Sep 28 2016

Grief at Five

“We feel mad and sad,” these were the words my five year old daughter articulated to my mom’s neighbor when Mom couldn’t respond to his question the day after my dad passed. Parker’s wisdom in the moment demonstrated some maturity and emotional understanding of what we were all experiencing.

And just as everyone in the family has shown moments of strength, we have all succumb to the weight of his loss in different moments too. For my daughter, she began grieving the changes to her Papa long before he had been diagnosed with cancer.

Parker and Papa shared rituals. She would get the stick and flashlight for Papa and they would get down on their hands and knees to get kitty toys out from under the stove. She would bring him the DVD case and together they would put in a movie and she would snuggle on his lap to watch. Parker would sit with him after dinner to have dessert and he would allow her spoonfuls from his bowl of ice cream even when she had her own.

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Papa would let Parker interrupt his work in his home office to let her sit in his chair and play on the computer or make copies of her hand on his printer. She would get excited when Papa would fill up the teapot and assist by getting out the honey and a spoon then patiently waited for her helping of honey. Parker started calling him “Poppy,” a term of endearment he adored. And a favorite ritual before we left their home was for Papa to pick her up for a giant sandwich hug with Poppy and Nana.

When my dad injured his back we made modifications to the sandwich hug. Instead of getting down to play on the floor, she found joy in getting to play in his remote lift chair. She naturally became more gentle with him and found on some days when he was more comfortable, she could still snuggle in to watch a movie with him. Parker asked a lot of questions and mourned why Papa couldn’t pick her up anymore. I tried to reaffirm it would only be a matter of time, he would heal and things would be back to normal.

30 July 2015 – One month before diagnosis.

This time last year, her worry became even more evident, she questioned daily when Poppy’s back would be better. He was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma about a month shy of Parker’s fifth birthday and it seemed too complex to try to explain what was happening to her Papa. “The doctors are helping Papa because he is sick,” seemed the only rational thing to say to a five year old. Then we would talk about praying for him to heal and for his back to be all better again soon.

Repeating this conversation seemed to temporarily satisfy her and my dad improved through the autumn of 2015. He was showing signs of healing and getting around easier. Parker understood his limitations and adjusted to how their adoration for each other was changing. A huge setback came just before the new year when a lesion on his femur broke with only the weight of his body standing. With the exception of medical appointments, Papa lived in his own personal medical suite upstairs. As the months passed in late winter and early spring, Parker went upstairs less and less. I could see how nervous she felt in his presence and witnessing him suffer. I made attempts to encourage their interactions with playing games or showing him a dance she was practicing in class. Right or wrong, I tried to explain what was happening to his bones in five year old terms. For months straight she would pick out the same bedtime story “Magic School Bus: The Human Body,” and often stopped on specific pages displaying a graphic of a skeleton to talk about Papa’s bones. It was her own way of coping and trying to understand.

Dad never rebounded from the surgery, medications and treatment. He passed at home in his sleep days after Easter. Since it was early in the morning when I got the call, I left before Parker woke. My husband and I agreed not to tell her, instead sending her to school so we could have a day to sort out arrangements. The following morning, I dreaded telling Parker what happened to her beloved Poppy. I worried she wouldn’t understand what death meant as she had no memory of losing someone. We sat down with her in the kitchen and I did my best to conceal my tears and calm my voice. Her tears were immediate as though she completely understood the gravity of him being gone. We embraced and tried to turn our sadness to appreciation for him to no longer be in pain. When we told her we would be going to Nana and Papa’s house for the day Parker begged to go to school, a place where she could be happy and forget. She didn’t want to go to the house where Papa is supposed to be and him not be there.

As always, the opportunity to see her cousins and trumped the fear of the empty house. She played with her cousins while the adults seemed to float around the house without intention, numb from the turbulence of the last year. After her cousins had been gone a while in the late afternoon, Parker came running from upstairs sobbing. Mom and my dad’s sister and I all felt the ripple of emotion and broke down with her. I believe she had been upstairs to play in his lift chair, a game that was no longer fun with him gone.

In the days and weeks following we cried together frequently. We expressed gratitude he was free from pain and we talked about how he would always be with us. I encouraged Parker to know he could be with her whenever she felt she needed him. On the way to school she would say she was going to bring him with her and talked to him on our way there. She joked “He’s going the wrong way, no Poppy that’s not the right turn…” And when we talked about him being with his mom, she would sometimes bring Grame along to school too.

