FIVE

Over the past few years my presence here at Little Miss Ritchie during the month of May has changed. The year after Charlotte died, I declared May to be "The Month of Chuck," filling each day with stories and photos of our sweet girl. It was hard. It was emotionally exhausting. It was just too much for my shattered heart to handle. The next year I scaled things back, only posting 5 days a week, but still trying to hold true to "The Month of Chuck" concept. Fast forward yet another year and I came face to face with a very harsh reality...I was running out of memories to share. 

Holy emotional breakdown.  

Now here we are, well into our 4th May without her, and I find myself continuing to distance myself from this space. Its not that I haven't wanted to come here to "decompress," but I've really been struggling to find the words to express the roller coaster of emotions that I've been riding. Year after year I try to convince myself that thing will finally be "easier"...that I will be able to enter May with my head held high and come out of the month relatively unscathed. Year after year I am wrong. I feel myself shutting down. I sleep less. I cry more. This year, more than any other, I've felt angry. 

Last Thursday we celebrated our sweet girl's 5th birthday.  Five years old.  Can you even believe it?  I will always wonder who Charlotte would have been at 5 - her favorites, her tickle spots, her daydreams.  And while my mental images will always result in smiles, it feels so incredibly unfair that we can only pain a picture of who we THINK she would be.  I want to KNOW her.  I want to celebrate WITH her...to give her giant birthday hugs and spoil her morning to night.  Instead, I drug myself out of bed on Thursday and celebrated the best way I knew how. 

We shared extra snuggles in bed and blew good morning birthday kisses to big sister.

We went on a small town donut date in our jams (bed head and all).

We opened our first BIG round of Books for Charley donations.

We napped. ALL of us.

We baked strawberry lemonade cupcakes from scratch, complete with pink frosting that any 5 year old girl would love.

We sang happy birthday, blew out 5 flickering candles and ate cupcakes to our heart's content.

We sent 5 pink polk-a-dot balloons to the sky, complete with birthday wishes and a whole lot of "H"s drawn by a very proud little brother.

Birthdays without her will never be "easy", but May 14th is (and will always be) a day worth celebrating. And celebrate we will. Happy birthday sweet Charley girl. We love you and miss you every minute of every day.  

Charley's Garden

This summer Matt and I planted our first ever vegetable garden. A very limited amount of planning went into our little plot…yet for some reason I still had grand visions of a bountiful harvest and opening our own roadside produce stand. The reality? My largest radish was the size of my thumb nail. Our green peppers are the exact same size that they were when we planted them 2 months ago. Our carrots are pencil thin (if that) and have only the faintest tint of orange. The lettuce was laughable. The strawberries have be snacked on by what I’m guessing are birds. The peas and beans have looked promising…but only at a volume suitable for snacking.  One might look at our harvest thus far and assume that Matt and I have 4 pretty “black thumbs” – but the truth is, our true gardening pride and joy won’t ever produce vegetables.  Instead of carrots, beans and peppers, our garden is filled with bright, beautiful flowers - each one known to be irresistible to butterflies, each one planted with insane amounts of love into a place that we like to call Charley's Garden.

We got the idea for Charley's Garden just shortly after we had to say good-bye to our little girl, but we put our plans on hold knowing that there was an imminent move in our future.  Two years, 2 states and 2 rentals later, we finally had a home again in 2013 and were finally able to start laying the ground work for this very special space.  With the much anticipated arrival of spring, our first spring in our new home, we set ourselves to work.  We fertilized.  We mulched.  We even sprinkled the area with the sand from our oceanfront wedding ceremony...sand used to illustrate our separate lives, friends, and family becoming one. 

After lots of preparation, it was time to plant.

Sigh....those first few plants were emotional.  

A few weeks after those first plants went into the ground, Matt and I went on a plant shopping spree.  In addition to our purchased plants, we also asked each of Charlotte's grandparents (and great grandparents) to divide a plant from their homes to add to our happy little space.   We invited them all out to the farm one spring afternoon for some planting, dinner, and most importantly, to celebrate the inspiration behind our new garden.  Aside from the gail-force winds, it was a perfect afternoon.

