”This happened to me. It is unbearably sad. But my sadness, my anger, my grief- these things do not define me. I define me.”

I just read the other day how Mother’s Day is a trigger for mom’s that lost their babies.  When I read that I felt a little bit of my heart break some more.  I mean come on I lost Zach Mother’s Day weekend, his one year freaking anniversary of his death lands on Mother’s Day this year, it will be a huge trigger for me, heck it already is as I am freaking out about it.  My husband recently asked me what I wanted to do on Mother’s Day this year and I looked at him dead serious and said” I’m sitting at the cemetery all day.”  Probably not the fairest statement to say, but at the time that’s what I felt I wanted to do.

After all this is my grief right? I just read to Embrace all of your feelings and emotions. That I am entitled to whatever feelings come up. Nothing is off the table, nothing is "wrong." Totally get that, but in my head it’s screaming “WRONG!” I can still feel the emotions, but I can’t just do what I want to do with them because no matter what I have been through and what I am feeling all those emotions and feelings go on the back burner because guess what?  I am a mom and a wife and it’s a catch 22, I can’t lock myself in my room or sit at a cemetery all day because I think I would be ruining the children and husband I have left here with me.  I am a mom that even though I lost my precious Zach, I still am a mom to Sydney and a step-mom to Carson and I need to get them through this awful ordeal. Mother’s Day will not be about me and the hole and physical ache in my heart and the knot in my stomach. Thankfully because I have other kids and I need them to get through this rough life that was dealt to them I need to be a mom that day.

See, that's the real challenge after losing a child: moving forward. Some days I find it so hard to see what the future will be like without Zach. But life has continued, whether I liked it or not. Because of my kids, and husbands and job I have had to pick myself up and somehow live through the grief.

Tomorrow its 11 months since Zach passed. I am not numb anymore and can honestly say I think the second year is going to be much harder than the first. I pray for the numbness to return, but know that I have to feel what I am feeling to somehow get better, to be a better mom, to be a better person, to be a better friend. To give Zach a legacy that makes all the things he went through turn into something good.  

I feel like a lot of people out there probably think I am a little nuts (I am a little). I have this madness brewing inside of me that wants people even after death to know Zach. I seriously have anxiety of people forgetting him. I know his life had purpose. I know his purpose with me was to make me grow up and hopefully become a better person, but I know it was also to bring good into this world.

It can feel very lonely, being the parent of a child who died. Especially on Mother's Day or Father's Day. We feel so different from those around us, all those happy people with children the same age our child was, or would have been. This year it’s going to be tough I get that, I hope I can get through it and give Sydney the mom that she deserves to have. I hope by “Zach Attacking” we can bring smiles to moms or dads or anyone. As we all know Zach loved to smile, and I am going to try extra hard to smile that day and every day. I think this is the best thing I can do to remember such an amazing boy who was truly a gift to me.
 

I will leave you with a quote that I just read of the site “Still Standing” “”This happened to me. It is unbearably sad. But my sadness, my anger, my grief- these things do not define me. I define me.” 

Please feel free to share this site with whomever.  We are doing amazing things with the “Zach Attacks Mother’s Day” I would love if you would follow our model and maybe do something at a local children’s hospital by you. I can send you Zach Attack Cards to put in the baskets. It doesn’t take much to show a mom on mother’s day that you are in her darkest days.. A Warm Blanket, and a book go a long ways! I will keep you up to date with our efforts. Our Zach Attack is going to be amazing! Thank You again to all that have help me make Mother’s Day this year a little easier on me!

You can see our everyday life and how we are remembering our sweet boy at Facebook: Remembering Zach Attack
https://www.facebook.com/zachattacksrandomacts
 

With Faith Comes Hope,

Rachele

Throw it in the Pile

After Zach passed away I had the most amazing opportunity to become a "Support Planner." I go into homes with some amazing people and help them plan the services they need for their special needs adults and kids. I love this job, and for me its not a job, for me it's a time to heal and give back (and yes a little extra money is nice too!) I know a lot of people thought I was nuts that I was going back into the world of the special needs, especially a month after I lost Zach.  For me I was very thankful to be given the opportunity to continue to be part of the special needs world. I always say it's a world I never wanted to be part of, but now I don't want to be away from it either. Talk about bittersweet.