It seemed the tearful sadness of losing Papa was lessened during the early summer. She could talk about him without the heavy emotion and I was relieved she was coping so well. Then there were times I wondered if I was doing everything right to help a five year old with grief. On a few occasions she got stuck looking at pictures and would break down unable to catch her breath. I validated her feelings by recalling stories of him and the funny things we would remember him by to help in the moment.

I had been concerned maybe my daughter was reflecting my emotions, maybe she was feeling the grief I was immersed in and so I have been careful to not initiate her thoughts or feelings. I know her moments of grief are her own because many times I am blindsided by her eruption of sadness. Like a peaceful ride in the car interrupted by a quivering voice in the backseat “I miss Papa.” Parker recently began associating one song to Papa, a song she has loved for a long time but now can’t manage to hear without thinking of how much she misses him.There are even joyful celebrations where she turns to despair because Papa is not there to share in it.

The variety of ways Parker has expressed her heartache demonstrate how much she deeply loved her Poppy and also resemble the complicated way our whole family is coping with his loss. In the last six months there have been times when talking about him was easy and then there are days when even the sight of a bird soaring can cause hysteria. We know we each have individual triggers which can cause deep sorrow; a song, a date, a place or any synchronistic event. And then there are other waves of grief which don’t seem to have a pairing, the misery builds to a peak and subsides.

The helplessness I felt with my dad in the last year of his life has transitioned to feeling helpless to support my mom and my daughter. I want to always have the perfect words to make them hurt less. And just as there were days I couldn’t do anything but stare at my dad, there are moments I am paralyzed in the faces of my mother and my child. I am managing as best I can and accepting the unpredictable nature of grief and how it is impacting us in unique ways. I understand it will get easier over time, though the waves may be less intense or less frequent we will ride these waves of grief indefinitely.

My hope is the waves Parker experiences will calm much sooner and easier than my own. I want her to be able to remember the love he had for her without the deep sorrow of missing him. I worry her memory of their rituals will fade, though I know she will never forget how much she loved Poppy. And I know the pride he had in her will live on forever.

Jul 28 2016

KC Passport Stamp #2

Our second stop with the Kansas City Passport to Adventure took us to the Beanstalk Children’s Garden. It is a small community garden we have passed nearby dozens of times, with it’s close proximity to the Kansas City Zoo, though we never knew it existed. Thankfully our Passport to Adventure book brought us in search of the welcoming plot filled with raised gardens, cheery volunteers and a small water feature. We were encouraged to explore the plants and invited to pick ripe raspberries to eat fresh. 15jonesIL

I quizzed the kids with age appropriate questions about where fruits and vegetables grow, we looked at the shapes of leaves and memorized the names of some of the grain plants – a necessity for earning a stamp at the Beanstalk Children’s Garden. Unfortunately due to the outside temperature the day we visited, we did not stay for long and the kids seemed to enjoy their hands in the fountain the most while requesting that I feed them raspberries.

It was a unique spot in Kansas City I was happy to get to see and may be some place to return in the future for another adventure.

16gardenIL

Jan 16 2015

Kid Art

Each child is exceptionally unique in so many ways. One thing which makes my daughter unique from other typical four year olds is her artwork. I began noticing this difference when she plays with other kids, paper and a box of crayons. While most kids near this age are focused on stick figures, my girl is coloring abstract shapes. Even with piles of coloring books, this kid would prefer a blank sheet of paper to color her own abstract designs.

Sometimes I ask her what she is drawing and she always has an explanation. “It’s a map to Aunt Bev’s house, and here is the park, and a dog, and a tree.” All of which are blobs of color in a neatly connected Crayola collage. She always has an explanation for everything so I never know if she is actually imagining these things as she is drawing or if when pressured to come up with an answer – makes it up on the fly.

Curious about her unique work lead me to inquiring with an art therapist friend and several Google searching sessions. All of which lead me to no definitive answers.

Some sites claimed too much use of red and black has indications of anger or depression, then other sites added blue, brown and orange into this as well. Other sources stated black equals dominance while red demonstrates excitement. Contradictions in interpretation are confusing, especially if the explanation really has more to do with a child’s favorite color being red or black. There may be parents out there freaking out with a child only drawing in red and missing the fact that it is the only available crayon not broken.

There was also some indications about the meaning of where the drawings are typically located, my daughter’s coloring is almost always oriented towards the top left part of a page. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of consistency in this either. Some references stated the left is often associated with mom or nurturing, whereas right is for dad’s. Additionally left might be related to considering the past while right side is future thinking, then again another source reported drawings oriented to the top of the page indicate future thinking and confidence.

