The “D” word

This post is a much more serious kind of post. I wrote it a long time ago, and have come back it to and edited it many times. I guess now that I’m a parent my priorities have changed and life sometimes isn’t just all about shopping, friends and trendy restaurants anymore 🙂

Death or Dying.

It’s scary. It’s our reality and it’s something that we all deal with differently.

Having deathly allergies I had to come to the realization at a young age that G-D forbid something I eat, food that is needed to keep me alive could kill me. Sure, I carry two Epi-Pens with me and Benadryl pills but it’s scary and still could happen. Obviously pre-baby I knew that should something happen to me my husband, family and friends would be devastated.

Then I had a baby and that reality changed. What if something happened to me and she couldn’t remember me? What if she didn’t know what I was thinking on her six month birthday? What if her only memory of me singing to her was in the videos I’ve made? Who is going to imitate the funny sounds she made as a baby for her when she is older? Who is going to tell her how she was at night, when she ate foods for the first time, about our time together?

Obviously my husband would and so would our family and friends but its different when it comes from a mom.

When I was younger, pre-reality television shows, my evenings were spent watching made-for-TV movies. I have seen them all. The girl who is sexually molested in the bathtub, the anorexic high schools girls, the husband who plots to kill his wife. There is no stopping these “creative” movies. Then came the movie “Fine Things”. A made-for-TV version of the Danielle Steele novel. I have seen the movie probably close to 100 times and can pretty much recite most of it off my heart as can my sister Auntie Beige (see you made an appearance!). Anyways, the mom in the movie is dying of cancer after giving birth to her second child and she writes them letters that they can open at different stages of their lives. This is a common occurrence now with parents documenting “life” as they are dying to teach their kids that they are leaving behind all the know.

But, what if you die unexpectedly? What happens then?

Do parents keep a journal with lots of thoughts in it for their children to read either way? I thought about writing a bunch of letters to Princess Peach but is that morbid? Where would I keep them? Would there be “rules” to her opening them?

As of now I’m undecided. Why write all these things down if I’m here, alive and living life to my fullest but then the cautious part of me thinks “you never know what can happen?”

Part of my love for sharing my life and experiences about my family in this blog is should something ever happen to me, my children know how I felt in those moments. I’ve documented both of their birth stories in this blog so that one day they will be able to read about their two amazing births and how incredible it was to welcome them into the world. Princess Peach and Little Dude will be able to know what their favourite toys and books were at certain points in their lives and I have documents some very fun excursions that we have taken.

If something does ever happen to me I don’t want my children wandering. Wandering about what I thought, how I felt about them, about certain things, about my life. I want everything to be on the table so that they know me and all of me.

What do you do? Do you have a secret stash of letters/thoughts/videos for your kids just in case? Have you ever thought about doing it?

Comments

  1. Brandy says:

    The D word scares me too. With my mom passing when I was only 20, I have the same thoughts are you. There is so much I don’t remember from when I was a kid/baby and my dad isn’t one to share too much about it (sometimes things come out like I found out I was bottle fed instead of breast fed when I started bottle feeding my first). I have thought about writing to my kids. I am just scared to.

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