Our kiddos are the luckiest kiddos ever.

When it was all said and done, we stood back, admired our new memorial, and smiled.  Charley's Garden, once just a vision, was now full of new, green life.  

It's only appropriate that our little path leads to two beautiful bleeding hearts.

Charley's Garden is a happy space filled with gorgeous blooms, bright colors, and hopefully with time, lots of butterflies.  It is a space for us to reflect.  A space to remember.  A space for us to tend to and to watch grow into something beautiful beyond our wildest imaginations - much like we had hoped to do with our sweet Charlotte.  There is so much beauty in this little garden.

Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be filled with sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I will give you a full life in the emptiest of places – firm muscles, strong bones. You will be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry. You will use the old rubble of past lives to build a new, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. ~Isaiah 58:12

Dreamland

The scene is perfect.  

A little girl sitting in her high chair in the middle of our Sioux Falls backyard.  The grass is emerald green.  The sun is shining.  A gentle breeze blows her fine auburn hair around her face.  She's eating...something we always tried so hard to get her to do.   And she's smiling the most amazing smile.

I don't touch her or talk to her.  I just stand and watch from a distance. 

And then I wake up.

I've had 3 Charlotte dreams in the past 3 years, yet this is the one that I come back to over and over again.  When my mind wants to carry me back to that day.  When the air is sucked out of my lungs and I feel like I'm going to suffocate.  When I feel like the ground might crumble beneath my feet.

Today I need that little girl in the high chair.

Choosing to See

After Charlotte earned her wings, I received many recommendations from friends about books that might provide some level of comfort during our darkest moments. It took me awhile to get to a point where I could just sit down and really focus enough to read again, but when I did, the suggestions were a good starting point.  There were books like Heaven is For Real, One Thousand Gifts, and one that has really had me thinking lately, Choosing to See.

Choosing to See was written by by Mary Beth Chapman (wife of Christian singer Stephen Curtis Chapman).  In 2008, the Chapman's five year old daughter Maria was tragically killed when a vehicle struck her in their own driveway. And while this loss was undoubtedly an inspiration behind this memoir, the message behind it is broader. 

"In Choosing to See, Mary Beth unveils her struggle to allow God to write the story of her life.  She struggles with some of life's greatest questions:  Where is God when things fall apart?  Why does God allow terrible things to happen? How can I survive hard times?  No matter where you find yourself in your own life story, you will treasure the way that Mary Beth shows that even in hard times, there is hope if you choose to see." (text from book cover)

Last Monday night, on the eve of my 31st birthday, I found myself lying in bed having my ritual conversation with God.   It was really nothing new...thanking Him for another day, prayers for my family and a host of others in need of them, and my nightly request that I might see, hold, smell my baby girl in my dreams.  In the past 2 years there have only been a handful of nights where I have had Charlotte dreams-- unfortunately, despite my requests, March 4th was not one of them. 

I got up Wednesday morning and went about my day. It was a good birthday. Harrison woke up happy and ready to snuggle, Matt surprised me at work with super yummy cupcakes, a few hours later I had Starbucks delivered by my mother-in-law.  The evening was capped off with a low key dinner (in my pjs!) and an evening at home with my boys. 

That night as I tucked myself into bed, I had what I like to refer to as a "choosing to see" moment.  Above I mentioned birthday snuggles, cupcakes, coffee and family time...but what I didn't really put together until the day was almost over, was how Charlotte was present in my day as well.  

That morning I checked my email and found a message from a family whose newborn son was having surgery the next day. They wanted to share a picture with us...

Sweet Ethan had surgery this week in Omaha.  All reports so far are that he's doing well! 

That afternoon when I arrived home from work I found a large box addressed to Charley's Heart sitting in the living room.

Hospice with Heart reached out to us in November after our article ran in the OWH.  They collected monkeys through the end of February and they arrived this week.  Talk about a happy birthday gift!

