Life After Death

Life after death, has new meaning to me. I'm not talking about where our spirits go after we die, but about how we go about living life after we bury our loved ones. As most of you know the last couple of years have been very challenging for me. I buried two daughters within 8 months of each other, and thought life could not go on quite the same again. While this is partially true, I have realized that life does go on after death.

In the beginning of my grief I felt paralyzed. Like someone should have to pick me up just to get out of bed. I felt panic at the smallest of challenges. Panic attacks came at least twice a day. In the grocery store, at work, even with family and especially when someone asked how my daughters were. It felt like the days were weeks and weeks were months. Besides having Cameron, there was no joy, no hope and no excitement left for life. Despair and grief almlost gave me comfort. I felt there was no way I could love my girls and not hurt constantly. Luckily that has changed some.

Forever Changed Part 1

For those of you who don't already know me. I am above all a mother. This role has brought me many wonderful joyous moments. But it has also brought me the greatest pain I hope to ever bear. I became a mother on February 8th, 2004 when Cameron Ashton-Marshall was born at 12:07 am. I had never felt more blessed than the hours and days and weeks after we brought him home from the hospital. I never knew I was capable of loving somebody so much. When Cameron was two weeks old we found out he had a rare cystic adanomoid malformation on one of his lungs. He was scheduled for surgery at Sacred Heart Medical Center only a week later. I was terrified. I held him in my arms and sobbed for hours the night we got that phone call. The fear of the unknown, was overwhelming. We (I say we because I stayed at the hospital with him) were admitted into the hospital the end of Feb. and he would have his surgery on March 5th, 2004. The moments that led up to him being put under were horrifying to a new mother. He couldn't eat for many hours before, when he normally ate every hour or two. He had IVs in places I have never even seen adults have them. He did not cry, but at a mere 3 weeks he looked confused and concerned. He seemed to me the bravest little man ever and handing him to that anesthesiologist was the hardest thing I had ever done to that point. He did amazing though, they removed the lower lobe of his left lung and he recovered so quickly. It was not as hard as first imagined, but the fear of losing something already so precious was unbearable. I saw many children that had worse ailments and sicknesses than my son, and I was grateful for his renewed health. We never took him for granted, never wished he wouldn't cry and never stopped worrying for his safety. He made me happier and more fulfilled as a person than I had ever been before. My role was to nurture and love him with all my heart and I can honestly say I did that, especially as a baby. He is 4 now and it is hard to imagine he was ever sick or had something inside of his little body that was toxic.