I miss my Daddy so much

Grief is a crazy thing.  Some days you can feel 'okay' and other days you just feel like you will never ever feel any joy in your life again.  All of us are going through different things  and are dealing with it in different ways.

Kobe cried a lot the first few months after Aaron passed away.  He then seemed to be okay with things and would talk about Noah and Aaron a lot without getting upset, but the last month or so he has been really struggling and missing them a lot.

He particularly misses Aaron and talks about it all the time.  It's hard listening to a four year old say things like 'before Daddy died' or 'when Daddy was still alive' and would then tell us something that he did with Aaron, or something funny that Aaron said.

Most of the time Kobe is such a placid, happy little man.   He is so easy to get along with and makes you smile all the time with the funny things he says and does. 

 

These are his flowers he made me one day at daycare 'cause I 'wuv' you and I know you 'wuv' flowers' :)

Other days the happy, placid Kobe that we know and love has gone and he is so sad and angry.  He has times where he is very agro and punches and kicks Jay and Harri, and yells at all of us.  When I tell him off he just starts crying and says 'I'm just missing Daddy so much'.  I don't think at all that he's saying it to manipulate me, and get out of being in trouble - I think he's just stating how he's feeling and trying to explain why he's not his usual happy self. 

It's so hard as I'm trying to teach him that expressing himself by hitting and screaming is not the right thing to do, and that it's okay to be sad and angry, but it's not okay to be naughty.  There has been times when I've had to put him in 'time out' to calm down and have a think as he is totally out of control and he sits in the hallway screaming at me 'I'm just missing Daddy sooooo much!'.   After having a cuddle and a talk he settles down, but within minutes he can be doing the same thing and when I tell him off he then says 'but now I'm missing Noah so much!'.

I know that it's good that he is talking about it and expressing how he is feeling,  and have spoken to a lovely child psychologist that we saw early on about some strategies to help, and things are settling down a bit which is good.   She explained it to me that we, his family, are the ones who are supposed to keep him safe and happy and that hasn't happened, so instead he is taking out his anger on us, which makes sense.

He makes me laugh as sometimes I say 'I know you are missing Daddy and Noah and are sad, but it's not good to be naughty' and then he stops his grumpy face and shows me a big smile and says 'look I'm smiling at you!' to cheer me up. 

One day he was really missing Aaron and walked around all day with his photo that is next to his bed. 

He took it everywhere with him.  It makes me so sad that I can't just fix things for him and bring his Dad and brother back.

Heaven Standard Time - TOFW

My latest blog post on TOFW is up.   Jay obviously thinks there is a difference in time between Tassie and Heaven.  You can read about it by clicking here or on the picture below.

Batman

My lovely sister in law Becky made Kobe an awesome cape a while ago.    It has Batman on one side, and Superman on the other.  Kobe loved it when he got it, but ever since we went to Movie World all three boys have been totally obsessed with Batman.

Kobe has been wearing the cape everywhere we go.  He was at Launceston Aquatic the other day, ready to jump in and save some lives if needed.

He also likes to visit the museum. 

I'm sure Aaron and Noah smiled when they saw Batman visiting their graves.

I think I have the cutest little Batman, but he's even cuter without the mask on :)

243 days

It has been harder this past week, than it has been in a long time.  For some reason all of us are struggling with our grief this week.

It's hard to believe that it's seven months today since Aaron died.  Time is going so fast, but at the same time the days are so long - all 243 of them.   The weekends are especially long as we try to fill in the time without Aaron and Noah.

We have so many beautiful home videos of both of them.  Sometimes they make us cry, but most of the time they make us laugh and smile.  This is one of my favourites.  It was taken when Noah was really well and alert and aware. I loved those years.

Don't mind my chatting half way through the video. I'm not even sure who I'm talking to - obviously someone who was comfortable enough to just walk into our house - I think it may have been my sister Nicki.

I also love how I'm telling Aaron off towards the end of the video - it was typical us :)  I'm glad he listened and kept making Noah laugh.

