How did this occur? No one told me......or if they did I was not listening.
"Mama I want this one, the HORSEY ONE!!" she screams out in a pitch only a preschool child can make. Who is she I wonder as I dig out the specific diaper out of the bag. I wonder why it is that only 3 short yrs are about to pass since she came into this world and looking back it seems as every breath I have ever taken had her energy in it.

My Biddy girl. She will be 3 yrs old tomorrow. She is energy and light and laughter and joy and love and heart. She is what was good in this world when the world began. She is why life still moves forward and time won't stand still.

My Biddy girl. With eyes the colour of granite and a smile that makes strangers take note of her. With her thick strong build and her pouty soft lips......

Happy Birthday to the greatest goft a mom could ever have!
Her announcement

Sleepy time and waking
Imagine his rounded cheeks resting on his pillow with his still pudgy hands tucked in near his little boy mouth. Dirt still under his finger nails and in the spaces between his fingers, showing his hard play before bed . Imagine his golden red hair tossled on his head, part of it sticking up from his soft little boy sweat as he slept on that warm summer night. His room is filled with drawings half done, trucks and cars in piles on the floor. Baseball glove and bat at the foot of his bed along with his dirty play clothes. His room smells faintly of must letting his mother know something was forgotten in here which needs to be found, and quickly.

His mother sneaks in and stares at her little boy and sighs over the mess in his room. His soft lips slightly parted and faint breathing can be heard escaping as he dreams of puppies and playing outside. She kneels down on the floor and kisses that soft cheek on his face and whispers
" Happy Birthday Seamus"
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I was making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the boys for school when Tony walked up and said
"Seamus would be 5 today, right?" He was the first to remember today is June 8th 2005. Can you believe 5 yrs has passed since today, a day frozen in time? Today I do not want to go back just for a chance to hold him again and feel his skin and look at him to see if I missed something to memorize and last me forever. Today......oh gosh, today I want to sneak into his room as he sleeps and wake him with birthday kisses and have his dirty hands touch my face as I lay my face so close to his. I want to rub my nose on his nose and listen to him say he loves me......I love you, Seamus. I want him to tell me what he wants for his birthday...a new bike...a lizard...a snake....a new baseball.....chocolate cake with strawberry ice cream...to watch Finding Nemo again and again while he eats his cereal in the living room....

I want time to not betray me. I want what I will never be granted, but I just want it for today. Tomorrow I will behave and cast aside this silly desire to shift the universe slightly to allow me to mother my son here in this world and not where he is. However, I know NOTHING will change where I am right now, nor where he is. I will plant his butterfly bush in his garden and go about today like it was in fact yesterday. I will walk around as the mother of 4, not the mother of 5.
---------------------------------------------------

Imagine he woke up and smiled, he slipped his hands around his mother's neck and hugged her. Imagine she held him tight and soaked him in for a very long time that morning, so thankful for her 5 year old little boy.

Just before I wake up, I see you......
It is like a dream I have almost forgotten as I wake to the voices of my children. It is like a small part of that dream haunts me as I carry on in the day. Have you ever heard a phrase or seen a bird flutter just so and recall a dream you had the night before. Suddenly those words or that image reminds you with great clarity the dream you had just before you woke up.

Astounding beauty surrounds me daily. Each morning I wake up to see the clear pure eyes of my daughters' looking at me. Their faces untouched by this world, as if the dew of the faerie forest still clung to their plump pink cheeks. Each with their own powers of the universe that they have tucked deep inside , each one with my love wrapped tightly around them.

Some days as I wake up, I forget of my dreaming and bath fully in my surroundings. Some days something strikes me and reminds me of that dream I was having, like a faint scent on the wind it catches me.

I was sitting in the rocker with nothing to do. I was sitting by the window with the sun shining in and there was a man sitting across from me with nothing to say. We both sat there in silence, both looking at the other. My eyes filled with tears as I looked into the green eyed man's face. He nodded his head to grant permission for the tears to stream down my face. I sobbed into my hands my shoulders slumped and my spirit destroyed. I looked back up at the green eyed man and he whispered so softly " I know". Turning my head from his gaze, I glance by the picture sitting on the window well. In the small picture is the image of a mother holding a small infant wrapped in a blanket. She has her face against his body in a warm embrace, absorbing the infant's essence as she cuddles this child. With weakness and regret I turn from the picture to look into my hands, my arms, my rocking chair in which I sat alone. Again I look at the green eyed man and again he nods his head and softly says " I know" and once more sobs of grief wash me away into such a depth I have never known before and will only once touch again...and then never again because surely as I know I am alive, touching it once more would be the death of me.

Somedays this dream is so far from me, that green eyed man just a mere wisper of a memory and the image of the woman holding that infant a faint faint scent upon the breeze. Other days when the summer sun is bright and the house falls still, or I look at my youngest child.......I remember that dream, I remember you, my dragonfly......

