17 Months!

Dear Charlotte,

You are now 17 months old! Initially I'd planned to update these as often as you have well-visits at the doctor, but a lot has happened in the past couple of months.

-You continue to be a happy, easy-going kid who loves to explore. This has been a major blessing recently.

-Your favorite foods are noodles (emphatically pronounced "noo-gle!"). You like sesame ginger noodles (which stink), macaroni and cheese (boxed or home made), spaghetti with red sauce (a treat to clean up), spinach ravioli/tortellini, and any other type of pasta you happened to find.

-You are a talking machine. You have many, many words that you say regularly; I've quit counting. Dada and I have started to use toddler speak and most adults probably think we're crazy. Examples include "wa-wa" for water and "dog-dog!" for dogs. You repeat everything. When we found out you got into a preschool program, Dada said "Congratulations!" and you repeated "-gradalation!" (which explains why you got in). You now put two words together. The first time you did this was to say "Byebye wa-wa" as the water trickled down the drain after bath time. You also frequently say "All done ___" when an activity ends or someone/something leaves. Many of your words do require a translator but I'm happy to provide that service.

-You have mastered walking and we now frequently hear you running across the wood floors. It's a fantastic sound. You fall often when you get distracted and your knees have been scraped up for a couple of weeks. You generally respond by saying "Boom!" and pointing to the damage...then you get up and move on.

-At the beginning of August, your grandfather passed away. You'd only met him once so you won't remember him but he found delight in holding you as an infant. Your cousin is named Stephen as a reminder of your grandfather.

-Also in August, we moved from Boston, MA to Arlington, VA. While Dada and I grew up in VA, this is a new place for you. You still talk about your friends from Boston (Nate, Sebastian, and Eben) who you clearly miss. You love our new place though and all of the extra space it offers. Being in a house means you get to go outside all the time. You've learned the neighborhood and can already direct us to the playground. You also start talking as soon as we walk by our house when we're on our way home. You have been a little more snugly lately which is probably the result of all of this change, but I welcome it.

-You will be starting preschool in a couple of weeks! You will attend school one morning a week for 3 hours. It's a co-op school, which means Mama gets to come with you once every few weeks. Hopefully Dada can join sometime too to get to see how much fun you have with the other kids. We had a school play date this week to meet your classmates and you had a fantastic time. I can't wait for you to learn the names of some new friends.

-In just a couple of months, you will be a big sister. You get so excited when we see babies, I hope you like our new baby just as much. Since my belly has gotten so big, you point to it and say "baby". Tonight you also pointed at Dada's belly and said "baby". I think I found it funnier than he did. You are going to be an amazing big sister, I know it.

I love you even more than the last letter I wrote you, even though I didn't think it was possible then.

Mama

Louisville, KY - the fun parts

It'd be a lie to say our entire time in Louisville was spent sitting around in sadness. Having a toddler left little time for that. Entertaining little ones in hotels is very difficult, so we spent our spare time exploring Louisville. It took my brother a few days to fly in from Iraq so we had 2 days to do some sight seeing.

Entering the Louisville zoo

Charlotte wanted nothing to do
with the giant orangutan

Going on safari

In the kid's zone at the Science Musem

Charlotte (read:Mama) wants a water table!

At the Falls near our hotel...which
weren't really water falls

But it was still pretty

Charlotte, Mama, baby

Fountain fun! Charlotte is usually afraid of
fountains so I didn't bring swim clothes...

Check out my abs

Understanding

Our family has had discussions these past few days wondering at what age children really understand death. Is there really any age when death is fully understood?

We attended my father's wake last night. The funeral home looked like a small church. My nieces and nephews were running around while the adults sat chatting in the front pews. In a box, at the front of the room, was my dad, sleeping. He was clean shaven, well dressed, and seemed very peaceful. But he never woke up. The children made noise, yet he didn't wake up. People stood next to him, talking about him, yet he still wouldn't wake up.

When small children are learning about the world, they create mental files for new experiences. A room with balloons and a decorated cake is filed under "party". I don't have a "funeral" file. I don't have a "death" file. I especially don't have one of these for my dad. Where am I supposed to store this experience mentally? How do I make sense of it?

Again, my inclination is to just get through the funeral events and get out of town. While leaving Kentucky will make it easier not to think about it, it doesn't change the reality. There will still be sudden memories or unexplained emotional outbursts in the upcoming weeks and months which have to be dealt with. I'm not in denial. I don't wish for my dad to still be sick and hanging on. But I still don't understand.

Processing

Unfortunately this post is not merely about Charlotte's shenanigans. It's an attempt to organize the thoughts swirling around my head (with the hope of being able to go back to sleep).

I received an email from my mom on Tuesday afternoon saying my dad had been admitted to the hospital for seizures. Those of you who have known me or my family know that my dad is regularly hospitalized...hence, my mom emailing the updates rather than even calling. I found this email a little more disturbing than usual since seizures weren't one of Dad's prior issues. Yesterday morning, I woke up to my phone buzzing under my pillow at 6:30 AM. It was an unknown Kentucky phone number. I knew immediately who it must've been and just stared at the screen. The buzzing stopped and seconds later the voicemail alert chimed. My dad had suffered a severe heart attack during the night and was not doing well. Somehow the DNR paperwork was never finalized, so the doctors and nurses brought him back and put him on life support. My mom worked with the doctor to get this sorted out and at 7 AM, Mom called to say Dad was taken off life support and was breathing on his own. I thought "Oh, here we go again. He'll be fine. Again." and asked Mom to call me in an hour. She called back at 7:25 and reality hit. He'd passed away. I have not actually said those words out loud yet. In fact, I haven't been able to even type ... he died. He's gone. There's no way good way to put it.

To back up, my dad has been sick for years. While I was in undergrad, he was hospitalized for something severe and the doctors told us to say goodbye. I spoke with a counselor then, sought support of friends, and sat in the hospital, waiting for the final word. Well, that time, as he has often since, he recovered. He's never fully returned to the dad he was when I was growing up, but he's stabilized. In all honesty, due to physical distance and emotional walls, things were never the same after that. Getting close meant having another heart-aching goodbye. We spoke on holidays and visited periodically, but my dad didn't have the physical strength to carry on long conversations and I didn't have the emotional strength to try to force him. This was at least 8 years ago. I've thought about the day my dad would die many times. I knew it would happen. I knew it wouldn't be easy, but somehow I was still unprepared.

Charlotte will never remember this grandfather and that hurts me. Thankfully, she doesn't have to grieve and mourn right now though which comforts me. I can't begin to think about how my mom must be coping with this. To lose Matt would mean to lose my world.

I don't know how people experience this sort of loss without faith. During one of Dad's moderately sick phases, I remember getting angry with God and protesting faith and religion. Then when my dad took the turn for the worst in college, I came running back to God desperate for some sort of consolation. I don't think God made my dad sick to hurt me. I don't think God intentionally hurts anyone. He's got some plan that I can't understand despite my constant attempts. He's put my dad in a place now where he's no longer in pain, and for that I'm grateful.

We leave in a few hours for Kentucky where I'm sure the next few days will be a blur. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the logistics of travel and funeral planning that the main event is forgotten. I hope I'll be able to spend some time really thinking about my dad and his life. It takes a conscious effort not to already think "Ok, I just need to get through the next few days." My dad held on to get through many years, he deserves more than a few days.