Friday Night Footy

Friday night footy was something that Harri and Aaron loved watching together.  Harri is missing it a lot and has been thinking a lot about it this week in particular.  He cried during the week saying how much he missed it because it was their special thing they did together.  This afternoon he came out of school with a card that he hade made for Aaron.

He said he wanted to take it to Aaron's grave, but didn't want it to get wet, so he decided he will put it in Aaron's special box at home.  I told him that was a good idea as I'm sure Aaron was watching him make it and would've seen it already.

Harri hasn't been into the footy as much since Aaron died, but when the Hawks play we love to watch the game together, and it's even better when it's at night as we can put on our Hawks PJs and dressing gowns.   I have inherited Aaron's.

It is not the same watching it with me, but Harri gets excited when we do it together.  I'm definitely not into it like Aaron was (although I have actually been known to yell a little at the TV this season which surprised Jay!).

 

I find myself wearing Aaron's Hawks jumper all the time too. It's really comfy but I love wearing it mostly because it makes me feel closer to him.  I can hear Aaron now 'you look SO hot in that!' (and he would be serious! :) I wish so much that Aaron was here to wear his Hawks gear himself and was here tonight watching Friday night footy with Harri. 

p.s thank you to everyone who subscribed to Jalen's YouTube channel yesterday.  It totally made his day to get so many subscribers - actually it probably made his month :)

KingJazza9

Jalen has been having a really hard time since Aaron passed away, especially physically. It's so stressful for me to see him so sad and sick a lot of the time, but there is something that he really loves to do that makes him very happy, which also makes me happy.

I don't get it at all, but Jay loves the computer game Minecraft and plays it for hours on end.  It's a game about placing blocks to build things and at night monsters (or creepers) can come out and get you.  It's huge and millions of people play it.   He tells me it's educational as you learn about mining, but I don't think that education is the main aim of the game :)

At first I hated that he was on the computer all the time, but after talking to a child psychologist she actually suggested that it was a good thing, because it was something that he loved to do. She said that the boys needed to do whatever it takes to get through the trauma and that playing on the computer wasn't a bad thing, if it was helping Jay to relax and have some fun.

It started off with Jay just playing Minecraft, but then it grew as he started to Skype with his mates from school at the same time, and they would then play together while talking to each other through their headphones.

It cracks me up as I listen to him talking to his friends yelling 'go, go, go!!!' as they play together.  I can hear all the 'oldies' now saying 'back in our day we used to run around the paddocks and play in the creek'.  They wouldn't believe that you can now still play and talk with your friends while being in different houses :)

Harri and Kobe also love to play it.

Jay loves to watch videos on YouTube and watches a lot about Minecraft, so after a little while he decided to make his own videos and started up his own YouTube channel.  It's a huge change from his other videos that he used to make.  He has around forty vidoes that he's uploaded now and started a series called 'Darkest Days of Minecraft' with his mates from school.  He thinks of the story and with his friends they prepare it all and then all know their roles and act it out together while recording it. It's a very serious business and they are always planning their next video together.

He created his own intro for his minecraft videos and even has a schedule for the week about which videos he will upload as he has recently started making videos about other computer games.   He is excited as he has 55 subscribers and has had over 4000 video views, including one video which has had over 1000 views.

 He is called KingJazza9 and recently got a custom made t-shirt which he loves.

His aim is to get 100 subscribers by his birthday on his YouTube channel.   It's a big call since his birthday is mid September, but if you are into video games or funny Aussie kids then he would love for anyone to go over and subscribe to his videos. 

It's awful seeing him so sick and missing Aaron and Noah so much, but it's really nice that he has something that he enjoys doing so much.  He keeps telling me that one day he is going to make a lot of money from YouTube and I tell him I'm looking forward to that day, so he can look after his poor old Mum ;)

What's Normal? - TOFW

Before Aaron and Noah died I felt 'normal' even though I was constantly tired. Now I wonder if I will ever feel 'normal' again. My latest post at TOFW is about this and you can read it by clicking here or on the picture below.