JUNE 4TH
Funny because I do not really recall all the due dates of all of my children. Yet this day sticks out so clearly still five years later. I remember my doctor's appointment and my request for induction that day. I remember the office telling me my next appointment on the 8th would be to set up a date of delivery.

I clearly asked the doctor to strip my membranes. I did not know too much about it but I was after all 2 cm and it was my due date. She replied that it would be a rude thing to do to the doctor on call since I was not scheduled to deliver.

Five years later, I sit and just think about it. There is a deeper sadness now than when he first died. Not more intense, mind you, but the resolve you find to go on makes it much deeper because you go on without your little child.

My parents are coming over tomorrow for a weekend BBQ and I accidentally thought to myself if he were here.......if he were here this would be a good time for his birthday party.

He would be five.....five years old. He would be playing T-Ball....he would be doing lots of things now. I don't normally sit and wallow in what would be had the universe taken a kindness to me and turned over a different play for that hand. It is just, today was his due date. Funny, or more ironic....every day for 5 yrs past this day has been his due date. Each day that goes by an insane part of your motherly instinct still says " Ok he can come back now, I am sorry for what I did and I won't ever repeat that wicked wicked sin that took him from me" It is not a tangible thought but more like an instinct that if I sit and meditate on I can hear it......he can come back now, I have missed him for 5 incredibly long years.

The longest time in one's life are those moments stretched out into forever when you long for your child to be with you. When they first die you look for some sort of ending to the pain, some sort of time chart to look at so you know how long you will be dying. People all say it will hurt forever and you just can't fathom that sort of pain can last for decades, for an eternity.

It is a wound which never fully heals, it is an ache which never really goes away. You learn to walk around this handicap and forgive yourself when it aches on those days that you find it a little harder to function. Days like today, when it has a significant meaning aside from " just another day without Seamus".....just another day without Seamus.....

Oh how wicked and twisted this universe can appear when you look to closely at little infarctions which stop the natural flow of the good energy. If he were not my secret child, if I were the type of woman to react emotionally with such intensity that the earth would feel me wail I would once again sit with his urn in my lap and yearn for some sort of connection to him......like I did when he first died. Instead I walk past where his ashes sit and make myself aware he is not here, he is not in there and looking for him is futile and painful.

5 years ago my calander was marked with today. What a lasting mark.

ssshhh..I love you my little boy, your birthday is in 4 days and I want to hold you on my lap and whisper in your ear that you will be five soon. I want you to squirm in excitment and touch my face and look in my eyes......

Who invited you?
"Mama.....Mama....Mama" said a tiny voice in the dark of my bedroom. The soft sound was near my head and it sounded like Claire but she was not on my left, I know she was on my right. Confused I move my pillow out of the way to find Biddy curled in a ball where my pillow had been. " Mama" she said again " Daddy is snoring and it scares me." she softly stated while shivering to exaggerate her fear of Gregg's snore. I pull her close to me and cover her with my blanket. " Yes he is snoring and it is ok, now let's go to sleep Mr Moon is still here so it is sleep time."

Please, I think to myself, it is 3 in the morning PLEASE go back to sleep.

" Mama" she says slightly louder than before, " Mama hear him?"

Oh my lord.......yes I hear him my tiny little girl and yes I realize you are not going to go back to sleep now.

How do they do this? How do they not see it is dark, how do they wake up so fully just from a sound? Honestly his snoring is NOT that loud. The house was not shaking, the windows did not rattle. A gentle little snore comes out of him as he exhales, not some giant monstrosity of a noise that would cause someone to wake up. After all, I was sleeping through it just fine.

I know what will happen next, you know what will happen next. Claire stirs from the sound of her sister's voice which is now telling me stories of some unknown place in her mind.

"FWOANIE!!" Biddy yells in excitement when she sees Claire sit up on the other side of me.

SWEET MOTHER OF GOD I AM TIRED!!! The clock shines out like a beacon on a foggy night at sea........3:34 a.m. Great so both the girls are awake and I can't call in sick. I have tried to call in sick before and the girls do not believe me. They still follow me around demanding to be fed, clothed, played with, fed some more, changed, bathed and even still fed again!

If you are a mother, you know the routine I am sure. By 4 a.m. I have picked up spilled cereal and milk of the living room floor, changed the channel on the TV to find something to drone out the noise of the voice in my head saying OH MY GOD GO TO BED!!!

By 4:30 Gregg comes out and asks if I can turn the T.V down just a bit. I don't think so, I think you should have thought of that before your loud tree cutting snoring woke up the entire town of Rochester I say in my head. Outwardly I sigh and say sure, why not......

Now I sit here at 8:15 a.m. Enya playing music in the background, 3 cups of coffee bouncing in my veins but not even touching the cobwebs of fatigue which shade my eyes from the rain outside. The girls....well, they are asleep of course.......

