It started a couple weeks ago when I was sitting with my daughter and talking about her being in 6th Grade and summer break coming to an end. She has mixed feelings about school. She’s never really loved it, but has friends and tolerates it with telling everyone her favorite subject is recess. This year is going to be different for her. She is going to school this year as an only sibling. Maybe not an only sibling, but as the only living sibling. Her 5th grade year was cut short by a few weeks with the unexpected death of her eight year old brother. No one could have expected it, no one could have prepared for it, no one should ever have to go through this, and no one in our family will ever be the same.
As we discussed the start of school being two short weeks away my daughter asked if she could take one more vacation before it started. Now for our family, we vacation all the time so it wasn’t totally out of the question to ask for one last trip. We have a cottage that I gave as an option, but she really had her mind set on something different. She has a crush on some actor that lives in Los Angeles so that was her suggestion. It’s funny how when you’re eleven years old you don’t realize the odds of seeing the one celebrity you want to by showing up in the same (huge) city is slim to none. Somehow as a family we settled on Las Vegas. My best friend from childhood decided to take the trip with us and so on a dime, with no preparation, we booked a one week trip to Las Vegas.
A couple months prior, we were planning my son’s Celebration of Life and I was trying to think of any and everything I could do to distract my daughter from thinking about her brother that had just passed away. She brought up an exotic pet. Now in all fairness, she loves animals and has brought up exotic pets for years so this wasn’t totally out of the ordinary. I, without as much contemplation as necessary, decided to settle for a sugar glider. I’ll never forget we went to an exotic reptile show and after hours of walking around and having no luck finding a sugar glider, we decided to leave. Low and behold, a gentlemen said to me I bet I can get you what you want for a cheaper price. I looked up from my phone and said I doubt you can help me. I don’t have a poker face so I’m sure my face said why are you talking to me? Nonetheless, he said try me, I bet I can help. I said, we are looking for a sugar glider. He immediately stood up and said follow me. I was shocked and he took me directly to a lady that had sugar gliders. The best part was we had walked past her several times and somehow missed it. For the next 45min we played, my husband, daughter, and I, with the cutest sugar glider that was well trained and it was the first time since my son passed that everyone seemed somewhat happy. We also had a chance to meet two baby sugar gliders who were brother and sister and super tiny.
We left and my daughter immediately started asking when we could buy one. I had the breeders contact info and said we had some discussions we needed to have as a family first. We went camping the first week in July and planned on heading back home July 4th. The breeder was heading on vacation July 5th and was going to be gone for two weeks. We also had my sons Celebration of Life July 8th. I ended up convincing myself that the stranger at the exotic reptile show was meant to find me, randomly, and take me to the sugar gliders. I also convinced myself that this purchase should be made prior to what would be one of the hardest days of our lives, my sons Celebration of Life. In addition, I left myself with one small window of opportunity and that was to pick up the sugar glider July 4th. Oh yeah, one extremely important note, we ended up buying two. We did a great deal of research to ensure we knew what we were getting ourselves into. In the research we did we learned sugar gliders are marsupials and they live in colonies so if they are in a pair or more their life span is longer and they are happier and healthier. Also, the breeder had a baby brother and baby sister glider, the ones we met at the expo and those were the ones my daughter really wanted.
We ended up buying them July 4th and of course we had to get a huge cage with all their toys, specific food, etc so $1000 later we are proud owners of two sugar gliders that now solely rely on us to care for them and require a minimum of two hours a day of bonding time. At the breeders house, where we picked them up the boy got away and climbed a pine tree. The breeder had to get on a ladder and get it down. This should have been enough of a sign to ensure we were less negligent, but it wasn’t. We get in the car and my daughter wants to let them loose in the car. Afterall, where can they go in the car? Well, the boy (once again) ended up going down my leg while I was driving and immediately up the paneling in the car. We couldn’t get to it and ended up driving home while he stayed hidden in the paneling. That evening, we took the dashboard paneling and the car apart with no success of getting the glider. We ended up leaving the pouch with food on the floor in the car and going inside. Hours later, I went out to the car and he was running around the backseat. I was able to grab him and bring him inside. Meanwhile, planning our (last minute) trip to Las Vegas we were deciding who the lucky babysitters of the sugar gliders will be. We landed on my parents. My Mom who is deathly afraid of even a hamster and my Dad who is suffering with dementia. My daughter made sure they came over prior and learned how to take care of them for the week that we would be gone.