Nudie Rudie

Kobe cracks me up all the time but especially when I get out of the shower and find him like this! 

He likes to jump in the shower or bath and then I tell him to go and get dressed, but whenever I come out I see he had other plans.  Often he'll come into the bathroom while I'm in the shower and laugh and say 'you're a nudie rudie!' but if I tease him when he is, he doesn't like it at all and gets very upset.

It's another case of 'you can give it, but you can't take it' in the King family (takes after Harri!).

One day I came out and found him like this.  He looked up at me and said 'this picture is very special isn't it Mum'.  It was so cute but so funny at the same time as he was just sitting there starkers.

We are lucky that none of our neighbours can see into our house from theirs, as they would catch Kobe like this most mornings.

Vertigo

Jalen has been feeling unwell for around five months now.   He was often very dizzy when he stood up and seemed to have no energy.  He was very pale all the time and had dark circles under his eyes.  He started to get very stressed when he started to have chest pains at times and lots of pain in his body.  I put a lot of it down to grief and stress, and possibly 'just' a virus that was going around but decided I'd better just take him to our GP to get checked out, because he started to get very stressed about it. 

Our GP agreed that he probably had low iron levels again (he had low levels about a year ago) and we started giving him an iron supplement and the chest pains and pain in his body stopped fairly quickly which was a good sign that his iron levels were going up.

Although he started to feel like he had more energy, he still felt unwell and started to feel nauseous quite a bit and was often dizzy.  It wasn't like gastro because he would be able to eat normally a lot of the time, but then now and then it would hit him really bad and he would even vomit.    He had a little bit of time off school and some days he would seem okay, and other days it would be back again. 

He seemed to be getting worse and has had so much time off school this year.  It's not like Jalen at all to have time off school, and I knew he wasn't faking because he would look very sick most of the time and he has settled into school really well now.  I often get calls from school during the day to pick him up as he has been too sick to stay in class. It's really hard now that I'm working to get him from school so much or to have him home sick, and it's even worse for him as he just feels awful a lot of the time.  Often I would have to pick him up from school and he would spend the rest of the day in bed. 

Things weren't getting better and we kept seeing our friend Marlo who is a bioresonance therapist and had treatments on her MORA.  The readings showed that Jalen had a lot of imbalances in his body (the readings are all supposed to be green) and he would feel okay for a few days after each treatment, but then go downhill again.

We headed back to our GP who agreed that it was time to do some blood tests.  I talked to Jay about his stress levels and whether he thought that was the problem but he said he didn't feel stressed. He is obviously grieving but he has been feeling much better than he had been, and he said he didn't think that it was that.

When he heard the words 'blood test' he freaked out.  I couldn't stop laughing at him as he googled 'how to be calm during a blood test' on his phone as we drove to pathology. I reminded him that Noah had scores of blood tests during his life.

He was so nervous but the lovely lady who took his blood made him as relaxed as possible.  It was funny as she even knew us as she said she reads my blog! He did well and afterwards she even gave him a little pathology bear for being brave :)

I have to admit that I was a little anxious about the results. I started to think the worse and silly thoughts ran through my head that he may have something like leukemia.   I kept thinking that two awful things had happened in the past year, so why not a third?

Luckly the blood results showed low vitamin D levels which we happy about as we knew that it would be easy to 'fix' by giving him a vitamin D supplement and trying to spend more time in the sun (which is pretty impossible during a Tassie winter).   After a month or so of being on a vitamin D supplement Jay still didn't feel much better, and was vomiting once or twice every few days, feeling very dizzy still and was still having a lot of time off school.

I rang to see his GP again but he was away on holiday so we saw a locum instead. She was a lovely older lady and after explaining the whole story to her, she straight away did some tests on him including an eye examination which showed he had nystagmus which is something Noah also had, but for different reasons (a rapid shaking of his eyes when looking in a particular direction).

She then said that Jay had 'vertigo'.  I had heard of it before and it all made sense and I was just so happy to finally have some answers.

