4 Years

Today marks 4 years that Colin has been gone.  I just noticed that his picture is crooked.  Ooops.  It is a tough day to get through.  Period.  But I wanted to be less outwardly sad for Casey's sake.  He is sad, of course, but he doesn't seem to have as hard a time as Gene and myself and other family members do on this day.  So I wanted to try to be normalish for Casey.  Everything I did today was with a heavy heart but I made it through the day.  

Peggy made this montage to honor Colin.  Such cute pics!!

Casey, Gene and I wore our We Love Colin shirts.  Didn't get a pic of Gene.

This was my Facebook post:

Nothing profound to say today. Just trying to get through the day. Miss my ”Bok Choy Boy” so much. Trying to be open to signs from him. Have received two already. First, I was nurse last night so I sleep in a bed across from Casey which was Colin's spot. The bed has lots of Colin's pillows and stuffies on it. This morning my hand touched something. It was ‘baby chick’. Aunt Julia had made Colin a red stuffed chicken with 4 baby chicks that go in pouches in her sides. Red chicken was way at the bottom of the bed last night but somehow one baby chick landed halfway up the bed by my hand 💙. Second, I was tearfully scrolling through Facebook and my Windows went away and there was my favorite pic of Collie on my desktop looking at me. I figured Windows had crashed, but it hadn’t; the tabs had just, what do you call it, gone down to the bottom. 💙

Colin Robert O'Neill
April 4,2001 to November 10, 2014

The two signs that I got early on were very cool and I was thankful.  I was hoping for more,  I was trying to keep my heart open.  I belong to a Facebook group where I shared about Colin.  Someone posted and said to watch for dimes as they can be a sign from Heaven.  I was kind of skeptical since I believe Colin has sent me pennies before.  Much to my surprise, not long afterwards, I was picking up some laundry that Gene had thrown in front of the washer and look what was there!  A single dime!  Gene always empties his pockets out upstairs.  He tends to have bills, coins, pens, receipts and all sorts of things in his pockets and he likes to be the one to empty them (probably so I don't steal his cash, haha, and I don't throw out his precious treasures)  I'm pretty sure it was a sign.  

Angel Day (3)

Three years ago our family of 4 became a family of 3--at least on this Earth.  I will not stop recognizing being a family of 4.  Not everyone will/can understand this but some will because I know too many other families that have experienced a loss like ours.  Until the majority of the world experiences this kind of loss, we will be in this minority and deal with it in any way we can.  Much of the world thinking they know how we feel, or wonder why we are different people than before, or not knowing how to 'handle' us now that we have lost a child.

I've neglected this blog since we lost Colin.  In a way I wish I had kept up with it so I could look back and remember those fresh days, weeks, months.  But it would have been too painful to sit down at a keyboard and write feelings, observations and what and how we were doing back then and it would be too painful to re-read, I'm sure.  I've been trying to talk myself into doing this for months now and I kind of promised Colin I would get back to it as a way to document our life and to get down to 'paper' memories of Colin.

Grief.  I don't even know if I'm doing it right.  I know I'm a stuffer; I don't tend to show the feelings of my heart to the outside world--even to those closest to me.  I have a couple of friends that I talk to on the phone and they know if I ever get quiet, I am just not able to talk at that moment and tears are probably rolling down my face.  They know.  Other people in my life can almost see the pain in my heart (I'm only talking for myself here but I'm sure it's the same with Gene and Casey) and I know it hurts them very much and they don't know what to do or how to help.  I don't know what I need either.

Every second of every day I have a hole in my heart that physically hurts and sometimes I wonder if an Xray would show that there is certainly a piece missing.  Some days I laugh and smile and feel happy.  Joy-that's another thing.  In a weird way I have experienced it with Casey when he accomplishes something or when he laughs so hard he cries, but even that Joy is tampered.

That's about all of that I can write right now.

I want to talk about today.  "Wear Blue for Colin" is a Facebook event that our dear friend started for us 3 years ago.  Each year it is shared among our friends and family and friends of friends, and--you get the idea.  My Facebook feed is filled with people I love from near and far, and those that I may know through the SMA Community and/or the Internet.  People have shared their remembrances of Colin, sent their thoughts and prayers to us, and donned themselves in blue, or somehow conveyed that they have thought of our family today.  Wow.  It's pretty powerful and there are no words to express how much it means to have our Colin thought of and remembered.

I love this picture of Casey at or Cure SMA Walk N Roll 2017 with the picture of Colin on his chair behind him.