What would I do without you?

My boys are so different to each other and each of them are helping me in their own ways.  Kobe makes me laugh (and scream a lot lately too, but that's a whole other post!), Jalen is like my friend who is there to talk to and hang out with which makes it hard for both of us at times, because I lean on him a lot and he leans on me.

Harri is so kind and sensitive, especially over the last few months and has wanted to do all that he could help me.  Just a couple of months ago he was coping really well with losing Noah and Aaron, but just over the last few weeks he has been struggling a lot with grief again. 

He's been feeling sad and has started taking Noah's monkey 'Nono' everywhere with him again.   Some days when I pick him up after school he starts crying and tells me how sad he's been and had been thinking about 'Daddy and Noah all day'. 

At night he cries at bedtime and says he can't stop thinking about 'Dad's dead day' (I guess that everyone has a 'birthday' so they must also have a 'dead day'). He said he can't stop thinking about when Noah was in hospital and when he died and he worries that one day he will be disabled or have a hole in his heart like Aaron did as a child.

Even though he is so sad again he is being so thoughtful and kind to me.  A few weeks ago my Mum stayed for the night and while I was out she had a chat to the boys (without me knowing) about how they should help me more.  One day after school I dumped a heap of groceries in the kitchen and said to the boys I was going to go and get some petrol for the lawn mower so I could mow the lawn. When I got home Harri had the biggest grin on his face and told me that he put the groceries away all by himself because Grandma had told them to help more, and when he thought about that he heard Daddy say 'remember what Grandma said and help Mum more' so he did. 

He was so proud of himself and it meant so much to me that he realised that he could help me out.

Since then he has been looking for opportunities to help me whenever he can. Yesterday I had to go out and when I got back he was dusting and polishing all the furniture for me. He had done the whole house and said he was going to vaccuum next!  He said 'I'm helping you Mum so you aren't stressed anymore' (I wish it was that easy! :)

Harri is still sleeping in my bed which I'm quite happy about, because I think it would actually be a lot harder for me at night without him close to me.  I like hearing his snoring which reminds me so much of Aaron and Noah who used to compete in syncronised snoring, and I love hearing him sleep talk.

The other night as I tucked him into bed I said 'what would I do without you Haz?'.  He asked me what that meant as he hadn't heard that phrase before and I explained that it meant I loved him so much and would feel a lot sadder if he wasn't around. 

This morning he grabbed the rubbish to take out to the bin without me asking and as he took it out he said 'remember when you said 'what would I do without you'? and I could how proud he was that he was helping me again.   I feel very lucky to have such a beautiful sensitive boy, who is trying to help me as much as I'm trying to help him right now.

p.s. I had a few people who were concerned with my last post.  Things are exactly how they've always been. I just choose to look for the positives in my life which is why I don't often do posts like the last one, because once you start focusing on everything that is hard and wrong right now, it's so easy to just look past all the blessings in your life at the same time.

Nothing has changed and I'm okay.  I just felt like sharing what every day is like, but it doesn't mean I'm not coping.  I still have fun when I can, laugh with my boys and know I have a lot of good in my life.  I'm sad, lonely and tired but that's how I have been for the past 12 months.  Sometimes I decide to write about it, but most times I don't.