It was back to work on Monday for me and it wasn't as bad as I thought. I was a little nervous first because I have to get up at the butt crack of dawn to go to work and I have been off my schedule for so long. I was tired Monday, but it was a good tired. It felt good to do something I know I do well, that I can control, that I can concentrate on. I am very fortunate to love my job... no kidding. That right there is a blessing of epic proportions at a time like this. I don't know what I would do if going to work felt like drudgery or I didn't like what I was doing or who I was working with. I have always liked working from home, but now the silence seems to mean something entirely different than what it used to. I keep listening for Tyler to walk in the door and say "Hey mom what's for supper." Yesterday I felt like I was ready to crawl out of my skin. I kept thinking, "OK, I am ready to wake up now, I am ready to be done with this, I am ready for this to be just a dream." I can't really describe any better than that. It was sort of a nervous twitch all day. It's not that I am in denial of what has happened. It is more like all of a sudden I am baffled that it actually HAS happened. How could this possibly have come to pass? So work is therapy and it was when Tyler was sick too. It is something I am in charge of. I would like to say I am not a control freak, but it's a problem. I like my schedule and to know what is happening today, tomorrow, next week, otherwise I feel like a leaf floating in the wind.

My mom said something interesting to me yesterday. She said she thought that a crisis like your child having cancer would bring a family closer together. I mentioned on the caring bridge that cancer was like an atom bomb going off in your family and when the dust settled you have to hope you are still around and not too damaged by shrapnel. The bomb was cancer and now we are in the after shock stage of things. Cancer did not bring our family together. The problem was everything happened so fast that we didn't have time to learn any coping skills. We all just had to hang on for the ride and try to muddle through. There was no choice. We did a lot of things wrong and we didn't support each other like we could have(meaning Jay and I), and the stress was not something that I can explain that anyone would understand who hasn't been in our position. Emotions run so high and close to the surface. As I have said before, it is easier to be angry than to feel something deeper about what is happening to you. The overwhelming feeling of helplessness watching your child die should incapacitate you and it nearly did us. BUT, I would like to stress that we did a lot of things right too. Those are the things I think about more and more and more. I feel like in so many ways we were fortunate to have the amount of time we did, and now Tyler is at peace. We know he is in heaven. He has no cancer. He is not in a wheelchair. He has no pain. He is sitting at the feet of God right at this moment. I can't be sad that he isn't suffering, but it hurts every second of every day knowing that I can't touch him, hug him, tell him I love him. My point is this... you can't possibly understand the dynamics of what we went through unless you have lived it. Now is the time where we have to dust ourselves off, pick ourselves up, and find each other and ourselves in this aftermath. This is what we are doing. NOW is when a family pulls together I think. We share so much sadness, but we also share the greatest joy of having had Tyler for almost 19 years. No one else on this earth has that in exactly the same way. The entire time Tyler was sick we could hear the clock ticking in the background no matter what we were doing. Tyler LIVED in his last months more than he ever should have. He didn't complain. He smiled. He had fun. It was us as parents that were constantly on edge, thinking about the clock, frustrated we couldn't fix what was happening.

So now we are trying to do our best to take it day by day or minute by minute. I think we are doing OK. We are all talking about our feelings, what happened, memories good and bad. Carter is doing much better in my opinion. He was slightly out of control there for a while - that might be an understatement. Cassie is doing very well too. Jay and I are hanging in there. As I said, work is good for me. Jay is keeping busy fixing this and that. The bottom line is the foundation of a family is that you love one another. A tornado came and took our house out, but the foundation is still standing. Rebuilding is difficult but not impossible and so very worth it. It's very strange that there are so many moments when I can close my eyes and just feel peace...the peace that passes understanding. I don't understand how I am not a raving lunatic... or at least not a raving lunatic 24 hours a day.

Through this whole ordeal, we have had so many good things happen to us and for us. I have said that many times. Here is another example. A gentleman named Chris who is from Detroit Lakes and works in Cabos at a resort donated a trip to Cabos for our benefit if you remember. A couple of days before Tyler passed he sent a letter to us, which didn't arrive until the Monday after Tyler passed. It read "by the time you get this, Tyler will probably be in heaven..." He sent us a week stay at his resort. We just have to get there. We really didn't think much of it at the time of course because we were dealing with the funeral, etc. A week or so later we were talking about it and decided we were going to take him up on this in December to hopefully make Christmas a little easier (this is thanks to my sister Krys' poking me in the butt with a stick). I contacted him and we set it up for the first week of December. Then I went to find plane tickets and was so disheartened because of the cost of airfare for all 4 of us to fly there and back. It was looking like we wouldn't be able to go. The next day I was looking again on the internet for tickets and just gave up. About an hour later, one of the guys from the Fiero web site called out of the blue. They had taken up a collection for Tyler's flowers they sent (the beautiful big yellow arrangement) and he wanted to send us a check for the balance. I said, "Oh that is so nice." I was thinking a couple hundred dollars or so. He then told me the check was for around 3600. I almost fell down. I proceeded to tell him, probably sounding a little manic, about this Mexico trip. This money will buy our tickets, pass ports, and give us an ample amount of spending money. You have no idea what a monster blessing that was. Today I got approval to have that week off from my supervisor, so everything has just clicked into place. Isn't that the coolest story ever? If you learn nothing else from our sad story, I hope everyone sees that there are so many good people in this world who are kind, generous, and selfless. I want to be like that.

Speaking of the Fiero crew, they are coming to Frazee the weekend of July 24 for the first annual Tyler Shipman Fiero get together. It has a different name than that, but it's not coming to me. People from all over the country are coming with their cars. We decided we are going to have a big 'ol get together at our house that Friday, roast a hog, hang out, etc. I am very excited about this, although the guys have been giving me grief that we won't fit everyone in our yard. I just said we could throw a few of them in the weeds if we need to. If anyone is in the area, plan on stopping by. Graduation is going to be very hard. We should be planning for that and we can't. I guess we are substituting one for the other and I think it will be a good thing to look forward to. I am hoping to get a good start on my memorial garden for Tyler in the backyard before then. I am leaning towards using mostly yellow flowers to match his Fiero. My gardening pro friend Cindy said she would help me work up a plan. I just keep picturing yellow blooming flowers, the sound of water, the shade of the tree in the backyard.

Last but not least, my knitting circle.... I went again last night. OK, to be quite frank my mitten looks the same as it did last week. It's also big enough to fit a sumo wrestler. I spent the whole time talking everyone's ear off last night and I cannot knit and talk at the same time. I can barely knit when I'm not talking. They probably DO think I am a lunatic. I spend all day in the silence of my house, so it's like a dam breaking when I open my mouth sometimes. There is also something about talking with people who are not in the thick of what is going on in your life. Maybe it's their objectivity? I don't know. I stopped by hospice before going there and ran into Leslie - our Mopar lady as Tyler called her. I am very surprised how emotional it was for me to see her. There is a support group there once a month for parents who have lost kids and I know I am going to go next month. I told Leslie she had to come to the Fiero get together. She said she would bring her Dodge. I will need a volunteer to pass Tyler's torch of giving Leslie constant crap about being "the Mopar lady." Anybody?

Oh.. and the puppies were born last weekend. I am getting a girl and naming her Dixie. They are Maltichon pups and cute as a button. I am going to have to start knitting a sweater! Although at the rate I knit, it wouldn't be done until next year at this time.