Category Archives: mom

It Takes A Village – A Love Letter

Dear Family, Friends, Teachers and Community Members,

If you know my family at all, my story at all, this letter is meant for you to be reading. Many, many times my husband and I have attempted to put our gratitude into words. It never seems to reflect the full magnitude of just how grateful we are for all you do. I don’t expect this to do it either but I will try once again!

Thank you – two simple words, yet such strong meaning. YOU have been a part of what has saved us over these four years. Beginning with the amazing outpouring of support when we first lost our dear Christian continuing right through today. Your presence, hugs, love, listening ears, meals, cards, walks, play dates, tears along side us, monetary donations, every effort to show he will never be forgotten, all of it. YOU are helping to raise our children every day. Just knowing that you are there, ready to do anything to make our life more manageable is the biggest blessing.

I have struggled with my faith since this all happened. I continue to figure it out. One thing I know for sure is something my sister told me early on. “All of these people are God.” It’s true. You are all the epitome of kindness, love and true, divine light. We couldn’t go on without you. YOU have all been true teachers in our children’s lives. You have shown them through your example just how important it is to help those who are suffering or in need. The fact that your level of support and love has not wavered is the most beautiful thing. YOU are all heroes to us.

I would be remiss if I didn’t specifically pay homage to our amazing parents and my sister and her family. Through all of their suffering they are always conscious of our feelings. They are always sensitive to our needs. They deal with grief twofold. Not only do they feel the pain of missing their grandson, nephew and cousin but they feel the pain of watching their daughter, son, sister and children navigate this life. They are always here for us. Without a doubt their presence in our lives has helped our family to carry on.

We cannot thank you enough for everything. You have helped us to find beauty in pain. You have inspired us to pay it forward and create an organization that does just what you have done. We will help families who lose children suddenly. YOU have shown us what to do. So many of you ask us what to do for a grieving family. You have done it. Be there. Honor their angel. If the family knows they can count on you for love and support, you are doing just what they need. Thank you – two simple words, yet such strong meaning.

With love from us and heaven,

The Martinisi Family

Carrying On Is Different Than Moving On

One of my fellow members of the most undesirable club to be in, posted something quite interesting today. She made the distinction between carrying on and moving on as  grieving mothers. This really resonated with me. Her point was that we never move on from grieving our children. We carry on. We carry on raising our living children. We carry on as wives. We carry on as daughters, sisters, friends. Most of all we carry on, while carrying our children in our hearts. We carry on because our deceased children live on through us. Their legacies, messages and light live on through us. That can only happen if we carry on with our life.

I have said before that I still actively mother three children. It is not in the way I once expected it would be. My responsibilities to my living children include making lunches, showering them, driving them to camp and preparing them to start a new school year. These mothering tasks are responsibilities that all mothers can relate to. Mothering an angel is different. It’s not as demanding as mothering a living child and yet it is more demanding. If we don’t keep our child’s spirit and memory alive, he is really gone. Mothering an angel requires less responsibility, yet more. No longer do I need to worry about what time he will be home from school, but I need to make the time to honor him. No longer do I need to worry about if he is making the right choices, but I need to make sure my choices in honoring his life make him proud. Just like a mother never stops loving her child, she never stops mothering her child.

Grieving mothers carry on. We are warriors. Oxford Dictionaries defines warrior as “A brave or experienced soldier or fighter.” That’s us. There are so many other ways we would have liked to earn our warrior status. We will never move on. We will never move past our child, his life, our experiences together. It will never be an event that merely occurred in the past. Instead we become experienced at carrying on. We become experienced at being a fighter. Every day that is lived without my child is a fight. It will never be easy. This is not to say that happiness and joy does not exist. Both coincide in my world. Sometimes the intensity of grief, and the feeling of fighting is stronger. Sometimes the intensity of happiness and joy is stronger. One never wins out, one never trumps the other. They exist together. That is how I carry on. Love to heaven…

Grief and Sickness

Christian’s 4 year angelversary is quickly approaching which means my emotions are running higher than usual. I have been inhabiting this state since June actually. In June he would have moved up from elementary school. Then came the summer, along with all the reminders of his final time here with us. And now it’s the dreaded August.

Our summer has been filled with lots of travel, which has been amazing. We have had more family time together than usual which is always healing. We have made many new memories. My husband and I even had a chance to get away. It’s been great. We have one more trip coming up this week to send the summer out with a bang.

All this travel means my schedule is way off. My self care schedule has not been very consistent. In combination with high emotions my immunity is way down. I know this because I am recovering from one of the worst bouts of sickness I have ever experienced.