We head off to Las Vegas and a few days into our trip, I get a text from my Mom. Hey hope you’re having fun in Vegas and call me when Lexi is not around. I do exactly that and she explains that one of the sugar gliders had escaped the cage. I nonchalantly, tell her to not to worry about it. She puts the pouch from the cage that has their scent on it down on the floor and food and water out for when it returns. We don’t think much of it and we continue our trip which consists swimming, seeing shows, eating good food, and site seeing. The day we were leaving, Saturday morning, we are at a restaurant eating breakfast. My childhood friend pulls out his phone while we are discussing the, still lost, sugar glider and searches how long they can live without food and water. Google tells him two days without food, but only 12 hours without water. My daughter, immediately, says the sugar glider is probably dead. I insist that we shouldn’t think like that until we know. We’re finishing up breakfast and my daughter needs to go to the bathroom so I get up to take her. While we are walking I get a text that says call me. In all the years I’ve been alive, I’ve never received a text that simply said call me from my Mom. I, immediately, pick up the phone and call her. She is crying and says she found the sugar glider on my daughters shelf and it’s dead. My daughter hears me and is now absolutely devastated. She runs into the bathroom stall and locks the door. I can hear her screaming and crying. She is saying first Cole and now this. What else is going to die, I wish I was dead too. As my heart is breaking more, which I didn’t even know was possible after losing my son, I’m begging for her to let me come in the stall. She wants nothing to do with me and wants to be alone. There is a lady in there who asks if I want her to call someone. I tell her no thank you, but inside my head I’m thinking who the hell would you call? Is there someone that you think can really help? I have to pull myself into a quick reality and tell myself that this lady is only trying to help and more people should try to help others. My daughter finally comes out of the stall and she is so upset. She darts off and is going the wrong way. My husband attempts to get her to come back, but she’s not listening. He catches up to her and grabs her arm to guide her in the right direction because we have a flight we do not want to miss. Another lady that kept getting closer and closer to me while I walked, asked if that was my daughter? I replied yes and she immediately said, I have three daughters and their hormones are something else, I know what you’re going through. I nodded and smiled and kept walking. The first thing that, seriously, crossed my mind was to ask her out of her three daughters is one of them dead? If not, you don’t know what I’m going through. Again, as hard as it is, people need to look out for other people and be less judgmental. This lady was not trying to be judgemental, she was trying to be relatable and tell me it’s ok, we’ve all been there.
The entire time we walked, which felt like days, to get our luggage and catch an Uber, I felt horrible inside. How could I get a living thing to try and ease the pain of her brother that died? How could I not anticipate that this living thing could die too? How am I capable of making such a poor decision? How could I put my Mother, who recently was diagnosed with breast cancer and is struggling everyday with the loss of her Grandson in this situation? It is unfair to put her in this situation. She has enough to take care of. Afterall, she still takes care of her ex husband she divorced thirty years ago because none of his kids stepped up to do it. All of these thoughts are rolling through my head as I dig deep for the right things to say to my daughter and how to help her cope with the crappy timing of losing a pet three months after losing her best friend and brother.
We get on the plane and I spend a lot of time listening to my daughter tell me how things aren’t fair. How she’s hurting inside and how she wishes we never went on this trip. I tell her she’s right, life is not fair and what happened to her brother should’ve never happened. I also tell her that in life as unfair as it is, it’s not what happens to us but how we deal with it. As the words come out of my mouth, I know it’s the right thing to say but I’m not sure I believe it. I use her brother as an exemplary example of this exact quote. He, literally, was handed the most unfair life from his first breath. It didn’t matter what bad news was delivered, what surgery was next, or what physical limitation his body had, that little boy had the best attitude and outlook on life. His smile lit up a room, he had the best personality, and it was impossible to be upset around him with all his jokes. Unless, of course, you were the butt of his jokes like my Dad. We had over three hours to talk and hold each other. There was not any electronics or any other distractions. Just her and Mommy holding each other and talking. She came to the conclusion that she wanted to bury the sugar glider in the backyard when we got home. It’s kind of crazy but that time on the plane was so needed for both of us. The lady in the window seat next to me asked if I was a professional therapist. I have no idea what part of the conversation she was listening to or why, exactly, she asked but I simply responded with no. The plane was landed and I didn’t feel like talking to a complete stranger so I refrained from telling her I’m definitely not a professional therapist, but I certainly could use one right now.