I love it
I love that the weather will not dictate Biddy's moods. The rain and the sun both are miraculous to her wonderful life. I love that each day When the moon is gone and they day has begun she finds it a marvelous thing. I know each day that the next day will arrive, but to her, it is all so new and exciting and wonderful!!!

I love that When Claire sees her reflection or a picture of herself she tips her head and saws Awww. She is in love with the beautiful baby she sees, as much as I am!! I love that she yells DA When she hears the front door open in the afternoon. When her brothers come home from school she acts af if they were gone for months on end, I just love that!

I love that time on the clock does not deem When it is ok to eat chocolate cake in Biddy's world. If she is awake and there is cake to be eaten, then it is the right time for cake. I love that When she eats her cake flecks of frosting cling to her cheeks and even dangle from her eye lashes. Even at midnight she tells me I am her best friend as she shoves chocolate cake in my mouth. I love that.

I love that Claire says YUM as she starts to nurse. She will dance back and forth and say Nur NUr NUr NUr showing her joy and over the simple fact she loves to nurse.

I love Sabby's smile When he sees me. I love the glimmer in his eyes When he tells me he loves me and kisses my cheek. I love that he thinks I am so pretty, even though he is 12 and I am his mom.

I love that Tony never let's me feel stupid even When I am pushing my hardest on a door clearly marked " pull to open". I love how his mind meshes with mine and we can laugh at things that no one else would get. I love how handsome his face is, and wish he knew how gorgeous he is.

I love When Sabby sets up at the plate to bat. How you can just feel his and energy as he hopes to hit the ball out of the park. I love how he smiles at me When he reaches first base, or second or third or home. I love how he transforms from a boy at home to a man in a baseball uniform on a field all his own.

I love how Tony has set his sights high in the future. How he is not held back by his autism and he will let NOTHING define who he will become in the future. I love the way he laughs at Claire's antics and how devoted he is to our whole family, at 14 yrs old he does not "hate" anyone of us. I love his Buddhist like approach to the world around him.

I love Sabby's innocense.....he is still so pure and innocent.....


I love being there mother and I feel so lucky that I am gifted with their souls' to protect and nurture and watch blossom and develop and fly freely into the world once grown.

I love my children because of who they are, and because of who they have allowed me to be.

Very little leaves such impact on life like death
Cleaning up the bedroom, picking up various pieces of paper scattered about from the girls, I found this picture of you. I had almost crumpled it up thinking it was just a piece of scrap paper on the floor. I have no idea how this picture even got out of the box tucked deep inside my closet. Holding it my hand, I see you both. I think to myself, who are these people. Who is this man in this picture and his small child, who are these people? When I look closely I see the golden sunset colour of the eye lashes on those eyes that never opened. I am struck with the familiarity of those lashes, of their colour and of the deep ache in my soul still. I look at the tiny nose and I am envious of the man in the picture because he is kissing you. I want to touch that nose which is pressed up against the face of this man. I want to touch the softness of the skin on you because I remember the velvet seduction it was to embrace. I want to hold you, and I hate when I remember that. I hate when I have to stop and remember that my arms still feel empty when I look at you and when I remember you. I want to nudge your face in the picture with my face and awaken you from where it is you are trapped. I want to feel the softness of your cheek against mine. I want to feel the softest baby breath caress the deepest part of my soul as I rest my face on yours.

You are wrapped in a towel still, in this picture, and I noticed I can see your little ankle peeking between your Daddy's arm and the towel. I want to hold you. I want to bury my face into your belly and entice the oneness we have out of the picture.

It is not that I do not think of you, because every day of my life now since you began growing I have thought of you. Not one day has gone by that some thought of you has not been in my heart and on my mind. I just don't like seeing your picture and then actually fully thinking about you......because, well, because I love you with all that I am made of and I can't do anything to fix this chasm between us. When I see you like this, when it is in my full awerness and you are not a simple thought it hurts. It hurts so specifically that I can't even explain it to anyone. I mean, the intensity of the loss, of the impact of your death has never ever faltered or faded, ever. The intense suffocating grip of the reality that I will never lay my eyes on you again, never hold you in my arms, never touch your skin, feel your breath, embrace your body again ever......it is such an intense reality that it takes my breath away. I feel it like a leaded weight on my chest, like a drowning in my soul. I do not acknowledge this depth unless I am shocked off my guard. Much like the shock of finding the picture of you on my bedroom floor. I can't look away from you so for a little while I sit and sip the terrible poison your death left for me.

I will forever love you and for the rest of my life here on earth I will miss you for even longer, my son.

If you could feel the gentle breeze that softly touched my cheek, you would see what it is I see and know just what I seek.

How did you get from here to where you stand so tall and firm? How is it that you forgot all that we had earned?

