Archives for February 2019

First I wanted to thank you for all the kindness and empathy which was extended after my last post.  I did not share the words to receive encouraging or mean words in response.  I shared them because sometimes I feel like I will explode if I don’t share honestly…like free therapy…and also because I know there is someone else out there feeling the same things.  It’s always nice to know you’re not the only one.  Thank you for sharing your own feelings and thoughts and pieces of your own story.  I do not take it lightly and appreciate your words deeply.

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Josh Kelley’s brother Andy and our sister-in-law Becky have made sure we’ve celebrated Chinese New Year for several years now.  It’s always super fun and a crazy sweet time.  Becky’s food is incredible and I love sitting around making jiaozi with her and other family members.  In 2017 when we knew Everett would be joining our family in just a few weeks, Chinese New Year seemed even more poignant.  I remember specifically my friend Janet was holding a Zumba fundraiser to help us with travel funds to China the afternoon we would be celebrating Chinese New Year.  I raced from the fundraiser to Andy and Becky’s house because I JUST HAD TO BE THERE.  We had a sweet boy in China and I wanted to celebrate his culture so badly with the people who I love and love him.  I wasn’t going to miss it.  That will always be such a special CNY to me.

This year we got a jump on the celebrating.  We also spread things out and have been celebrating longer.  I put up our Chinese lanterns we purchased in China with Everett and Leo.  I hung Everett’s white E and thought about how much he would LOVE this time.  I thought about how different he would be if he were still here with us.  He was such a good talker and picked up English so quickly, but I imagine how insane his communication would have been by now.  All those thoughts are hard.

We had red envelopes ready the morning CNY kicked off.  I have a plethora of envelopes I picked up each time we were in China.  The kids love opening their envelopes and finding cash and hi-chews.  We received the sweetest little package of treats and kind words from our Hilliary.  Hilliary knew and loved both Everett and Leo.  She is immensely special to our family. We also prepared some fun treats and surprises for others around us celebrating such a special celebratory time in the Chinese culture.

I made white chocolate dipped Oreo pigs.  The kid crowd went absolutely wild.  I also made white chocolate and Oreo truffle pigs and dark chocolate and peanut butter truffle pigs.

Sidenote:  I had a terrible cough that would not go away leading up to CNY.  One night I had taken melatonin to help me sleep, but I was still awake coughing my face off.  I remember thinking about Chinese New Year and what I wanted to make for a fun dessert, but I was so groggy and out of it from the melatonin.  The next morning I had an email from Amazon confirming my purchase of a pig silicon pan at 1:50am.  I laughed so hard because I did not recall this AT ALL.  The groggy, melatonin me pushed my hand and made me make pig truffles because I couldn’t return the pig pan even though I had no idea what to do with it.  I was glad it was on $8.  Josh Kelley said he was glad it wasn’t a pool table. 🙂

We made our yearly animal mask to celebrate whatever year it is.  This year we went with a painted pig mask.  The kids LOVE this!!!!  They so look forward to making and wearing and doing funny things in the mask.  Across the board crowd pleaser.

This year we also added paper peonies to our crafting CNY list.  These were so fun and I actually just left the supplies out on our kitchen table for a week or so and let everyone make peonies as they pleased and then they would hang them up or give them away.

We planned out our big Chinese dinner for a Friday night with just our family, but last minute Andy and Becky were available and up for celebrating too.  It was perfect because I had already purchased all the food and Becky really enjoys cooking for others.  I did all the prep work…dicing and cutting and getting recipes ready…and she came in and rocked her insane cooking skills.  We agreed we made the perfect CNY team.  I got to do the part I enjoy and am decent at and Becky got to do the part she loves to do and we all benefitted from eating her amazing dishes.  Bonus:  Andy’s birthday was the day before so some lemon ice-box pie was in order.

Leo ate buckets of Becky’s rice and jiaozi.  I loved watching him and Nia play with water and dumpling wrappers.  I tried to soak up these moments of celebrating our first CNY with Leo.  It feels so special to celebrate this time with him.  Andy brought a fun Chinese game and more CNY paper crafts he does with his students.  One of my favorite moments was looking over and seeing Josh and Andy holding Nia at our kitchen table working on their Chinese calligraphy.  The table was a mess.  There were remnants of Becky’s delicious food everywhere and all I could think is how lucky we are to have them in our lives.  They miss and love Everett so much and that is an immense comfort to our hearts when we fear he will disappear from the memories and minds of others.

