fabulous insurance. Without it, the hospital bill would have been $92,000. With it, we paid NOTHING.
I’m doing so-so at the moment. I’m glad we visited the cemetery on Saturday. Thing Two chose some beautful purple & white orchids for us to take. It’s touching to see the girls kiss Paul’s nameplate and talk to him while we’re there.
Last night, both girls were pretty upset; it was as if they knew inside about the anniversary. Thing Two asked if I was going to have any more babies and said she wanted me to have another baby. Thing One heard and started crying and crying. I had her climb down from her bunk so I could hold her. We ended up snuggling in my bed. Hubby came in for a while, too. There we were, the three of us, snuggling (plus Paul’s blue teddy bear from Lino & Viesha that he gave Thing One) and crying and crying. Thing One and I talked about our favorite memories of Paul, what we missed most about him, how we wish he’d been well enough to come home. I wished I could make her pain go away, but I was so proud of how much she loved him and cared about him.
Still working on plans for Paul’s birthday. Hubby’s going to take the day off work. We’ll definitely go to the cemetery and take a big bunch of balloons. I wish I could leave a toy truck or something, but there’s no room since he’s in a niche, not a grave. I was thinking, though, that I could get some tiny party-favor-type toys and tie them to the balloon strings. Hubby was thinking we could let some balloons go, too. Maybe we could tie some toys to the ones we release, too. We’ll have some birthday cake at some point that day, too. Maybe we’ll leave a piece at the cemetery for Paul, too. A couple of the other moms in the “Still Grieving” Yahoo group say that they leave a piece at the cemetery for the birds to take up to heaven to their babies.
On Paul’s “angel day”, we’ll probably invite a couple of people over and open the bottle of Dom Perignon that Skeef gave us several years ago and toast to Paul. We’ve been hanging onto the champagne, waiting for a big enough occasion to open it. We had considered opening it on our tenth wedding anniversary, but that didn’t seem big enough for a $100 bottle of wine. We decided that Paul’s “angel day” is the perfect occasion. We don’t want to drink it alone, though. Grief + alcohol = not a good thing. (This is why hubby quit drinking after the last time he went to a Raiders game with Big Mike.)
More later.