I loved you like I loved no other but that is not your pledge.

I trusted you above all others, yet you raped me and you fled.

You promised this and promised that but took it all away. I am sitting frozen here, I don't know what to say.

If I could take you back to a summer breeze, to where nothing was as big as you and me.....

If I could hold you the way we use to be, if my touch meant more than you being free....

If I sheltered myself from your venomous words, if I stood where I was and not returned....

This place, this place..I hate it so, my virtue my honour, my heart and my soul....

Like pieces of nothing that fall from me, I gave them to you and you did not see...

You will take them away as you turn from our door.....I won't have them back..never, no more.....

For my friend and her broken heart, I love you my friend.

OMG I forgot I had a blog, so now....Blog I must
Is it unreasonable to ask them to come look at the water in the sink? To me it seems rational, but I have to refrain. I am sure to them it seems a bit on the insane side of things.

"Family, come look at the water in the sink. Come see how dirty the floor gets each day."

I do not even think they know I wash the floors every day or that the amount of sand at the bottom of the sink causes me to recoil in shock. I decide to not ask them, but I leave the water in the sink a little longer while I continue my daily scrub fest.

In the bathroom I am satisfied finally after the wafting smell of cleaner almost stings my eyes. The chrome fixtures reflect the sun set out the window perfectly as it passes by the window. The mirror, aside from the reflection is has to offer, is sparkling once more.

I have re-made all the beds which I made earlier in the day. Some how through out the day they become wrinkled and unmade when the toddlers dance on top of them.

I tidy up the floors and vacuum once more at the end of the day. Then walking back to the kitchen I pass my oldest son and grab his arm. " You have to see this" I say to him before I can control my words. Pulling him with me, I walk into the kitchen. I am completely out of control now and out of my mouth slips "Look how dirty this water is".

"Um, wow" answers Tony in mock enthusiasm.....I ramble on in nervous excitment telling him I wash the floor each day, every day!!! Every day there is still dirt......no one cares......

I know, I know...I have a cleaning issue. Sabby asked me the other day why it is I always clean. The thing is I do not put my expectations of clean on the rest of the people who live here. I just clean to my expectations after they either pretend to clean or make a mess. I think they think I like it...I think I do, too.

I know this is a boring blog topic, but I am writing rather than cleaning to explain why it is I have not been writing.....sorry, I was cleaning.

Time had escaped her, all time. There was no before and for all she knew there would be no after, time had all but left her to sit in the garden. She could see the tiny buds forming, as well as see the flowers which were once there but are no longer as if the images as well were not held to time. Some of the plants were stunted with odd angles when she was careless with pruning and trimming. Some were damaged partially because of the mishandling of them as well as her lack of understanding the subtle nuances to that particular natural wonder.

It is not as if she had wanted to be a professional gardener, she just wanted a beautiful garden all her own. Growing up she had seen such wonderful flowers in glorious gardens that other people had loved and nurtured, this was all she had ever wanted for her own garden. Colours which blend together yet stand out on their own, each plant working with the other to almost dance in beauty and splendor. She wanted to sit in the middle of it and marvel at her creations and know she had grown it to perfection, each detail carefully planned out and carved to the tiniest little petal.

The storms which had blown by had left some marks, some left over chaos that she had to repair. With steadfast determination she tended and plucked and watered and fed till her knuckles were bleeding and her soul had been poured out into every little crevice of her garden.

Now, without time to hold her, looking over her garden she wonders how she missed such things like dead branches she should have noticed and repaired before it ended up the way it is now. She could see how some roots were bound so tightly together they had strangled off part of another plant, she should have seen this before and helped the roots to spread out more. She should have helped the plant before now, now where time had escaped and the plant was left with the damage. Plants now changed forever because of something she had over looked or done wrong.

All the other gardens did not seem as marked as hers, she could not remember all the gardens she had envied, but she did not remember the marks on them that she sees in hers.

"I am sorry" she whispers to the plants as they sit in the sun, seeming to not notice the damage to their beings or her presence in the garden. " All I wanted was a beautiful garden of my own" she said to the plants in her garden.

She read all the books she could on how to grow the perfect blossom, how to make the plants strong enough to face the winter's cold, sturdy enough to endure time and forever. She had wanted this garden to blossom forever, past her lifetime into the lifetime's of tomorrow until happily ever after. She had needed this garden to assure her that she was a gardener, and a good one, a decent and pure one who cared and tended and loved each little thing about her plants.

Picking up the whithered branches and holding them close to hear heart, she sighed deeply. Closing her eyes and inhaling the earthy scent of the ground, the floral air of the flowers she hugged the dead leaves and felt their imperfections with her fingers. "I do love my garden so" she says, " I just wish I had done some things better, now that I see what I caused in my eagerness and my ignorance."

She had just wanted a beautiful garden of her own.