Temporary sickness is something I can deal with. The more disturbing thing is that I now have high blood pressure. I am not even forty years old yet! Granted, I am not the picture of perfect health but I do work out on a regular basis. I eat healthy – much of the time. I work hard at managing my stress. Believe me, I am not saying this to give myself a pat on the back. It’s more of a realization that I just cannot outrun or out health grief. The extreme stress that has taken over my life has had serious health effects.

This realization about my health means I will only have to work harder at surviving and living. Quite unimaginable since living without my child seems like I am working just about as hard as possible. I’m certain that this is meant to be teaching me a lesson in some way. Right now, however, I do not want to learn! As a grieving parent I feel I should be able to do whatever I want! This is not reality, I know. It’s more of a sidebar rant. When you live every day without your child by your side you have very little extra to give to the rest of your life. Right now I am out of extra! Love to heaven…

Why The 4th Reminds Me To Stay Present

Four years ago this very day I woke up dazed, exhausted and extremely grateful. Our house had been struck by lightening the night before. As I ran out of the house with my three boys I remember looking back at the flames shooting out of our roof. It was traumatic and upsetting. Hours after the fire was extinguished, my husband and I walked through our home which was filled with water and uninhabitable. It was an upsetting sight. The next morning when we saw our home in the daylight we couldn’t believe our eyes. Many of our possessions upstairs were damaged. Every room in the house was damaged. The most important things, or rather people, were all safe. This was not lost on my family.

The day after the fire, the 4th of July, we took the kids into town and watched the joy in their eyes as they danced around to the parade music. Feelings of gratitude washed over me. One of my most vivid memories was when a friend was lamenting about how tough it would be to rebuild our house. My answer was, “It can all be replaced. If we had lost any of these three children, we wouldn’t be here today”. It was the truth and I knew it.

Throughout the summer, we reinforced how blessed we were to all have gotten out of our home safely. We reiterated that material things can be replaced, people can’t. When we were living out of a hotel, and then a rental home, we talked about how home was wherever we all were together. Sure, there were moments where incidental things caused high emotions. Making decisions about our home that needed to be gutted and rebuilt was stressful. Even while we were aware that the situation had potential to be much worse, life marched on with all of its ups and downs.

The summer carried on, and we settled into the rental home we were set to live in while our home was being rebuilt. There were many happy memories made throughout that summer. Time was spent with family and friends and after a back to school party, Christian was ready to enter first grade.

Just days before, he was called to heaven and EVERYTHING changed. The trauma from this event far exceeded the trauma of the fire. The very thing we were grateful for all summer had turned into our worst nightmare. It was as if my words on the 4th of July foreshadowed the end of the summer. In my mind, the lightening strike at the start of the summer set into motion the events that concluded the summer. Many times I have questioned, pondered and wondered why it has happened like this. The lightening strike was around 7pm on a Thursday night, and eight weeks later on a Thursday night around 6:30 pm, the worst event of my life occurred.

It is my belief that I will see my beautiful son one day again. I don’t know if I will ever know the reason why he was taken from us. I’m not sure if at this point it would make a difference. The fact is that he is gone. We cannot change that. He taught many people and changed many lives in his six short years. He continues to do that through me. His love transcends time and space. His energy is felt by many. I miss him so much. It makes me angry that he is not here anymore. It makes me angry that despite showing gratitude for what is truly important in life, it wasn’t enough to save him.

Summer is always a reminder of the final summer we spent as a whole family, together. It’s the time of the year when we abandon our hectic schedules and spend lazy days in the pool, late nights catching fireflies and connect with others we haven’t seen in a while. Each summer I think about what it would be like if Christian was still here. I wonder what his interests would be, which friends would come over to swim and always what he would be like with his siblings. It is a reminder to me about why it is so necessary to stay in the moment. We just never know when it is the final days with the ones we love. Love to heaven…

A Single Red Balloon

Your classmates moved up to middle school yesterday. They reached a major milestone in their lives. It is one they will remember forever. You weren’t there in the flesh. Yet floating right next to the row of seats was a single red balloon. A powerful reminder that you were there in spirit. Your friends’ faces lit up with smiles as their names were called to receive certificates and awards. Under those smiles some of them saw the balloon and it touched their wound. You will forever be remembered as the boy who died right before first grade started. Over the past few weeks of seeing your friends it has become clear that this event has touched all of their lives. Those who were closer to you struggling with the idea that one day they can be on a playdate with their six year old buddy, saying they will see him on the first day of school, and the next day he can be gone. The uncertainty and fragility of life plaguing their six year old selves.