It was a culmination of sadness and the most precious, deep kind of joy.  I want Everett here with us and I’m also are crazy grateful we got to celebrate with Leo this year.  It has rained constantly all of February and Josh and Leo wrecked his truck…sigh…so we still haven’t been able to get a latter to put Everett’s lanterns up at the cemetery.  Today the sun is shining and were all hoping it stays and this weekend his colorful lanterns can go up.  We miss him everyday.  So thankful for the way Everett and Leo have added even more goodness to our family.

I imagine so many people are absolutely done with our grief and that is totally okay, but for us, the grief does not end because our love for Everett does not end.  I sit down to write about life and all I want to do is share about Everett and how much we miss him and how grief sucks…how life is so different…how we’re so different without him.

Last night Hudson text us from Josh’s mom’s phone from church.  He was sad about Everett, he didn’t feel good and he wanted to come home.  Josh drove the 10 minutes down the road and picked him up.  I sat with him on the couch and he cried.  This grief is so different than the grief I have over losing my mom.  I was not ready in any shape, form or fashion for any of this.  I didn’t have one freakin’ clue how grief would deeply intersect and intertwine every one of us and change us so drastically.  How it would come in and make us question everything.  How death not only ended Everett’s life here on Earth, but how it would end so many other things for each of us.  I just didn’t know.

Sadness and depression loom.  Some days I get to the end of a day and think, “I know I did something today, but what in the actual world did I really do?!?!”  It’s like a float through some days.  My best days are when I can see what I actually did.  I think about Everett all the time.  I carry guilt and loss and his spirit like it’s my job…and really it feels like the most honored job around…minus the guilt.  We miss him so much.  Words will never ever do that sentence justice.

We’re at 19 months without Everett and the second year has absolutely blown.  It sucks.  I mean, it actually might be worse than the first year because time is for the birds and insulting as all get out.  Time marches on and could care less about my feelings.  Time is a complete asshole. 🙂  Before I go anywhere with people I’m not familiar with I prepare to answer questions.  No matter the crowd I pep talk myself into either being totally honest on where I am or just faking it until I make it.  And then if no one mentions Everett I feel sad.  I went to a party recently where I basically just hung out with Leo for 2 hours and no one mentioned Everett…no one asked how we were holding up…and here’s the kicker, I don’t even know if anyone knew about Everett dying.  Ha!  I’ve tried my best not to put unfair expectations on strangers and people I do actually know, but sometimes you leave a party and cry in your car.  The end.

My body hates grief.  I have never had health issues and then Everett died.  My body carries grief and feels the impact daily. I’ve been sick and injured more than ever before.  I’ve been in physical therapy and had more doctors appointments than I’d care to admit.  I’m almost certain I have cancer in my back…self diagnosed of course…because when my kid died the idea of death took up residence in my mind.  I think about it everyday.  Am I a hypochondriac??  Hmmmmm, I’d say no.  I’m a realist now.  The realist of realists and I am highly aware that death does not skip over anyone and can come without a moments notice and zero heads up.

I’m becoming more grounded on my feelings about Jesus which is nice.  I love Jesus and don’t like Christians.  Hahahaha.  There you have it.  And that’s not an all inclusive sentence obviously, but I feel like I have a very refined eye for the Christians who are just not my type.  And now I am totally cracking myself up sitting here in this McDonald’s parking lot while Leo is in speech therapy…like I’m on the dating scene…”the Christians who are just not my type.”…still laughing.  Anyways.  If only I had $10 for every God loving person who proclaims there longing to win people over for the Lord who has purposefully dodged us out in public, I would have roughly $280.  I have major hangups with Christian jargon…words we so easily fling at the suffering and broken without thought or hesitation.  I struggle with going into the nations to win souls for Christ, but we’re jerkholes to the people in our community.  I struggle with the distance we keep from certain types of people.  I struggle even more with how we think the suffering & grieving, those in need and those who are questioning their very existence need to be fixed instead of just loved.  Just give me all the issues with our Christian community and call me an asshat.  🙂