Before I went to bed that night, I heard the familiar ding of a message arriving in my inbox. I did one last email check and low and behold...

I'm so in love with these pictures.  Sweet Teresa is currently listed for a heart transplant and her mom sent us a request for a RedButt about a month ago.  We were so excited to send one of our monkeys their direction and even more excited to see how much she loves "Mr. Pinky!"  Haha!  What an incredible reminder of why we do this.  

Tears.

It was at that moment that I realized that in the hustle and bustle of the day...this mama had forgotten to SEE.  I had asked God for a simple dream, but he had given me so much more. He gave me my baby girl morning, noon and night.   He sent me THREE reminders, all on my birthday, all from random places, all re-enforcing the fact that my Charlotte is always with me.   During difficult times it becomes easy to develop tunnel vision and to focus on the "unfair" or "unanswered prayers."  But what I have learned is that there are beautiful blessings all around us - sometimes you just have to make a conscious effort...sometimes you have to CHOOSE to see.

Weighing on my Heart

Sweet baby girl,

Something pretty big happened in our house sometime in the past 2 months. Something that has my brain/heart working overtime.  

It started back in October when I took your baby brother to his 4 month well-visit.  His visits are always pretty routine...weight, developmental assessment, shots.  This one was no different.  He was given a clean bill of health and we were on our way.  The first thing I did after we left was call Daddy and let him know what a BIG little boy we had.  At 4 months old he had already surpassed the 15 lb mark.

Fast forward 2 months... 

Two weeks ago I took Harrison to see Dr. Whitcomb because of a nasty cough.  He was due for another well-visit and one more round of shots, but all of that had to be put on hold due to the fact that he was sick.  They did weigh him, though, and I was startled to see 18 lb 15 oz flash before me on the scale. 

15 lb.  

18 lb.  

Somewhere in between lies 17 lb 8 oz...the weight you were the last time I held you in my arms.  I had just weighed you the night before.

I didn't expect for Harrison to get there so quickly (a whole 6 months faster than you did) and a part of me hurts knowing that I didn't realize it at the time.  There isn't a day that passes where I don't ache to feel your weight in my arms again.  I want so badly to have one more chance...to remember how you felt snuggled in my arms...to experience that physical moment one more time.  I wanted to hold your brother when he was 17 lbs 8 oz, close my eyes and imagine that it was you in my arms.   I realize that that may sound unfair to him...but it's true.  There's no good way to explain it.  

Maybe it's a good thing it passed unnoticed.  
Maybe God was trying to shield my heart from the grief that it would have triggered.  
Had I known, I'm sure I would have been a mess.
I'm sure I would have felt torn in two.

I miss you, Bear.  All 17 lbs 8 oz of you.

Loving you beyond words or explanation, 

Mommy

Hand-Me-Downs

When we found out that we were having a little baby boy back in February 2011, I was pretty confident that aside from clothing, most of our current baby toys/decor/etc. would be reusable.  We tried to keep things pretty gender neutral the first time around and were pretty prepared when it was boy time.  Of all of the items that we have been "re-using," there have been a couple of hand-me-downs that have been a little harder on me emotionally. 

Hand-me-down #1:  Diapers

I was in the basement a few weeks back searching for a few items among our stacks and stacks of boxes, when I came across one that was full of diapers.  I froze for a minute, knowing that they were ones that were left over after Charlotte died.  I threw the diapers in a box knowing that some day we would probably have another baby and that they would come in handy.  Charlotte, our petite little girly, was 12 months old and wearing a size 3 diaper (she had very deceiving chubby cheeks!).  Her brother is now 6 months old and sporting those same size 3s.  Notice I didn't call Harrison "petite"!  Charlotte's sick heart had to work a lot harder than Harrison's healthy one...meaning that she burned calories at a much faster rate.  Combine that with her feeding struggles and you get a little girl in the 10th percentile for weight.  We knew that Harrison would likely be bigger, but a part of my heart is sad knowing that he's already bigger than she ever had the chance to grow.

