on my first Christmas as a single mom without my kids i felt completely broken holding a gun and beer alone overwhelmed and wondering how my life had fallen apart.
I walked up to the cashier at Walgreens around 11 a.m. with a plunger and a six-pack of beer. ‘Merry Christmas!’ she beamed. I’m not sure I even said anything, but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see I was not feeling the spirit of the day. I drove to a remote area of my town, parked, opened a beer and held the gun. I held it for a long time. After I drank the first beer, I opened another one. I’m not sure how long I sat there in my truck,.
I had been this low before. Depression had a way of rearing its head throughout my life. But this was different. This was the start of my ‘new normal,’ and every holiday was going to be some version of loneliness and separation from my beloved children. It didn’t matter how beautiful the surroundings were, in my mind everything was dark. There was no beauty I could see in this life.
5 and a half years before that Christmas, I watched a team of doctors surrounded my son, Isaac, in an attempt to save his life after he had coded for the third time that morning. He was 2 days old. The prior 2 days had been one long blur of shock. What started out as a routine non-stress test ended up with a life flight helicopter ride, emergency c-section, and the sound of my family holding back their emotion (not successfully, I might add) while I woke up to my doctor nudging me.
‘Julie,’ he said, ‘you need to wake up. Your son is going to die and you need to say goodbye to him.’ I stood outside of the NICU with my husband as we waited patiently as one of the doctors approached us. ‘I’m sorry. There’s nothing else we can do.’
They maneuvered his many tubes so we my parents, sister, husband, and myself could hold him, and say our goodbyes before we turned off the ventilator. I sat cradling this cherubic, red-headed baby boy. The boy I had known would come to our family, even before he was conceived, and here we were saying hello and goodbye in one fell swoop.
I had pictured it so differently. He died of non-immune fetal hydrops. The next day, I was discharged from the hospital. Instead of heading home with my son, I was heading to the funeral home to help write his obituary and pick out his casket. There was no beauty I could see in this life at that time either.
After marrying blending our family’s life grew chaotic. A severe illness led to multiple hospitalizations and diagnoses of Sjogren syndrome and POTS forcing me to quit my job and face deep emotional.
Shortly after midnight one night, we heard sobs outside of our bedroom door. Our eldest daughter, my bio-child, opened it, found her way to our bed, and collapsed in heavy heartache. ‘I’m bisexual,’ she finally managed. ‘I tried to kill myself with a plastic sack, but as I started to fall asleep I hurried and pulled it off my head. Why would God make me like this?’ Oh, my sweet child. How could I have been so unobservant? ‘I don’t know all the answers
My daughter saw no beauty in this life this time. I was heartbroken because this was our third child who saw no beauty in life one right after the other and wanted the pain to go away. We took advantage of all the professional help we could and it was an emotionally draining several years for our family. There was estrangement, anger, heated arguments, and tears. Lots of tears. Lots of pleading for answers that haven’t come or that don’t seem they’ll be answered in this life. I am the proud parent of a transgender son.
My sister introduced me to resilient southern girl now part of our blended family life has brought me through many difficult clubs but iv e learned mindset shapes how we navigate them
Our lives are messy and complicated, and if each of us tried to put our life into a Venn Diagram, chances are we’d all end up with carpal tunnel syndrome and tendonitis from the laborious task of drawing millions of circles. Perhaps an exaggeration but some days it doesn’t feel like it.
What are my club benefits? They are varied and many. Through the Mama Dragons organization, I have connected with wonderful women who stand ready at the gate to provide love, support, and education to families who have an LGBTQIA loved one or friend. Through my chronic illness, I have found social media groups that help with the isolation that illness can bring. I have the honor of working with Share Parents of Utah. We provide support services to families after the loss of a baby either through miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, or in the first months of life.
I have found healing where I didn’t think I needed any, and friends who will be lifelong. If you’re a new entrant to any of these clubs it is REALLY hard to see any beauty in this life. But what I have learned over the years, from my various life club dues is the darkness doesn’t stay forever.. Perspective is the key that unlocks the door to the beauty of this world.
Every Christmas, I think about the day I held the gun in one hand and the beer bottle in the other. I try to remember how dark and ugly and hopeless my world looked. Something my experiences have taught me is that the beauty will return. Even when I’m hanging on by a proverbial thread, or if I feel wholly unprepared for what club I’m now paying dues to, I know I have the key. Life is beautiful.