Your own brothers are obviously not immune from this either. While we openly discuss you and our emotions surrounding losing you, I often question how they truly are feeling. Sometimes they are transparent in their feelings and other times it is a mystery. Leading up to yesterday’s moving up ceremony many emotions coursed through me. As the mother of the family, I believe this means that many emotions coursed through the entire family. Unfortunately when children are younger their emotions often manifest behaviorally. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIH) states that children under 5 may, “cling to a parent, return to behaviors common to being younger and show signs of fear”, among other symptoms. These are behaviors that I have seen present themselves in my youngest son. The NIH states that children 6-11 may, “have nightmares or problems sleeping, have outbursts of anger and start fights”, among other symptoms. Again, I have seen these in my 7 year old. These behaviors are also common in children who have not seen and experienced what they did. The uncertainty and fragility of this situation plagues me as a mother.

Child loss sets a ripple in motion that affects many people, some for a lifetime. Your brothers are forever at risk to falling prey to their emotions. The fear this ignites in me is raging. What if one day they turn to drugs or alcohol to escape the pain they experienced when they were younger? We will always give them unconditional love and support but what if that’s not enough? This is where my trauma manifests itself. In knowing that nothing can be controlled, my fears arise. Uncertainty, fragility.

There is no telling where time will take any of us. We have learned that nothing is guaranteed. Life is precious and each moment truly counts. We can’t control anything. We simply are not that powerful. All we can do is use the past to guide us in the present. We can let the visual of that single red balloon remind us to do our best to stay present and appreciate life. We can carry on your spirit by spreading kindness and love. We can recognize that the uncertainty and fragility of life is truth, but not let it take over. Love to heaven…

It’s All Relative: RIP Kate Spade

As I opened up my computer to write this post yet another piece of sad news was absorbed. Kate Spade is dead at 55 due to suicide. Heartbreaking. The news blurb stated that she is a mother and a wife. The entire world knows she was successful. Looking in one may question what could have been so bad that she would take her own life? That’s when my dad would pull out his favorite phrase, “It’s all relative”. Oddly enough that was going to be the topic of this post before I read about Kate Spade. Her death makes it even more relevant.

Obviously Kate Spade was in such a severe depressive state that she was unable to see the possibility of hope. Tragic, simply tragic. While members of the public view her life as charmed, it is all relative. Fame, fortune and success mean nothing if you are unable to reap the benefits of joy. As my readers know from my last post, there are times when my own life seems void of hope. Thankfully I have never reached the point that Kate Spade reached. While the thought of ending it all to be reconnected to Christian has passed through my mind, it has also receded fairly quickly, even at my worst. Just those short glimpses into how terribly hopeless depression makes me feel is enough to comprehend how someone would think suicide makes sense.

Over the past week there have been moments of joy and their have been moments of sadness. I have cried tears over all that has been lost. I’ve watched a friend lose an amazing family member to ALS, yet again too young. I’ve witnessed the generosity  of those around me in bittersweet acts of kindness. I’ve rejoiced over my first article being published. I have watched my son’s classmates celebrate their last field day as elementary students. I’ve had my seven year old tell me that when he gets older he will go sky diving and purposely not put up his parachute so he can go to heaven and see his brother. It has been an emotional roller coaster. And yet, it’s all relative. These are incredibly difficult situations to face, but someone has it worse than me. It’s all relative. Someone has it better than me too. None of this truly matters as much as the outlook you have on your situation.

We all have things that we go through. No one escapes this life unscathed. Some of us are more fortunate in this area and have less tragic things affect us, but either way we all have our troubles. You never know what someone else is going through, so please remember to treat everyone with kindness. Things may look picture perfect on the outside and be broken beyond belief on the inside. Be kind. Pass it on. RIP Kate Spade. Sending prayers and love to your family, especially your daughter. Love to heaven…

What “Grieving Mom Brain” Has Taught Me

We have all heard about “Mom Brain”, the condition that occurs when a woman is pregnant and continues while she is raising her children. I, myself, had Mom Brain pretty bad during pregnancy. One day my best friend arrived at my house to find me sitting calmly on the couch, while my car door was wide open in my driveway. Just one of my many examples.

“Grieving Mom Brain” is just as bad! When I first lost my son, it set in and remained for some time. As I began practicing daily stress relieving routines, I found the condition improved. Just like millions of other moms, grieving or not, I don’t always sleep well. It is on the day after a poor night’s sleep that Grieving Mom Brain returns. Thinking and concentrating is extremely difficult. If I have something I am particularly worried or stressed about, Grieving Mom Brain sets in.

So, if you ever see me staring at you with a blank look on my face, it is likely I am lost inside my own brain. We all make jokes and laugh about this, but it can sometimes be frightening to feel your brain shutting down. It is only further proves to me how damaging stress can be! For this reason and many others, I practice self care on a daily basis. As Mother’s Day approaches, I urge all moms to examine their own self care routines. If you don’t have one in place, start small. Maybe take 15 minutes a day to do something that feeds your soul; take a walk, read, call a friend, journal, etc. You won’t regret it! Love to heaven…