Hand-me-down #2:  Highchair

This one was a tough one for me.  Last May we contemplated selling Charlotte's highchair and getting a new one for Harrison...there were just so many memories (good and bad) of that silly chair.  It was an observation point for many after dinner dance parties, countless photos, stolen popsicles and eating celebrations....all good things.  But those highs were also accompanied by the frustrations of feeding a little girl who flat out didn't want to eat, or wanted to eat but would randomly gag and empty her tummy.  In the end we kept the chair and I'm really happy that we did.  It's just another piece of Charlotte that we are able to share with her baby brother.

Charlotte - 6 months

Harrison - 6 months

Hand-me-down #3:  Special clothes

Sigh....another hard one.  Most of Charlotte's clothes are packed away in totes just in case there is another baby girl in our future.  Some that we deemed "Charlotte's and only Charlotte's" are safely stored in her cedar chest.  She did, however, have a few items that were "hand-downable" to her baby brother...3 items that I know she would have been proud to share.  

Charlotte - 8.5 months

 Harrison - 6 months

And yes, Matt is wearing the EXACT same outfit in both pictures....and not for the sake of making the pictures look the same.  The picture of Charlotte was taken on the day that the Packers won the Super Bowl, and that OBVIOUSLY makes it a "lucky" outfit.  If it's game day, he's wearing it!  Boys are weird like that.

I wasn't sure how I would feel about pulling these items out of storage...for some reason I had always thought of them as being Charlotte's.  I've had to remind myself that it's normal for little siblings to have hand-me-downs and smile knowing that Harrison's big sister is still very much a part of our home.

Hearts on a String

I have a tendency to be a little "wordy"...but today I'm just going to cut to the chase.

I've been struggling.
I'm sleeping poorly.
I'm having bad dreams.
Tears are coming more frequently.

I'm trying my best to count my blessings...but this time of year everything just seems to get a little bit harder.  I find myself torn between emotions--overjoyed at the thought of celebrating our first Christmas with Harrison, yet full of heartache as we face a second without his big sister.   Memories of Charlotte and her first (and only) Christmas surround us as we prepare our home for the holidays--her ornaments on the tree, her stocking on the mantle, our Charley Bear angel perched atop our tree watching over us.  I know that she is with us, but that doesn't change the fact that I will always and forever want more.

Saturday night, with Matt in Chicago and Harrison sleeping soundly, I found myself in one of those "I need to be busy or might drive myself crazy" kind of moods.  My crafty side took over and before I knew it, I was neck deep in a project that kept me up WAY past my old lady bedtime.

I started out with no clear direction...

...and ended up with something beautifully simple for our baby girl. 

The next morning I went to the cemetery to take my creation to Charlotte.  It was a cold, gloomy day...actually pretty fitting for my mood.  As I sat shivering on the cold grass I allowed myself to do something that I hadn't in quite some time.  I broke.  My silent tears transformed into audible sobs, I sat on my hands to keep them from shaking, my stomach churned...I felt heartbroken and angry.  I wanted to be in our warm cozy home, stringing that precious garland on our tree with my 2.5 year old in tow...not fumbling with frozen fingers to decorate her grave site.  It's just not right.

I want to hate this picture...but there is a part of me that sees the beauty in knowing that Charlotte will always and forever be a part of me...that every moment spent with her made me a better person. I know that she hates that I hurt.  I know she aches when I cry.  I know that she feels the brokenness of my heart.  But there are other things she knows, too.  She knows our love for her.  She knows that our pain is only temporary.  She knows that soon enough we will all be together.  She knows that our eternity will be full of joy.  Until then we will continue to celebrate her...even if a part of that means making painful trips to a cemetery that no parent should have to make.  

I hope that you like your pretty hearts, Charley Bear.  

Mama loves you so very, very, very much. 

Hope in the Darkness

For the past few months I've been slightly obsessed with the newest Mumford and Sons album "Babel."  I loved the first album...one that will forever and ever remind me of our kitchen dance parties with Charlotte, and this second album is just as good--if not better.  