I don’t like my bitterness and anger and judgementalness, but I do like my fire to think things through and to understand the importance of being okay with others not being okay.  I do like my fire to change who I am.  I’m not the same person I was 19 months ago and I hope I don’t stay the same person I am now.  I want to learn more and more from my pain and sadness and grief and I want it to change me.  I want it to be one of the greatest teachers I’ve ever had.  I like knowing how a simple text message or batch of cookies can flip someone’s day.  I’ve been there far too many times and I deeply want to be to others what they have been to me.

Some of our kids go to church with Josh’s parents on Wednesdays or Sundays.  I can’t remember the last time I have been.  I pray out loud sometimes on our way to school in the morning.  I thank God for whatever the weather is and ask Him to make us kind, loving, generous, compassionate and respectful people.  I ask Him to push us towards love.  I don’t pray much on my own, but I do sometimes hash things out with Him.  Sometimes I try and make deals.  Sometimes I just cry.  I was playing a card game with Solomon the other day and thought, “I wonder if he prays on his own.”  It was the most random question that popped into my head and I chose not to even ask him because it felt so awkward to me.  I think how we might be messing our kids up for life.  How I’m sure my Mom’s sisters and family have me on every prayer list imaginable.  How Josh’s family likely has us on every prayer list imaginable.  Just go ahead and put us on your prayer list as well.  🙂  Sometimes I think about how we don’t do family devotions, we don’t memorize or read scripture together, we don’t sing worship songs together very often and I don’t have the answer to even 1/16 of my kids’ questions about religion and why Everett died.  But we carry on doing the best we can trying to make it through each day and not let guilt eat us alive.  We try to love our best and remember God hasn’t gone anywhere and He loves us just as we are.

My mind goes to those who have chosen to really walk this road with us.  I don’t blame those who have bowed out, I mean, we are no cake walk people.  Obviously.  I really really really hope I will choose to walk those hard roads with others, but maybe I will bow out too.  Maybe I will see them as too hard…too messed up…too much work…too doubtful…and flash my peace sign and hit the road.  I really don’t know, but my heart longs to be in it when things go up in smoke.  I want to be the person cheering others on and telling them how much things suck and how whatever happened isn’t how it was meant to be because in this broken world really crappy things happen and it’s not okay.  I long to be there…I long to show up…with a plate of cookies in hand because I am good at making cookies.

I hate how sometimes I get my feelings and emotions about Jesus and Christians living in this world mixed up.  Jesus is so different than us.  I like Jesus.  I think He had it all right.  Most things the Christian world wages war on are the things Jesus would wrap His arms around.  I hate when I feel hurt by Jesus because of what another Christian said or did to me.  I don’t like having to recognize those blurry lines and straighten them out.  And I definitely don’t like thinking about me doing the same to another person.  Makes my stomach turn, but goodness knows I can be just as much of a jerk as anyone else.

I cope with my grief and sadness and pain in all my own ways.  I organize and purge the crap out of our house.  Grief makes me feel out of control and I don’t like that at all.  I like to feel in control and the actual aesthetics of our house is something I can control, so I do.  Josh Kelley and the kids are far used to it.  They don’t even put up a fight and go right along with tossing or donating things they don’t need or want.  I also emotionally eat…specifically ALL THE SWEETS…and bite my fingers nails down to the nub out of pure stress…I’ve done this my whole life.  I don’t get it because I know it makes zero sense, but I think ice-cream will make my problems go away and set my mind at ease.  Geeze.  When I think about Leo having surgery my mind goes into crazy overdrive and fear and anxiety set in.  At that point nothing can stand between me and the bag of chocolate chips trying to hide in our freezer.

