A letter to Cade

I saw this picture not long after Cade died. It was on another cancer organization page that I follow, someone had shared it along with a poem that they wrote. I honestly don’t remember what the poem said, but the picture I would never forget. The picture was so powerful to me that I saved it. It’s beautiful and tragic all at the same time. How she has so many tears pouring over as she cries for the child she longs to hold, but can no longer touch, snuggle, or feel. She sits surrounded by gray skies and shriveled, dried up flowers. Yet I noticed the other day (because I look at it often) that beneath her precious child and the fountain of tears, there is a rainbow over a beautiful patch of green meadow and flowers. I haven’t quite figured out what I think this means. That through the pain and grief, there is still beauty? In their memory? In the world around you? I’m sure it can be interpreted in many different ways. There’s a great book a friend gave me that is daily readings/thoughts for working through grief and I came across a quote by Anne Wilson Schaef that said “Out of the ashes of our hopelessness comes the fire of our hope.”

So much goes through our minds when we lose someone. Our memories of them, the circumstances and events that surrounded their death, how we felt or behaved at the end, not to mention the flashbacks. How they looked, what was said, how it all unfolded. The flashbacks come, like how you see them in a movie, at the most unexpected times. This was certainly the case for me. I couldn’t get it out of my head, the last 24-48 hours that we had with him. Things that happened, things that were said, how I snuggled him closely and held his hand as he always asked me to. The coloring of his face, the way he declined at the very end, the look on his face, the moment I could no longer feel his heart beating when I put my hand on his chest. It all haunted me. Did I say the right things? Did I say enough? Should I have told him he was going to heaven? Was he scared not knowing what was going on?

I was numb the first couple weeks. Definitely in disbelief that this happened, that this was actually how his story ended. As the tears and the heartache took over, I didn’t know what to do. All of these thoughts ran through my head. Night time I found to be the hardest. When I was finally in bed surrendering to the exhaustion of making it through another day, I would miss him the most. One night I could feel the tears ready to explode so I got up and went out to the living room and sat on the couch. That night I began a journal. I wrote Cade a letter. I don’t write to him every night, but I write to him every so often, when I feel I need to release all the emotion. And it helps. I debated whether or not I would ever share the letters with all of you, or if I would keep them to myself. Then I got to thinking lately, that surely I can’t be the only mother/parent who feels this way; who has these questions and thoughts haunting them. Sometimes we feel like we’re alone though. Like we are the odd man out. That surely no normal person would think such things or feel this way or that. So I decided to share my letters to him, in hopes that it maybe makes at least one parent out there feel a little less alone in this lonely world that we never wanted to be a part of- the world of child loss. So here it is- I wrote this letter about a week after Mother’s Day.

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Hi sugar bug. It’s mommy. I’ve been meaning to write to you for days now. So tonight, as Ry and daddy are sleeping, I am sitting in the living room writing to you. Tears streaming down my face because I miss you so much. So much bug, I can’t even stand it sometimes. I’m looking at the fire place mantel at your beautiful picture from your Flashes Of Hope photo shoot last October. When your hair was still cute peach fuzz before it had grown in to the beautiful, soft, long brown hair that took its place. Next to your picture is you. Inside the very fitting Super Man urn we got for you. Other things that sit on the mantel with you- our Party of 4 sign and a beautiful drawing of you as an angel that our neighbor Abbey Bratek drew for us. Other artwork up there includes family pictures by both you and your brother. There’s a sign that says Happy and a baby picture of Ry. Then there is a family picture of all four of us from the first Flashes of Hope shoot that was done in your hospital room. On one side, a sign that reads “you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.” The other side, a sign I actually bought for daddy after Boosha went to heaven. Now I look at it and cry as it takes on a whole new meaning. The sign says “A piece of my heart lives in Heaven.” This is so true now because you are in heaven now bug. My heart is no longer whole. Part of it is most definitely in heaven. With you. I don’t know how to live this life without you in it Cade. You were my little buddy. You were all of our little buddy. We all miss you more than you’ll ever know. I don’t understand any of this. I never will. I can’t make sense of it. Of why this all had to happen the way that it did. Why you couldn’t stay here on this earth with us. My mind races. There’s so much I want answers to. So many regrets and wonders. Why nothing that we did for you helped you. Why despite all of the CBD/THC oil and supplements we had you on, why and how the cancer managed to escape your CNS and get in to your bone marrow and your lymphatic system. How was your immune system so damaged? Where did we go wrong? Why didn’t your body recognize the cancer cells as a threat? Why didn’t it fight; why couldn’t it? Should I have continued to feed you more than I did, given you more, not stopped feeding you when I did? Did I help things progress quicker because I stopped feeding you like normal? Would we have had more time with you if I had done something differently? These are the things that haunt me. And then the end. That haunts me too. You had so much you kept trying to say and we couldn’t understand you. The swelling in your face and jaw line had gotten so bad along with your difficulty you were having breathing as your body began slowly shutting down. I feel like I was telling you how sorry I was that I couldn’t understand everything you were trying to say to me, and you looked at me and mumbled “I’m dying…I’m dying.” Mine and daddy’s hearts froze. Marjorie came in the room right after and I told her, she suggested that maybe you had said “I’m trying” which makes sense since I swear I was apologizing for not knowing what you were trying to say to me. But which really was it? Dying, or trying? Did you know you were dying? I take more comfort in believing it was “I’m trying” that you had said but just couldn’t clearly say it due to everything and it came out sounding instead like dying. I hope that it was because I’ve never talked to you about dying or what death even was really. You were only 4. It wasn’t something we thought you would understand and not something we wanted to stress you with by trying to have you try to process it. It hurts my heart to think that you knew enough to say you were “dying” and then neither me or daddy acknowledge it with you and talk to you about it. Instead I felt Marjorie made sense and remember turning to you and saying “I know you are sweetheart, it’s ok, it’s not your fault” in reference to not being able to understand you.