No matter what search terms I came up with I couldn’t find anything explaining what it means for my child to draw abstract patterns instead of the pre-schematic drawings typical for most four year olds. Then, just like she does when I think I have any pattern of behavior established, she switches it up… This morning while cleaning up the kitchen I glanced around the corner where she was quietly occupied on her dry erase board. For the first time in nearly 6 months, she had drawn a pre-schematic drawing.

As my art therapist friend stated she does during her sessions, I simply asked her about her drawing. “It’s me and you, Mommy.”

Now, I am not sure what a professional kids’ art interpreter would say this sketch means, to me it’s pretty clear. Obviously that’s me on the left and a pretty accurate depiction if I say so myself. Eyes so large they make half of my face, a skinny (stick-like) body and big ol jugs. Then with her hand on like me, (as she usually is hanging, holding or laying on me somehow) you can see her little body has wings since she is my little angel. Her other hand in the drawing appears to be holding something and I am pretty sure I see a dollar sign, meaning this girl brings a wealth of happiness wherever she goes.

The use of only orange is a good indication she didn’t bother to remove the caps off any other markers. And the random letters show how she loves to practice letters and is excited about words, though is stubborn about asking for help with spelling. She chooses to write letters and hopes her random guessing will turn out something readable.

Who knows what her next art project with look like? I think instead of figuring it out, I will just stand back and appreciate her uniqueness.

Nov 5 2014

Red Hair Equals Mermaid

I will admit, Halloween really crept up on me this year. I know, it’s the same October 31st I look forward to every year, except this year we had taken three trips out of town in two months and had what felt like the rest of the month of October absorbed in my sister’s wedding. It was the weekend before Halloween when people started questioning my daughter what she was going to be for Halloween when I figured I had better pull something together.

She wavered between costume ideas, initially stating her destiny to be a princess. Of course not related to any of the princess costumes we already have at home to regularly get dressed up in. Then one morning during our typical getting the hair done routine… This consists of PJ isolated sitting on the dresser, holding my phone tuned into Youtube Cimorelli videos (Cimorelli is a girls group from California who cover major pop songs in a PG version – perfect for little ears – and Parker learns and loves all of these pop songs.) After the combing, pulling, braiding, twisting and rubber bands she eventually earns a marshmallow for cooperating. During this morning, as she is scrolling through videos and singing along to the teen lyrics in a slurred unclear of all the words kind of way, I asked her if she wanted to be a pop star for Halloween.

Of course the answer was yes. And then it was up to me to figure out what a pop star looks like in age appropriate four-year old kind of way. I figured she had some pop-star-ish clothes and we could just pick up some accessories like a microphone, play jewelry, and a wig. With her participation, she was getting into the idea of what a singer would wear on stage and loved picking out some blingy $0.50 rings.

On Friday afternoon I took Parker to school to trick or treat with her class. She had already made it clear she was not a fan of the wig during our trying out the costume at home so I brought bobby pins to staple it to her head. And when the moment came to walk into her school she began refusing the rest of her costume accessories fusing about the headphones, jewelry and handed me her microphone. In her classroom she appeared as the whiny girl, fashionable dressed with red hair – to which most people assumed she was going as Ariel the Little Mermaid. I’ve never seen Ariel in a cheetah print top, but lesson learned red hair equates to mermaid.

On Friday evening I had high hopes of capturing an image to show the true pop star image my four-year old can emulate. I imagined a scene with her in the foreground posing as she loves to do garnishing all of the pop star accessories we had planned. She’s pop out her hip, throw her arms in the air and belt out a song. Then in the background her daddy would be dressed as the bodyguard in his decade old workout shirt labeled “SECURITY,” a dark suit jacket, sunglasses and an ear piece. Then I would be standing next to him as the manager holding a clipboard, two phones and talking on one more. I envisioned this legendary Halloween 2014 picture and when it came down to it all I got was one cranky looking wild girl ready to go out and hit the streets for candy. Oh well, there’s always next year.

On Saturday we had a family adventure to the Louisburg Cider Mill. It was their final weekend for the fall festivities so PJ got ample time on the jumping pillow; it was nice to be able to stand on the sidelines and watch her enjoying herself without having to be holding hands with her. We took a hay rack ride, I found out it is my husband’s favorite fall activity. And we found our way through the giant corn maze. We let Parker take the lead and choose the paths, my husband and I played behind her tossing dried corn cobs at each other. I may have chucked one a touch too hard and his retaliation cob throw ended up with a rip in the back of my pants. “It’s not so bad, you’re wearing pink underwear right?” he said. Unfortunately it was my bare butt and a day I wish I had worn a longer shirt. The adventure ended with hot cider and apple cider donuts which made up for the end of life for my pants.