Vertigo /ˈvɜː(ɹ)tɨɡoʊ/ (from the Latin vertō "a whirling or spinning movement" is a subtype of dizziness, where there is a feeling of motion when one is stationary.  It is often associated with nausea and vomiting as well as a balance disorder, causing difficulties standing or walking.

The definition of vertigo sounds straight forward but living with it is debilitating.  The way that Jay describes it reminds me a lot of morning sickness. Sometimes it's bearable and other times he can't do anything.  I feel so bad for him that he feels so sick all the time.  The doctor said that they don't give children any medication to help with the nausea as it isn't safe so the only thing we can do it give him natural remedies which I'm happy with anyway.

I went to the chemist to get him some ginger tablets and a lovely pharmacist asked if I was travelling (they are often for travel sickness) and if I needed any help. I told him why I was getting them and he asked how old Jay was. I told him he was twelve and he looked at me like I was an idiot and said 'he shouldn't have vertigo. The only reason he would have that would be from stress'.  I said 'yep! He's pretty stressed - his Dad died' and the pharmacist quickly agreed that he must have vertigo and then went on to tell me other things that can help including diet changes.  I didn't dare tell him that his brother also died. 

Our friend Marlo is treating him now on a different machine. She said she has had a lot of success with treating patients with Meniere's Disease which is more severe, but often it comes with big lifestyle changes including a complete change of diet.  Unfortunately telling that to an (almost) thirteen year old doesn't go down well.  I have given Jay the choice of whether he wants to change his diet and he knows that he will eventually (hopefully!) get better, but it will take longer without a diet change.

Last week he had a couple of days off school as he was so bad and Kobe decided that he was going to share his 'snuggles' with him to make him feel better. I'm not sure whether it worked or not.

It's been a long five months of trying to work out what is going on, and to get him well and I think it's going to be a long time before he feels normal again. It's going to just take time (and maybe some diet changes!) till he feels normal again as it can often just pass after a few months or longer.   I know a lot of it is also contributed to grief and that is something that you can just wish to pass either.  I feel so bad for him as he is often upset and says 'I just want to feel normal again'.  I can't wait for that day either. 

Four Eyes x 4

Last week Kobe and I cleaned out the car and found Aaron's glasses that he was wearing when he passed away.    Each of us tried them on before putting them away in Aaron's box.  Harri's face cracks me up.

Sharing the Awful News

There is still a lot about Aaron and Noah's deaths that I haven't blogged about, and don't want to forget in years to come.  I recently had to get a new iPhone as my old one was playing up.  Before I swapped the phones over I saved everything from my old phone, but couldn't work out how to save the text messages.

As I was going through the messages I found the ones that I had sent out the nights that Noah and then Aaron passed away to different people.  I just couldn't delete them from my phone and as I didn't know how to save them, I ended up taking a screenshot of them.

It still doesn't seem real, even when I look at the messages now. 

When Aaron died I was physically sick.  I was vomiting as they were trying to revive him, and was in so much shock as I watched what was going on.  When the paramedics told me there was nothing else they could do, all I could think was that I had to ring his Dad to tell him that his only son had just died, and that I had to tell people what had happened. 

I rang his Dad first and couldn't stop shaking as I said the words 'I have some bad news for you.  Aaron had a heart attack tonight and died'.

I then rang my friend Simone.  I felt sick as I knew what I was going to tell her was going to be such a shock.  I didn't know how to say it except to just come out and say it.  All I can remember her saying is 'no, no, no, no!'. 

Then it hit me - school! Aaron was supposed to be going back to school in a few weeks to teach.  He loved his job and the kids loved him.  He had so many good friends at school and talked about them all the time.  I knew he was good friends with his colleague Kristy, and searched through his phone for her mobile number.  I rang it and felt sick as I knew what a shock it would be for her. I got her message bank and remember rambling something to it like 'I don't know how to tell you this, and don't know whether I should even tell you this in a message, but Aaron had a heart attack tonight and died'.  She rang me back within a minute.