If somehow you knew what was happening, my prayer is that you weren’t at all scared. That you felt loved. That you felt all of our love surrounding you that entire day. Those last hours. Getting to see and say goodbye to Rylan before he left. We didn’t want him to be there at the very end when you were gone. But I hope you both felt how much the other one loved you and always will. Your brother loves you so much Cade. You will be buddies forever. Tonight at bedtime when we were talking about highs & lows, he told me this morning that when he was in the theater room turning the xbox on that he thought in his head that he doesn’t like being lonely without Cade. He misses you so much Cade. You were his little buddy. His bug bug. I said how I was so sorry he didn’t have any other brothers or sisters to be here with him and he told me that was ok, that he still has a brother, he’s just not here with him anymore. Then he went on to ask & wonder that as soon as you get to heaven, if maybe you drink an invisible potion and then get to be back here with us, just not seen by us. He talks about you all the time Cade. The way he could just make you hysterically laugh. Your giggles just resonate in my ears. I pray they never leave my memory. I also pray that you are always with Rylan. Especially days that are really hard for him, or that he feels sadder and is missing you more, those days I hope you can help him to know and feel that you are with him, hugging him or holding his hand tightly. Daddy too. Tonight he told me he just wishes that you’d give him a sign. I’m not sure what kind of sign he is needing or looking for, but I hope you will find a way to check on him often and let him know that it’s you. I don’t really know what to make of Heaven exactly or how this all works. But I do hope you can be with us all often and help us all to know and feel that you are here. Near us. Still with us. Everyone says the pain will go away with time. Or at least get more bearable. But I hope you will stay with us always Cade. Forever and ever. Because our love for you will never end. Ever. I love you forever and ever Cade. Goodnight sugar bug. xoxo, mommy

Since I wrote this letter, I have thought a lot about all of this. All of these questions. How life works out the way it does. Why things happen how they do. I have no miracle answers to any of this, unfortunately. I wish I did. I keep saying that I wish God himself would just come to me in a dream and tell my WHY. Why he needed Cade so badly, why he didn’t get to be a cancer survivor. If I understood, maybe it would hurt less. I could make sense of it all a little easier. What I do know is that the choice is not ours, whether our loved ones go or stay. Our only choice is how we respond to it, how we think about it, and how we survive and grow from it. I think back to the story I posted, “The Brave Little Soul.” It makes me realize, when I go down my rabbit hole of what more I could have done or what I didn’t do, that it doesn’t matter. I could have done more or I could have done none of it at all…Cades fate was to only be on this earth for 4 short years. Nothing I could have done would have changed that. I’ll never understand it. EVER. But in a way it gives me a tiny bit of peace. Knowing that I couldn’t change the outcome. It wasn’t in my control. It was, and is, bigger than me. We all will leave this earth one day. We all have a number. We just don’t know how big our number is. How much time our soul is given. So hug your children tighter, love fiercely, don’t hold on to hate; forgive, and as the cliche goes…stop and smell the roses. Because tomorrow is not promised to any of us.

One of my best friends once said to me- “Cade left a lasting impression on so many people in the short life he had here. Some people live their whole entire lives trying to do that and don’t always succeed.” And she’s absolutely right. He definitely did. ❤️