Tag: Trauma

We Fight For All Of Our Children

Published on by Jamie Grant4 Comments

We’re back to that resilience thing I wrote about quite some time ago. Click here to read how I feel about resilience. I know it could be SO much worse, and once in a while when things are harder, my thoughts go to, “but God”, don’t we have enough on our plate? Why does it seem when life throws you a curve ball, more keep coming? 

If you have more than one child, my guess is you love each of them equally, and you likely express your love differently based on their needs. Each of our kids are special and unique. No one else in the world can offer what he or she can. I believe this with all of my heart. We do our very best to give each of our children what we think they need from us emotionally, socially, physically, mentally, academically, etc. You get the point. We do our best to raise virtuous adults.

Sometimes circumstances and/or nature gets in the way.

We do very best, and that is all we have. At times, our very best, doesn’t seem or feel like enough, and during a trauma there is only so much we can do, even if we want to give more, circumstances can stop us. We carry the weight of our children’s bad choices on our shoulders whether they are six or twenty-one. 

Sometimes, no matter what we do or say, I believe nature will take over nurture and our children can take a destructive path. It comes to a point where we have to set boundaries, and they have to figure it out on their own.

For parents and loved ones, watching the destruction, makes for heartbreak, anger, pain, frustration, sadness, despair, etc. It’s a road no parent foresees for their child. We can try all the things the experts say to do, but those things don’t always work. It’s a road you think can’t happen to you, because you are good parents.

We fight for all of our children. We love each of them equally and want them to have happy, successful lives. They grow up and make decisions of their own. How we set our boundaries doesn’t mean we love them any less. We can set boundaries and love our kids at the same time. Boundaries are an important part to healthy mental health and love for our children.

I have to admit, most of us in this family have handled adversity like rock stars. Daily, I hope, pray, and believe, someday I can tell this part of our story. It WILL BE a story that ends with restoration, meaning better than it was before.

We fight for all of our children and sometimes that means letting go of what we cannot fix or change. At the end of the day, there is very little we have control over and we have to rely on hope. Hope that the old will be made new. Hope that faith will prevail over our fears. Hope that restoration will come.

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Why Target?

Published on by Jamie Grant7 Comments

Target.

I don’t know what it is about Target.

Every time I go to Target alone, I get super emotional. There are moments my body seems to freeze up and time feels as though it is standing still. I walk by the sweet mamas talking to their sweet babies while their cute little legs are dangling out of the cart. My heart is happy for them and hurts at the same time. I think about how grateful I am I was able to take my first three sweet babies to Target. Sam has never been to Target or in any store for that matter. Or I go to the baby food section and the only thing I buy is green beans. I don’t buy anything else because the only thing, besides formula, we pump into Sam’s gj-tube (feeding tube) is green beans. For a moment, I envy the other mamas who are buying other baby food flavors. Stupid, I know. Then I tell myself to buck up and feel grateful for nurses and feeding tubes and life.

Suddenly, it hits me.

I figured it out.

PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yep, kind of weird, I know, but it’s a thing and it can happen to anyone who’s been through a trauma.

When Sam was “living” in the hospital, I basically lived there too. On the rare occasion I did leave, it was to be with my family or quickly pick-up some toiletries. We lived in twelve different rooms in the seven months Sam was there so I learned to live very sparingly. Guess what store I went to on my rare trips out of the hospital? Yep…you guessed it…Target.

I vividly remember standing in the checkout line at the Target closest to the hospital during an extremely grim time for Sam. I felt like I was the scene in a movie. I looked at the person in front of me, behind me, and everywhere around me wondering what their story was. An overarching question constantly on my mind still to this day…“What’s their story?” I remember failing to fight back tears as I stood in line. I quickly wiped away the small tears as I came closer to the checkout. It didn’t help there was a proud daddy with his little boy who couldn’t have been more than a year old in front of me.

It’s crazy how sounds, smells, and/or certain places can bring back vivid moments in your life. Whether they were moments of peace or fear, they were real to you. It’s those moments of fear that seem to hit us the hardest. Fear can wrap around you so tightly, it can almost feel hard to breath. It can happen even if you haven’t experienced a trauma. I’m guessing we have all had moments like this. When you can stand in faith and know fear is a liar, your happiness can’t be taken. That grip of fear slowly releases and a peace that passes all understanding sets in.

Still almost three years later, I have to fight with myself anytime I step foot in a Target alone. Some days there is more fighting than others, but every time I walk out those sliding glass doors, I choose to smile, remind myself, it could be so much worse, and ponder the MANY things I am grateful for.