I'll Do It, But I Won't Like It

It's official. We finally own Eli. Not sure if that's wise...perhaps we should have gotten a money back guarantee. (Just jokin', Eli...you know you're stuck with us forever!) This past week I paid the last installment of the bill from the hospital from when I delivered Eli...yup, that's 4 years of paying on that same stinkin' bill. I've always taken on the responsibility of the household finances. Not because he isn't capable, but because quite honestly I'm too much of a control freak to NOT be the one doing it. He sees the wisdom in 'allowing' me to do them instead of him and I know he is so proud of me for having figured out a way to not only have kept a bill collector off of our tails but for actually making sure that with our meager budget I found a way to meet all of the needs of our household. Just another thing I'm glad I already know how to do. I can't imagine if he had been the one doing it all along what I would have had to do to get up to speed. He may have been the one to bring in all the money, but I'm the one who knows how to spend it...I can't help it; it's genetic.

I'm not gonna lie. Reality has begun to set in. (As if I need any more reality checks around here.) But since Naki died and I've had the troops rally around me, I've always had extra help, and thus, extra hands. We started off the night with a round of trick or treating around our neighborhood with the adorable Brousseau family and Grandfather and then went to the Ward Trunk or Treat last night and intended to meet up there with Naki's brothers and their families. Grandfather had worked and worked himself all day in organizing and working side by side with a group of BYU students. A dear friend of our family is in the Bishopric of a BYU student ward and between he, my Dad, and my brother-in-law Matt had organized quite the group effort to touch up the exterior paint on parts of the house and to stain all of our exterior fencing. So we gave Grandfather the much needed and well deserved break and went off to meet the Maile family at our ward building. I, of course, was a bit early, and so the kids wanted to get started right away. So we unloaded and set off. I can't seem to find the right words to explain the change I felt in that moment, but it suddenly occurred to me as I lost Lose for only the 5th time, that it's just me. Duh, I know. Like that's new information. That I alone, as I stood there for the very first time with no extra hands, am responsible for these children in this moment. After regathering them all around me, I tried in my most 'I am SOOO not kidding' voice to let them know that under no circumstances are they to leave my side. As I was standing there with 6 sets of hands pulling me in different directions, and 6 sets of ears not listening to my instructions, I realized that this could indeed be a very long night. And I can look like a fool with my head spinning in 6 different directions, or I can take charge and help this go as smoothly as possible. I wouldn't say that my head wasn't still spinning, but I think Lose got the message. She stayed with me the rest of the way, but needless to say we were all overly thrilled to see the Maile family roll up. Whew. Extra hands and extra hearts. It was perfect timing. We hopped from one place to the next and ended up at Grandma and Grandpa Maile's house with all their Maile cousins and also the Zeller clan. That was so great to have everyone together...I know Naki is smiling and feels so proud every time he sees us all together.

It was all exhausting yet fulfilling to know that they all enjoyed themselves. My goal is to make things as close to normal as possible, even though it puts me in places that I really don't want to be. I'll do it, but I won't like it. Truthfully I just want to curl up in a ball on my bed and do nothing. I want to sit in the shower and let the water run over me while I cry and just be alone. I want to know what it feels like to just sit and read a book peacefully just for pleasure again. But that's just not the way it works, as Eli says. It just isn't.

I got all the kids bathed, fed, and in bed before I fell apart. I can't even put words to the emotion that I felt. I just knew that I needed to cry. I came upstairs and felt too dark inside to blog and write it out. So I turned the lights off and curled up like I'd been craving and waited for sleep to take over that horrible feeling. But Heavenly Father knew that I didn't need that. Ane immediately started to cry in her bed. It was heavenly to just hold her, cheek to cheek. It was exactly what I needed. Cuddling with a baby cures all my woes. Why do you think I kept having them? Y'all better watch over your cuddly babies...I just might be snagging some for the free cuddling. I'm sure I'll need it.

I had just warmed a bottle up for her when Eli let out some seriously frightening screams from her bed. So I raced downstairs and thrust Ane into my Dad's hands and said you take care of her and I'll take care of Eli. Apparently she wasn't as healed from the hurling bug as we had originally thought...nothing like scrubbing some throw up off a mattress, the carpet, and your baby to pull you out of self pity. The immediacy of her situation forced me out of mine. By the time I'd rebathed and dressed her, scrubbed the mess up, and remade the bed with Grandfather, I was too tired to feel any more blah. I just went right to sleep.