Zach was always my crutch to go up to other kids in wheelchairs and say Hi, they could see that I wasn't some nutty mom that had no clue what they were going through. Weirdly since Zach passed I feel like I lost my ticket to go up to these amazing kids and adults.  I don't look like one of them anymore. I really am not a part of their world anymore.. my ticket is gone. Now if I go up to someone I feel like I need to explain to them why I am saying hi, which is super ridiculous, because we all should be saying hi to them. I shouldn't need an excuse and again I shouldn't need to tell my story to anyone that will listen. I have to remember that Zach continues to live through me no matter what!

So as I have gone through the last year with my new job I have seen ALOT. I go into homes of the sickest of the sick and also a lot of homes with kiddos with Autism, sometimes homes with more then one kid with Autism. Where the parents are  grieving and fighting like mad to get an education for their child(ren), and on some days those same parents are scared to death of their own kids because they have violent tempers. I have gone into homes where the walls in every corner are punched out and all the knives are hidden. Homes that have alarms on every window and every door. I walk away saying "Thank God I got what I got"  I have gone into homes where two children are diagnosed with the same neurodegenerative disease and I know this mom is going to probably lose both her children... and I walk away again "Thanking God for what I got" I go into homes almost weekly saying "thank God for what I got" and I can tell you that when I tell them my story they are saying the same thing "thank God for what they got." What I have learned through this amazing job of mine is that if all of us special needs parents threw our whole lives and diseases and behaviors and whatever else comes with the world of having a special needs kid, sibling, or adult and we had a choice to take on someone else's life that we all would take on our own again.  That when you look at someone else's story you realize  that you would take your story over theirs any day. As we tell Zach's sister Sydney "You get what you get and you don't have a fit" You do something with it and no other life is blessed more then the other, that you can be thankful for what you didn't get in any situation.  I am so thankful for Zach, and I would pick our story again if I had a choice. Again and Again.... and the amazing thing is those wonderful families whose houses I walk into would pick their story over and over, the same story I was just thinking that "I'm glad I didn't get that! and I know that they are thinking "I'm glad I didn't get her story!

My family and I our still writing our story, but if it wasn't for Zach and our story I wouldn't of gotten to see this wonderful testament to life. I wouldn't get to be amazed daily at how much I see people fighting for their kids, and because of him and the lessons I learned from him I get to carry on and try and help other families in different situations do the best they can for their loved ones. 

As hard as it is at losing a child and believe me it sucks and I grieve daily, I would choose my life again and again if I had to throw it in a big pile and had the chance to pick. I mean really who wouldn't pick the boy with that amazing smile!

With Faith Comes Hope,
Rachele
Mom to my Amazing Zach

A name to an amazing picture

A name to a face…

In the hours after Zachy passed my friend Kami put on a picture of a little boy walking with Jesus and in the background was a wheelchair.  At the time I think a lot of us (even me) were amazed at how much it looked like Zach, Most even thought it was Zach. It was a YES! moment when we all saw this picture and it  brought so much comfort having a picture match what we were all thinking that Zach was out of his wheelchair, healed and walking with Jesus.  As most of you know we printed out that picture and handed it out at the wake. I have the picture on my refrigerator and look at it every day. It still brings me comfort on those days where the grief is so unspeakable. It says to me Zach is not suffering, he is healed!

Yesterday as I was tooling along on FB someone put a story of a dad writing about the loss of his son and how he was Ok…Not Ok.  I read the article and my heart broke for this family because I knew that feeling and have said the same words.” I’m OK… OK not really” is kinda my saying. Anyhow after I read his blog I went tooling around on it and a picture of his monument popped out at me, on it was a huge picture of the boy walking with Jesus.  My mouth dropped, I finally got to read the story on the boy that brought so much comfort to me and others after Zach’s passing. 

I’m not going to lie after reading it, I was like uh oh. I hope that they were ok with me printing this and using it. There boy Mitchel passed away in March of 2013. He was around the same age as Zach and passed away from Muscular Dystrophy. I was devastated reading about Mitchel, and know exactly what this family was enduring. I wrote to them yesterday and wanted to let them know about how we came across the picture and that I was thankful for their sweet boy. If you want to see their story it’s on FB under Mitchell’s Journey.  The dad has wonderful writings about his sweet, sweet gorgeous son.

2013 was a rough year for both of our families and unfortunately I know there are a lot more kids that passed away just in 2013 that I don’t even know. I hate that, but in some ways so thankful that even though they have no idea that they are comforting me through my grief, that these boys were here to make a difference.

I was going to put the picture on here, but thought better of it. It is an amazing photo, and Mitchel has an amazing family.  These boys are healed walking with Jesus.