I rang a couple of other friends and had no energy to ring anyone else.  My brothers had already rung my brother Jared and Dad who weren't with us on holiday.  

I knew that I had to let people know, and remember how shocked I was as I typed this text message to send to people.  I felt terrible as I imagined what it was going to be like for those people to see they had a message from me, and then to open it and read what it said. 

I got a couple of phone calls from past students on Aaron's mobile. They had heard from another friend on Facebook and didn't think (or didn't want to believe) that it was true.  I felt terrible having to tell them as they were crying that it was true.

A couple of hours later I decided to put something on Aaron's facebook wall, as news started getting out and everyone was wondering if it was actually an awful joke.  I obviously put it up after midnight as it was dated the 27th January.  Within seconds comments started coming through and Mum, Chrish and I just kept reading them all night as we couldn't sleep anyway.  

Aaron missed Noah so much and just five days before he had put up on his wall how much he was missing him.  His profile picture was of him and Noah and it hadn't changed since Noah passed away. 

That day almost seven months ago seems like yesterday, but then it also seems like forever ago.  So much has happened since then and sometimes I think about things we have happened in the last seven months and think that Aaron was here with us, but then remember he had already passed away, and it hits me again that it was just me and my three boys.    

I know that they are both dead but I'm still not used to the fact that Aaron is.  I feel like he's away on a really long holiday somewhere and imagine him walking back in the door one day saying 'just kidding!' as that's something silly he would do.  Oh how I wish it was just a bad joke and that he would just walk in the door after work one day.  

I wonder if it's ever going to feel normal for it to be just 'me and the boys'.

My Break Dancer

Some days I want to give him away, but every day I realise how lucky I am to have Kobe, who keeps us laughing.   You can read about it over at TOFW or by clicking on the pic below.

Still Stalking

Aaron used to love it when the Hawks were in town so we could go and watch a game live, or go along to either a Fab Friday or Super Saturday to watch them train.   It's definitely not the same without Aaron or Noah with us, but we headed to Aurora on Saturday to stalk the Hawks and see if we could catch a few for photos or get some autographs.  Whenever Noah was with us the players always seemed to make an extra effort to say hello, so it feels a lot different now.

We were lucky to pull up just as Luke Hodge and Brad Sewell were walking to the stadium.  You've never seen me jump out of the car so quick, as we dashed across the road to catch them before they were surrounded by the crowds wanting their autographs.  I was yelling at the boys 'Hodgey!! Hodgey!!' as we ripped off our seatbelts.  I'm sure Aaron was laughing as I kept joking how he was going to be the boy's new Dad.  Aaron would no doubt approve too! ;)

The boys had fun doing the activities that they had set up in the Hawks marquee.  We didn't actually stay and watch the training for long as we were happy with getting a photo with Hodgey and Brad. 

I'm sure Aaron is so happy to know we are still stalking the Hawks without him. 

We found this wall in town on the way home, and couldn't believe we hadn't seen it before now.  We jumped out for a quick photo.

Don't let Kobe's cute, innocent face fool you. He's been so feral all week.  That is a whole other blog post for another time.

The Temple

While we were in Melbourne it was so lovely to be able to go to the temple.  The last time Aaron and I went together was around two years ago, and it was Jalen's first time to go inside which he was nervous, but excited about.

All the kids came along with us, and had lots of fun hanging out with my lovely cousin Carissa, while we were inside with Mum and Dad, and Nicki and Alex.

Thank you so much Carissa for looking after them. They loved hanging out with you and it was so nice to catch up.

I was trying to get some photos of the boys before we went inside and Kobe started doing some crazy poses for me. I told him to just stand nicely for a 'nice photo' and he would say 'but I'm doing it like this' and would do some new silly pose which cracked us up.

Jay loved the temple so much and couldn't stop smiling and talking about how beautiful it was. He said he felt Aaron there and said he felt like he was proud of him. I felt the same thing too.   It was nice to do something so special with him on our last day in Melbourne.