I really sat here today and was going to tell you all about the photos in this post.  I was going to write about Chinese New Year and Jump Rope For Heart and Valentines and hearing Angie Thomas speak and how Winter got the cutest heart shaped hair braids.  I was going to write about all those things and then it just wasn’t there.  Sometimes I have to lay out the embarrassingly honest truth I am feeling or I might explode.  Please know I don’t share any of this to hear kind or mean words back.  I share because I know surely to God there has to be another person out there in the midst of their hardships thinking they are the only ones doing and feeling all the crazy things.  You definitely are not the only one.  Solidarity friend.  I know you are doing your best.  I also share because I know we can learn from one another…you and me…and sometimes when a family member or friend are smack dab in the middle of a shit storm we have no clue what to do or say to them.  So I just want to encourage you to show up with whatever you do best and hang tight with them.  We will survive the awkward parts of it and really it will mean the world.

Solomon kicked off our February month by turning the big 10.  He’s our 3rd kid to venture into double digits and it was exciting and fun and a twinge sad.  Three of our babies are no longer in those sweet single digits.  Ahhhh!!!!

Solomon is usually very detailed about the things he likes and wants on his birthday.  The kid usually plans out elaborate desserts and class treats and a fun birthday celebration.  This year he was all about the surprises.  He made zero birthday present requests and really wasn’t sure what he wanted in the first place.  He’s pretty chill when it comes to things like that.  He did remember that for one of our niece’s 10th birthday’s we gave her 10 little presents so that ended up being his only request.

The morning of his birthday he walked down the steps all tired like and when he got to the bottom of the steps we fired off a confetti cannon.  I LOVED IT!  And so did everyone else. It was hilarious and fun and he didn’t see it coming.  We enjoyed sausage and biscuits and a pile of cinnamon rolls with 10 candles.  Hudson and Solomon are different ages only 4 months out of the year…they were happy to get back to being the same age again.

His 10 gifts were a huge hit.  It was fun brainstorming and finding all the different items we thought he’d like…a bag of Hi-Chews, a can of spicy Pringles, paper footballs, a Fortnite tee, Arcade & The Triple T Token book, a counting ball, new headphones, an Ethiopian notebook, a new wallet and Takis socks.  He really loved opening each of them and Amon said he wanted this present idea when he turns 32.  Haha.

I always eat lunch with the birthday kid at school and bring a special snack to share with classmates.  Solomon picked out fun Valentines candies this year and he and Harper took care of all the treat bags.  I LOVE BIG KIDS!!!

Ms. Julie sent him a fun bag full of all his favorite treats too.  Two bags of Takis and the kid was over the moon.  One of Solomon’s love languages is food and especially chips and sodas.  The kid LOVES chips!!!  His day was instantly made even better.  We snagged icees after school and for dinner we did Zaxby’s wings followed up by Dairy Queen for dessert.  His birthday love tank was for sure full and running right over.  Gah, we love this kid!!!

We asked Solomon over and over again what he’d like to do for a birthday celebration.  He could not land on anything and finally went with the surprise route again.  His only request was that it was fun.  Josh Kelley and I schemed and planned.  All the other Kelley children were sent off leaving just Hudson and Solomon and the surprise was on.  Some of their friends started to show up at our house and once everyone was there we sent them on a scavenger hunt Josh and I had planned out.  They went to different places in our house and outside our house and in our neighborhood.  The last clue sent them to laser quest and the little boy crowd went wild.

After laser tag we headed back home for pizza and cake and ice-cream.  I found these awesome Fortnite dancing silhouettes  on Etsy and surprised him with a fun Fortnite cake.  There were presents and nerf guns going off and another surprise confetti cannon that made me laugh until I cried and boys devouring all the pizza and soda and cake and ice-cream their hearts’ desired.

(Confetti number tutorial via Amanda Evanston )

After it was all said and done Solomon said he had so much fun and thanked us for a fun day with his sweet hugs and soft words.  We had pulled off quite the successful surprise for this amazing 10-year-old.  He and Hudson had the best time and it was crazy fun to hang with just them and celebrate Solomon’s sweet life.  I look at him in awe most days.  He has endured more loss and trauma than most of us will ever experience.  He is strong and resilient and kind.  He is quiet and reserved and works hard to express his feelings.  He is a helper and a giver of hugs for no reason at all other than because he loves. you.  He makes our days brighter and funnier and far better than we could have ever imagined.

Happy 10th birthday to our king Solomon.  You are a gift!