I love being a mom. In fact, I can remember when I was a little girl, the two things I wanted to be when I grew up was a mom and a teacher. I also wanted 11 kids at one point in my childhood. I know it is crazy, and who knew I would end up almost halfway there? We are a flawlessly blended family, I am a bonus mom to two amazing girls Ava, 10, Rylan, 7 and of course I have my first born, Emmry who is almost 12, Kinsley Reese who is in heaven and the baby of the bunch and only boy, Ford. Being a mom is so rewarding and exhausting all at the same time. My husband thinks I am crazy and sometimes I do stress myself out making sure everything is perfect for them but one thing I know is that one day they will be grown or not here to do those things for anymore. I will never be able to do those fun things with Kinsley again. No special holiday crafts, special birthdays and she is missing all the fun activities we are doing during this quarantine. I do these things for and with my kids so that they will have memories they can remember for their entire lives. Prior to losing Kinsley, I did not realize the impact or importance of those things. Now the fun things I do with the kids, the memories, the pictures all have a different meaning and makes the stress and exhaustion completely worth it.
The one thing I know is that when I think back and remember the times I had with Kinsley; I have no regrets. I made sure she lived her best life all the time. She enjoyed those days and fun events the most. I would turn the smallest things into something so exciting for her, it could just be something as simple as Football Sunday, I got her dressed in her cutest Steelers outfit and made her excited to pick where we were going to watch the game and eat wings. We just celebrated Rylan’s birthday and we all remembered how excited Kinsley was for birthdays, not just hers, and how special she made “the birthday girl or boy” feel. She would make them all kinds of stuff and she would fight over sitting next the them for cake and presents. Emmry said “Birthday’s aren’t the same without Kinsley because she always made you feel special”. Just Kinsley’s zest for life and maybe a touch of ADHD made everything a little more exciting and chaotic.
As Mother’s Day is coming up, I have spent a lot of time thinking about being a mom and what that means. Being a mom brings lots of joy, but I would have never thought I would say being a mom also brings a lot of pain and emptiness. Prior to Kinsley, Mother’s Day was just a day of appreciation. It was a day I felt special, as I went to brunch with everyone, got a ton of homemade cards, flowers, some my favorite things and celebrated being a mom. Almost 12 years of being a mother and celebrating Mother’s Day, I have never felt more like a mom than I do now after losing Kinsley.
When children are born, we have this immediate unconditional love for our babies. It’s a love you can’t describe to anyone, until they experience becoming a mom themselves, it’s an indescribable feeling. You immediately know that this small tiny person you are holding in your arms for the first time, has your whole heart forever and nothing can or will change that, not even death. All moms say they will die for their kids never actually expecting to be put in that situation, but you just know that if it were to come down to it, you would. Nothing is truer than this statement. As I was watching my daughter die, all I wanted was to trade places with her, I wanted to take the pain away and I prayed tirelessly for him to take me instead. Watching her lie there dying was something I never wanted or expected to experience as a mother.
Selfless is a word I like to use to describe being a mom, I always put my kids first. This situation with Kinsley was no different. My prayers while she was in the hospital started as ‘please heal her, help her push through this, I need her’. February 13th, we sat in a room of doctors, nurses, social workers around a table and the first thing I heard was “If she survives, she’s losing all of her limbs”. Then they proceeded to say that she has had a stroke and will struggle with the entire left side of her body, her kidneys were failing and if she survives, she will have to be on dialysis. That all sounds like a pretty shitty existence, right? As her mom, it was that very instance, I let her go. My prayers as her mother shifted to ‘please take her and take good care of her, make sure when she goes, she is comfortable and not scared, make sure she knows we all love her’. I think that is the true definition of selflessness. I would rather live a lifetime of pain from losing her, than have her here selfishly but miserable because she is not really living like Kinsley. So, I let her go.
A good friend sent me a quote by Jamie Anderson as I was writing this, it said “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” I’ve got so much love for that child and an entire lifetime of loving her was taken from me. I suppose that’s why I have so much grief from losing her.
One thing I’ve learned is being a mother means experiencing every emotion to its fullest, joy, selflessness, excitement, love, exhaustion, tiredness, fear and for me extreme sadness and pain. I wouldn’t change being a mom for anything in this world not even if I knew I would have to live a lifetime of pain from losing Kinsley. Having Kinsley, raising Kinsley, loving Kinsley and losing Kinsley has taught me so much about myself and life. I am eternally grateful for her, for the memories I have of her, for her love and being able to love her, each and every day. God chose me to be her mom and that is something truly remarkable.