There is one song in particular on this album that always strikes an emotional chord with me.  I've listened to it a hundred times (sometimes multiple times in a row)...and I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I have made it from start to finish with dry eyes. It speaks so much to the road that Matt and I have been walking these past few years.  A road that hasn't been easy.  A road that has pushed us to our limits.  The lyrics really say it all...

"Ghosts That We Knew"

You saw my pain washed out in the rain

Broken glass, saw the blood run from my veins

But you saw no fault, no cracks in my heart

And you knelt beside my hope torn apart

But the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view and

We'll live a long life

So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

'Cause oh that gave me such a fright

But I will hold as long as you like

Just promise me we'll be alright

So lead me back, turn south from that place

And close my eyes to my recent disgrace

'Cause you know my call

And we'll share my all

And our children come and they will hear me roar

So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

'Cause oh that gave me such a fright

But I will hold as long as you like

Just promise me we'll be alright

But hold me still, bury my heart on the coals

But hold me still, bury my heart next to yours 

So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light

'Cause oh that gave me such a fright

But I will hold on with all of my might

Just promise me we'll be alright

But the ghosts that we knew made us black and all blue

But we'll live a long life

And the ghosts that we knew will flicker from view

And we'll live a long life

The past 19 months have been harder, more excruciatingly painful, than anything I could ever describe. We've been in dark places; felt totally crushed and defeated. We've had days where we've just wanted to give up.  But while we stand here today with inevitable bumps and bruises, we have not been broken.  We continue to seek out HOPE in the darkness.

Hope that, while sometimes hard to see, there is a plan for our family.

Hope that we WILL some day hold our perfect little girl again.

Hope that came to us in the form of a little baby boy.

Hope that no matter how much it hurts...we WILL be alright.

I will hold on with all of my might.

Just promise me we'll be alright.

Just promise me we'll be alright.

Packing...

Just recently I came across something in an online forum that was posted by another grieving heart mom.  Her family was in the process of going through her son's room...packing his things away in storage bins.  She didn't want to put them away, but at the same time was terrified that if they were left out that something might happen to them...that they would get ruined somehow.  My heart ached for her as I read phrases like "Its all I can do to even function"  and "I want to scream" and I found myself sitting in front of the computer with tears streaming down my face.  These posts are not uncommon in my world.  We have been there along with so many others.  We packed up the material reminders of our little girl...put her things in boxes knowing that there was no reason to unpack them again.  

I never posted about our packing process here on Little Miss Ritchie, but this woman's post got me thinking about it again.  Our situation was a little different...we were moving...we HAD to pack things up.  Lord knows I didn't want to... Charlotte's room had gone untouched up to that point.  Her drool stained sheets still in her crib, her dirty laundry still sitting in the closet holding on to her sweet scent. The thought of disturbing her things literally made me sick.

I don't have the emotional energy to write about it, but remembered that I had shared some of our experiences with a friend of mine.  One day she sent me a message asking how our move went.  Most times I would answer that question with a simple "It was okay"...but on that day I just needed to get it out....I needed to be honest with her and with myself.    

"Yes, packing was aweful. No fun whatsoever. I started doing it in bits and pieces...bath stuff, then books, then toys...I would talk to her the whole time about the things I was packing and promised her that even though her things were in boxes, that she was forever and ever and ever in my heart. At the rate I was going it was going to take me about 3 months to pack, so one day we just did it. I was up sitting in the rocking chair [in her room] and Matt just came in and started taking things off the wall...no talking, no nothing. We just looked at each other and knew that we had to get it over with.

Sucky suck suck suck. It was all hard but when we got down to her closet we cracked. Most of the things that were hanging there she hadn't even had the opportunity to wear because we were just getting into the warmer weather....they weren't the hard part. It was the laundry basket full of dirty clothes...the jammies she had worn the night before, the clothes that she had worn in the park on Memorial Day....sigh. They all smell like my little girl...and it breaks my heart because I know that little things like smells are the first memories to fade. I don't know if I will ever bring myself to wash them, but we folded them all neatly and stacked them back in the laundry basket. I don't know what their fate will be, but for now the whole basket is sitting by the rocking chair in our basement...soaking up basement smell and pushing out Charley smell. Gulp. My heart breaks just thinking about it. I haven't talked about that day at all...its been too hard...and now here I am sitting at the computer in tears, rambling. 

