I dreaded this Mother’s Day. It’d be the second one where I’m mourning the death of a son. I had originally looked forward to enjoying it with a new baby in my arms, but yesterday, I was working on another stage of packing away baby things. We can’t rush it. It hurts too much to pack it all away as quickly as we can. Rhys hasn’t disassembled the bassinet; and I’ve put the clothes and keepsakes in the last little cardboard box that Brandon slept in.

For those wondering what I’m talking about, Brandon did not like sleeping in a wide open cot. In the hopes of mimicking the plastic hospital bassinet he was used to, we put him in a shallow cardboard box padded firmly with folded blankets, and a couple of towels.

He liked this very much and it became something of a convenient co-sleeper as well. After all, you can’t risk rolling onto a baby if you bump into a cardboard box, and I could have my arm around him, and he could see me. It was easy to carry around and move about the house, and did not obstruct his sight of anyone, so he did not feel like he was alone or abandoned while lying in it. I showed it to my midwife and the visiting child healthcare nurse, and they thought it was a wonderful idea, plus the bedding was firm and flat, and we actively compared it to the cot mattress. Since he was getting more sleep and thus growing more, plus it allowed me to keep him close to me and Brandon felt more secure that way, when he outgrew his first box, we moved him up to a second one that came from Japan.

Brandon is outgrowing his box.

It just so happened that we were ordering some computer parts to repair a client’s computer, and Aff asked the company to send a tougher, sturdier box, explaining that the tiniest human in the household liked sleeping in them. The company complied, and that was the third and last ‘Brandon Box.’ In time Brandon would not have needed the close comfort of the box as he was growing enough that he would have had to move to the cot, and it would no longer feel so agoraphobia-inducing.

(I had also been told that it was likely that Brandon would need to wear a cranial band. There have been adorable ideas as to decorating them, as well as attaching a tiny, lightweight GoPro camera to the helmet. I’d thought about attaching a GoPro to our boy when he was old enough to crawl, but I hadn’t figured out how to put it on him so it would be from his point of view. GoPro is awesome for parents! Who knew?)

But other than moving around the house, sorting and putting away stuff and cleaning, it wasn’t too bad. I slept in, till afternoon (mucking up my sleep schedule for a while) My older children surprised me with this lovely statue, bought with their allowance.

Daddy helped pick it out.

It’s sitting with some other lovely figures I’ve got here in my workstation area.

And I remembered the other Mother’s Day I had here, the first one. Rhys had deployed to Afghanistan, and it was a weekend. I woke up to Vincent proudly presenting me with a very overspiced scrambled egg, which I ate, after thanking and praising my then six year old boy. Aff trailed in his wake, holding a mug of coffee for me and the news that Rune was doing the dishes. After Vincent had run off to play, proud of his mission’s success, Aff told me the story behind the scrambled egg.

The fire alarm had gone off, (which I did NOT wake to. Eek.) and Aff jumped out of bed to see why. When he reached the kitchen, he stopped and took in the scene.

Vincent was standing on a wooden child’s chair to give him the extra height to let him reach the top of the stove. The frying pan sat there, dribbling egg that was cooking on the convection stovetop, probably with more egg on the stovetop than the pan. Eggshells were piled in the bin, and Aff found himself following a trail of egg splattered on the countertops, the wall, and following that trail up to the ceiling fan, which was splattering more egg onto the wall and ceiling.

He then described my firstborn reaching the kitchen and her face falling into this expression of pure and utter disgust at the mess.

Vincent had tried to flip the egg, which explained the partially cooked mess that was burning on the stovetop, and had set the alarm off.

After turning off the alarm, Aff somehow managed to ask my little boy, very calmly, ‘Why?’

It was Mother’s Day, Vincent explained, and he’d learned in school that on Mother’s Day, Mummies get breakfast in bed. Mummy likes scrambled eggs. He had watched me cook scrambled eggs. It was easy enough, and I’d let him flip the egg with the spatula while it cooked.

Aff helped clean up the mess (I found no trace of egg anywhere later!) and helped Vincent cook another egg, but left the seasoning up to my boy so it would be ‘his’ creation.

To comfort me (I think my expression was rather horrified) Aff sat down at the foot of the bed and regaled me with the story of when he and his younger brother made a surprise Mother’s Day breakfast for his mother.

They were younger than Vincent, and well, child logic makes sense if you hear it reasoned out:

Mummy likes eggs. Mummy likes sandwiches. She also likes to use chicken boullion cubes in cooking, so that must be yummy. Therefore, an egg and chicken boullion sandwich would be a perfect dish to serve up to Mummy as a surprise!

They served up the sandwich to their mother, mashing as many chicken boullion cubes as they could into the egg till it was a paste that could spread on the bread.

Aff’s mother took a bite of the sandwich, then turned to her proudly beaming youngest sons, and said “The egg is still raw, isn’t it?”

The youngest of the four boys she had birthed chirped, “We’re not allowed to cook!”

Aff tells me that she popped the concoction into a sandwich maker and managed somehow to choke the whole thing down.

He then regaled me with more stories of his friends and his attempts to make Father’s Day special for their daddies, but I’ll save them for the appropriate day. However, he did this with the intent of making me laugh, and illustrating that compared to their attempts, Vincent was an unqualified success in his Make Mummy Breakfast for Mother’s Day quest.

In a way living with me and Rhys has opened Aff’s world into an intimate, if painful view of how we live as a family – and I think he may have been a little surprised at how easy it was for us to include him. He’s Uncle Aff to our children, and he was definitely very much Uncle Aff to Brandon. Every so often he says he ‘misses the little guy.’