Within two days of coming home from Las Vegas, Lexi started school. She would never admit it, but I could tell she was becoming excited. She wanted to look her best, she wanted to be more prepared this year, and she wanted to be more independent. I was fighting within myself because all I wanted to do was be happy for my big girl who I’m so proud of and who amazes me everyday with her resiliency and strength. I found myself battling between being unbelievably happy for her and being unbelievably saddened that I wasn’t planning for my son to go into 4th Grade. He would have been so excited to see his friends, see his teacher, and get to hang out with his favorite nurse all day again. He cared so much about making others happy and he would try so hard to ensure he gave his best effort towards anything he did. The more I felt saddened about him, the more I spent time with her. I helped her create a pencil case with paint, glitter, hot glue gun, and other decorations. At one point, she asked if I wanted to go for a walk. It’s almost like she knows me so well and knew I needed it. Or she needed it. Either way, it was a great idea. We walked around and she asked if we could go to her school park. She was telling me about last year someone had spray painted the park at school and covered up the ASL alphabet with black spray paint. When we got there, the spray paint was still there covering the ASL sign and she asked me if we could go home to get cleaning supplies and come back and clean it. I said, absolutely and we did just that! This type of behavior is common for my daughter and as I watched her and helped her scrub away the spray paint, I couldn’t help but notice how much she cared. I remember being eleven years old and although I was never the jerk spray painting things, I was also never the good samaritan cleaning someone else’s mess.
The morning of her first day of school, she woke up from an alarm that she had set all by herself. Another sign of her definitely being excited about her first day back at school. She got up and started getting herself ready. Doing her facial routine, getting dressed, eating breakfast, organizing her backpack, and brushing her teeth and hair. I sat drinking coffee in complete amazement because it’s always been the opposite. We’ve always had to wake her up, multiple times because she did not get up the first time. She was often rushing out the door because she was usually running late. She wanted to know her teacher so I jump into the app and sure enough my son’s picture pulls up and it says 4th grade and then in red letters, ended on the bottom. I feel a lump in my throat and I fight back the tears that just want to stream down my face uncontrollably. It has been over three months since my sweet boy passed away. It never seems easier, it never seems real, and so many things remind me as if it’s happening over and over again. Nonetheless, I can’t find her teacher and she wants to get to school early so she gives her Dad and I a hug and kiss and starts to walk out the door. My husband asks do you want us to walk you to school? She, of course, gets very excited and says yes that would be awesome! I find myself feeling as if I am on the brink of breaking down and it would be impossible for me to see a bunch of kids going to school for their first day. I just can’t do it! I tell them both I can’t because I’m working. This makes me feel incredibly guilty because my daughter will soon be at an age where she doesn’t want me to walk her to school. I remember being eleven and I would have been so embarrassed for my parents to be with me at school or walking with me so I’m lucky that my daughter doesnt feel that way towards me… Yet. Anyway, my husband and her walk out the house and I let the tears flow, I only allow it for a couple minutes because I get a work call coming in and I need to quickly pretend that everything fine and I’m ready to talk business.
Over the next couple weeks I will get to hear all about people’s kids going back to school and see all the pictures and what grade they are in. I am grateful for my daughter and I should be relishing in the fact that we have her in our lives and get to experience all of these moments with her. Trust me, I do even more than before. It’s just so hard to give my whole heart to this when I, truly, do feel that half of my heart is missing. No matter how hard I pretend things are good, they’re not good and they won’t ever be good without my son. They are ok, meaning we are all living the best we possibly can and we are capable of coping with things by attending work, school, and functioning day to day. But that’s not good! Good was when we were a family of four. Some people don’t know how good they have it, but we did. Some people would have complained over their circumstances of having a medically complex child, we did not. Sure, we had a lot more luggage when we travelled and we needed to arrange more Doctor appointments than your average kid. Sure, we had technology that helped keep him healthy and alive. All that being said, that was our normal and we never felt like him or the medical stuff was a burden. Now the only thing we are left with is a huge void that no person, no place, or thing will ever be able to fill. So if you’re ever thinking it’s stressful to get the kids ready for school, just know that there is nothing more I would have rather done than had the opportunity to get my son ready for 4th grade.