Once things were packed I was just ready to move. The night before I sat on the floor in Charlotte's empty room until about 1AM. We talked about lots of stuff and she left me pretty reassured that we are going to be ok. Never the same, but ok. I thought that I would have a breakdown the day of the move, but in the end I just took the last picture, her picture, off the wall, said goodbye to our house and drove away tear-free. It was a good house. We have lots of good memories from it. But it was time to move on." 

I'm not sure why I felt the need to post this today...I just needed to put it out there.  People need to know that there is no "RIGHT" way to handle these situations.  There is no timeline,  no rules saying what must be done and when.  When you lose a child all of the "rules" fly out the door.  No one has a right to expect things from you...that you move on...that you put on a happy face...that you go back to being the same person that you were before tragedy threatened to break you.  Whether you pack up your angels things 2 days later, 2 years later, or maybe never...its okay.  YOU HAVE TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU AND NO ONE ELSE.

As for us...we've unpacked some of our boxes again now that we have Mr. Harrison.  We kept most of the "girl" specific things tucked away, but once again there are reminders of our girlie scattered around the house.  H's nursery looks very similar to his sisters, he plays with toys that used to be hers, I comb his crazy hair with the same little pink comb.  The items that are strictly "Charlotte" have found a home in a cedar chest given to us by Matt's mom.  Some day I will go through it again...but for now I'm content just knowing that her things are there.  After all, its the memories that I hold in my heart that are the most treasured.

Sigh.  My love goes out to all of you who have put your children's things into boxes.  

Something to Snuggle With

Hello. My name is Kristen Ritchie. I am 30 years old...and I still sleep with my baby blanket. 

I have had my green blanket since I was a brand new, itty bitty baby. It has long been my security...familiar and reliable.  Over the course of the last 30 years my blanket has been put thru the ringer.  It has gone above and beyond standard blanket duties--soaking up tears, catching drool and wiping my sniffly nose as I've cried myself to sleep. It has been crammed into suitcases, subjected to "dorm life" and spit-up on by my babies. It has been washed a million times. What was once a soft and vibrant green fabric is now worn and faded--officially showing its age.  The batting inside is torn and the fabric is becoming transparent. I'm sad it's falling apart, yet shocked that it has hung on this long. 

My blanket is kind of a big deal. 

Charlotte (2 months) lounging on my blanket.  If I didn't see the scar down her chest I would swear that this was her little brother.  Wow.

Stella likes it too!

My baby girl has a blanket too. It's green just like her mama's.  While she never had the words to tell us how she felt, I'm pretty confident that she loved it.  Her green blanket saw her through lots of scary times...the nicu, heart caths, surgeries...it was safe and familiar. There was one particular corner that she was especially fond of.  I'm not quite sure how she differentiated between them, but she always managed to find the right one. She would put the silky material in her mouth, soaking it with her slobber.  Sigh.  

I was so excited that Charlotte would have a green blanket just like mine!

 Charlotte with her blanket at less than 1 week old

Charlotte's baptism

Snuggled up with Dad

Cozied up for a World Series playoff game

Thanksgiving at Grammy's house

 Tired morning before surgery

 Something soft and familiar during the scariest moments

Snug as a bug

Mmmmmm yum

Lucky Mr. Harrison got a very similar blanket at his baby shower.  It is bright red, just like his cousin Owen's (who happened to help pick this one out!)  He's still pretty little to really grasp the whole "I love my blanket" thing, but I think that we are well on our way to establishing a favorite.  I mean really, look at his little grin below...

Dreamy sleep smiles...my favorite!

Just chillin'

So warm and snuggly

You know it's a good nap when the tongue comes out.

One of my favorites...Happy yet heartbreaking.  

Harrison in the hospital with two very special blankets.