Even though we are reeling from the pain from Brandon’s death, we have moments of being able to smile.

I remember as we pulled out of the parking spot from the crematorium, a huge LPG carrying truck came up to the crematory proper. Rhys saw it first, and huffed out a laugh, saying, ‘Good on ya, little dude!’ It amused us to think of our boy being so tough he’d need a whole truck of gas to turn him to ash.

Morbid, perhaps, but he was a tough little guy who was growing well. It would have been wonderful to see how our bundle of grumpy rage grew, I remember how we were able to sit together, as a family, to watch Big Hero 6. After Brandon was full of milk he did not drift off to sleep as usual, but tried to twist around to watch. I handed him to his Dad, so he could have some Daddy time and I could stretch my legs. Brandon watched the movie, eyes huge, and clearly enjoying it, because he would coo, reacting to the colors and explosions and sounds. He wriggled through the closing theme, Immortals, and did not seem to want to rest until after the stinger showed and we were obviously preparing for bed. We’ll always remember how expressive he was. I’ve never seen a more perfect WTF expression ever displayed, and certainly Rhys and I never expected to see it on the face of our infant son.

For us, Mother’s Day will always be about the memories we have made as parents to the children, even though for two of our children, it was a very short time.

Continue reading →

We got in touch with the chappie, who I think had just come back from out field, and he said that if I wished, then he would perform the funeral rites for Brandon. Rhys has actually met the man before, and told me a bit about the fellow. He migrated from Eastern Europe and used to be part of the Special Forces equivalent of his nation of origin’s military. I hadn’t known that and somehow, it gives me a measure of comfort that he’s the one we got in touch with.

I’ve been spending the time since preparing for Brandon’s final journey, and comforting the children. It’s finally sinking in.

Continue reading →

Rhys called me up today to let me know that the hospital or funeral parlor called him up and let him know that Brandon’s body is back in Townsville. The funeral director told us before that they’ll handle …

I don’t know how to keep writing polite euphemisms for corpse.

Because that was my son.

Brandon. The latest addition to the clan. Feisty, bright-eyed, opinionated little Brandon. We all want him back. Instead, we have to somehow live with the reality that he, and all that he could have been, will be gone.

Anyone who sees us right now would think we’re completely unaffected, focused as we are on just getting things done, every single day. The opposite is the actual reality. All of us have this urge to start smashing things, punch holes in the walls, break tables, furniture. All of us have this little numb inner voice that says things like: Yeah, but I can’t afford to replace that monitor/Cintiq/keyboard/figurine; can’t smash holes in the wall, we have a house inspection on Monday and we kinda need the windows intact; it’d suck not to have that desk and have to replace it. We briefly considered buying cheap dishes and smashing them, but all us grownups had vaguely similar reactions: but that’s money and then we’d have to clean up afterward so the kids don’t get hurt.

A few people have mentioned that I seem to be ‘holding it together’ pretty well. Rhys says he’s gotten similar comments; that it’s almost like he’s gone completely cold, has ice water for blood because he’s still ‘functioning’ and able to carry out tasks at work as calmly as possible.

Can’t do anything but focus on what we can do something about, really. There’s the funeral preparations to focus on, there’s day to day stuff that needs to happen, life goes on even if you feel like your world has ended. Other people – the children especially – are counting on you.

In truth, that facade hides the hurt, the urge to scream, the thousand-yard stare that shows up when we’re alone, the awareness of time slipping by all too quickly. Saying I miss Brandon and want him back are such small words that sound hollow when spoken out loud, unless when the person speaking is one of the kids, in which case it feels like a knife twisted in one’s gut would hurt less. And even they are hiding how much it hurts, focusing on Mummy. I’m scared of how much it’d smash us, when the grief finally becomes too much.

Continue reading →

Hi everyone

This is kind of a situation report, I guess. Sort of.

Aff has been keeping me up to date on stuff. He’s been passing on condolences from other sectors of the Wired, like from tech and dev folks who know him, and letting me know about the donations that have flooded in. When I’m able to sit up and focus on the screen (more on that later), I’ve read the comments and posts of support. Speaking of support, here’s a memorial page to my two sons Aff made. It’s beautiful.

I’m grateful and thankful for every little bit of care and goodwill sent my way – it doesn’t have to be financial. For those that did send, thank you so much, for putting toward Brandon’s funeral, his memorial box, and for photo printouts for the kids to give them each a photo album to look through and remember their little brother. We’ll probably make up an album for ourselves, and one each for the grandparents for the second grandson they’ll never get to meet.  The rest we will use toward helping the kids deal, and for things they need. Anything else left over will be put into an account for emergencies and / or school needs. Prayers, keeping my family -Aff included – in your thoughts, sharing ideas for how to help children cope with loss… All of it is a comfort in this terrible time.

Aff made up a thank you announcement.

“Apparently, to some people, that was an invitation to donate twice.”
Big, big thanks to Larry Correia, Kate Paulk, Sarah Hoyt, Mary Catelli, T.L. Knighton, Matt Bowman and the others for spreading the word, and organizing with Aff. Yes, Sarah is right that we had to be …lovingly persuaded into letting them help, and letting the Huns and the Minions rally for the sake of Brandon. We’re shy like that, and kind of used to handling things on our own, but at the same time, we did need the help. Ask Foxfier and Mary Catelli. They knew about Damien. On the tech and dev side of things, I gather that Aff’s been meeting the same kind of gruff, gentle bullying, though given the people involved I imagine there are more swearwords.
Continue reading →