The residual effects were still with me this morning, however. The week Naki died I remember telling my family that Naki's very very very most bestest favoritist day of the year ever was coming up. He cherished it more than any holiday, birthday, football game, or celebration of any kind. Drumroll, please....Daylight Savings Time. That boy lived for that extra hour of sleep. Since we've been married he was always getting by on not enough sleep. So the concept of a freebie was just so precious to him. I would herd the kiddos downstairs and shut our bedroom door so he wouldn't be bothered. It's a big deal to me too, don't get the wrong idea, but I get to take occassional naps during the day, and he never does, so we all tried to leave Dad undisturbed on his favorite day of the entire year. In honor of that, my Mom had the smart idea to spend that morning at his gravesite. So in addition to the Halloween madness the night before, after the girlies were all in bed I trekked to the store for some breakfast goodies. I gathered the girls and the treats up and drove over there this morning. It was perfect. They had such a great time there and certainly there is a lot of wisdom to the first time going back being a celebration of something happy and cheerful. They were giggling and having a great time walking around reading other's monuments. After a while they noticed something that I'd already noticed on first arriving. Ummm...a deer or something like that pooped right where all Naki's flowers were sitting on his plot. At first, they were all grossed out and some of them were even, I'd say, slightly offended at the idea of an animal doing such a thing. I heard one of the girls say, "Can you believe that something pooped on our Dad?". I corrected them and said, "Girls, something pooped on the grass, not on your Dad." Then they all started giggling and laughing and said that it was perfect because of all the times that they had all at one time or another pooped on him, too. Ahhh...kid's humor. It was just right.

I wasn't feeling up to church. I know without any doubt that I need to be there. The Lord wants me there. Naki wants me there. I want me there. But that was the only place we spent consistently as a family. It just seems so especially desolate inside me when I go there without him. Add to that that we weren't a quiet family in church to begin with, and with some of the new behavioral traits that some of the kids are using to cope with their grief we're REALLY not a quiet family, and well, it's just not condusive to feeling the Spirit or for others around us to feel the Spirit. So I'll do it, but right now I don't like it. I have confidence that in time it will get better. But right now it's just so darn difficult. I came up to my room to shower and get ready for church and had my Surprise of the Day. Some time ago, about a year, I was really struggling. Having Ane really threw me for a loop. It took all 9 months of the pregnancy to get used to the idea of being pregnant again, and it's taken me almost as long to get used to the idea of being a mother of 6. Around the time when Ane was about 3 months old, Naki did the sweetest thing for me. He'd taken a piece of notebook paper and had written sweet statements of encouragement and compliments and had gone through the house and taped/placed them in places he knew I'd go that day so that I wouldn't be alone in my struggles. I found one above the washing machine, one taped to the side of the crib, one taped above the garage door opener, one on my pants shelf, one in my bathroom, one in my dresser drawer, etc etc. They were everywhere. I never moved them, but left them where they were so that I could see them over and over again. As time passed, some of them were knocked or pulled down by little chubby and curious fingers, and I'd lost track of which ones were still around. I remember the day Connie arrived after Naki died, I think it was on Friday, I told her to please look around and if she saw any of them to grab them for me. I have been disappointed because I couldn't find as many as I had liked. As I was digging through my dresser drawer this morning, much to my astonishment I found not one, but three notes in his precious handwriting that were the most perfect words from him that I so needed to hear on this particular day. They read,

Please know I'm thinking of you.

I love you and am thinking of you.

I love you and I KNOW you can do it.

I can't hardly type those words and see the computer screen at the same time because every time I read them I know without any doubt that that is exactly what he is saying to me right now. He has always been my biggest cheerleader, and I have absolute confidence that he is cheering me on right now. Babe, I'll do it...I'll do it all, whatever "all" of it is. But I won't like it. I don't like what's now my life. But I'll do it because I know you'd do it if things were the other way around. I'll do it because I love these babies, the Lord, myself, and you so very much. I'll do it with the faith that someday I'll have come to understand so very much about what these experiences can teach those affected by them. But in all honesty right now I truly do not like it.