Beautiful Souls

Beautiful Souls
Beautiful Souls of Amoeba Awareness

Monday, July 29, 2013

Part 13~ One step at a tme

The irony of life is this.
It does not stop, even when it seems to have stopped.
Even though we had been through a living hell in the past 7 days, our tasks were far from over.

The afternoon of the funeral, back at our house, crammed into our tiny living room we got busy with the card box. Again, overwhelming. There were so many cards that it took us all afternoon to open them all up. And I mean HOURS. Quickly we realized that we needed a system. We wrote on the backs of the cards what had been enclosed and tried to cross reference if there had been a floral arrangement. We wrote down addresses off of checks if there was a check. We hoped that our guest book would help us with addresses, but we decided to write down what we could right away.

It is amazing how many different variations of cards there are for the death of a child. Don't get me wrong, there were many duplicates in the bunch, but an astonishingly amount of different cards for that purpose. How sad is that?!

Little did we realize sitting there that day with literally hundreds of cards and notes of well wishes, that we would have a mailbox full of cards and gifts for the next few weeks. Every day there was at least five, sometimes 10 or more cards in the mailbox from people we knew, or that our family or friends knew and even several from perfect strangers that had apparently read the obituary. There were monitory gifts, and tangible gifts. We received books on grief, candles, angels, and even a framed piece of art from our neighbors across the street with the programs from the funeral professional framed. And still... there was FOOD. My nemesis. I still could not choke down food and I even was falling behind on the water intake. I tried my best but just really had a hard time with that.

Our house was jammed packed with flowers, gifts and food. I didn't really care though. I just wanted all of it to go away and to be replaced by our sunshine Hailee. That didn't happen, as much as we prayed and hoped and begged. We were now left with the tasks at hand. Thank you cards, paying for the funeral. Obtaining our life insurance disbursements, closing her bank account, doing her laundry, cleaning her room, choosing a headstone...... eating, sleeping... breathing.

Mattson's again came through for us in a big way and designed and printed the most wonderful Thank You Cards for us. They had a beautiful photo of Hailee on the front and a nice saying inside. We used this photo for the Thank you's.


 
In between our "chores", we all felt an underlying fear, still not knowing what had happened to Hailee. Why had she gotten so sick, so fast. Would anyone else come down with this? Each and every ache or pain was a constant fear and worry to us. The thermometers were getting a whole lot of use. Keep in mind, with the lack of sleep, proper nutrition and stress,  I think a person naturally will get run down and even run a log-grade fever, which made us crazy.

As I said, Life... didn't stop. It was now Labor Day Weekend. Tuesday, the kids would start school, without Hailee. Hard to believe. The boys were prepared thanks to Leah getting what they needed, but we were all ill prepared for the act of going back to life. Chad and I would take the next week off as well and try to regroup. We had her burial coming up the next week, which would be a private service for close family and friends.

We had chosen a cemetery near and dear to our hearts. Hailee rests right next to her great-grandparents, great-great grandparents and great-aunts. Chad and I purchased plots at the same time we purchased Hailee's, so we would ensure we would be with her. The cemetery has much history for my side of the family. I have gone there so many times I could not even count, including almost every single Memorial Day, to pay tribute to our Veterans. This was a mandatory outing, that  I  have passed along to my children. Hailee had been in that cemetery 11 different times for the Memorial Day service, holding her ears closed tightly when they would do the gun salute. It was a familiar place to her. That gave us a shred of peace. Hard to believe we had yet one more service/ event to plan for. Susan at Mattson and Pastor Norm stepped up once again and planned for a wonderful graveside service, complete with a balloon release. I'll get to that a little later.......

That first weekend after the funeral was also my Dad's birthday and also landed me into the ER for dehydration. I hated to go there.... but was dizzy and exhausted and could not get any food down.

First,  will tell you about the hospital. We went to our local hospital, to the same ER where Hailee was. I was placed in a room very near the room she was in. I was terrified and felt horrible. Chad was there by my side. I was evaluated by the doctor who quickly determined that I was in fact, dehydrated. He calmed my fears as much as he could, and gave me some IV fluids. I started to feel better pretty quickly.

Now, I have mentioned Dr. Dave Moen in a previous post. While he was not my physician that day, he was in the hospital. When he had heard we were there, he came to our room. He came to the side of the bed where I was laying and Chad was sitting and he began weep with us, for us, for Hailee. . I will never forget it in my entire life. He told us how sorry he was, and that he truly had believed that she would be okay. He was shook up and so upset. The impact of her death was very difficult on him, we could see that immediately. His kindness and honesty that day is something we have taken with us these years. To see him, emotions exposed, somehow made us feel...... dare I say, better? We have told many people over the years of our experience with Dr. Moen, and I actually see him quite frequently as I work in the medical industry. I am greeted with and enormous hug each time, and a hint of a tear is usually present. I last saw Dr. Moen at a golf tournament my company was sponsoring. After the bear hug and slight tear, I told him about this blog and asked him if he would like to read it and he said he did. And... I believe he is. Thank you, Dr. Moen! <3 You impacted our process in such a positive way, both on the day you cared for Hailee and on that visit afterward.

 We all got together at our place for my Dad's birthday and spent some time together. We had a lot of company.  I had already bought his birthday card for the year, in fact Hailee had helped me pick it out. Friends and family sat on the deck, shared memories and began to try and find a tad bit of humor. I was torn between wanting them all there with me and wanting everyone to go away. I don't say that to hurt anyone's feelings, it is a reality that you go through. You are in a worm hole of sorts. Not sure where to go, what to do. Striving to find something that makes you feel better, only there is noting. The one thing that will make you feel better is the one thing you cannot have. Her. We could not find her anywhere, no matter how much we looked for both in reality and in our dreams,  she was just gone.

More to come,

Heidi

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In loving Memory of These Beautiful Souls

Annie Bahneman~ Age 7~ Minnesota
Blake Driggers~ Age 8~ South Carolina
Christian Strickland~ Age 9~ Virginia
Courtney Nash~ Age 16~ Florida
Dalton Counts~ Age 9~Oklahoma
Elizabeth Simms Hollingsworth~ Age 10~ So. Carolina
Hailee Marie LaMeyer ~ Age 11~ Minnesota
Jack Ariola Erenberg~ Age 9~ Minnesota
Jeff Rosenthal~ Age 19~ Florida
John "Jack" Herrera~ Age 12~ Texas
Marissa Claire Cook-Norris~ Age 7~ South Carolina
Mark Kincade~ Age 27~ Texas
Mason Faubel~ Age 6~ Minnesota
Phillip Gompf~ Age 9~ Florida
Waylon Able~ Age 30~ Indiana
Will Matthews~ Age 14~ Louisiana
William Steven Sellars~ Age 11~ Florida
Zachary Reyna~ Age 12~ Florida