Hard Thinking Doing Angel Work- A Blog By Cassie

“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future” ~J.R.R. Tolkien

This is it, the big week is off to a start. We are looking at 5 more days of counting down to what we have poured our hearts and souls into for months. I wonder if we will be sad when it is actually over?

I got to spend the whole day today with my friend Brynn and our two sons. It doesn’t even feel right to call her my friend anymore. I am connected to her on a completely different level. It’s more of a connection of our souls now. I even feel the connection with her new puppy. It’s like Rowyn’s puppy, so I feel so close and protective of her. We literally put in an 8-hour day of Raise for Rowyn work. For an emotionally healthy person, the amount of work we accomplished might have taken half of that time, but what the two of us accomplished today made us both very proud. As we worked in Brynn’s house I felt at peace, but as I watched her in her own space, with her usual daily distractions, I saw everything in her brain straining to function, and it felt as if I was looking into a mirror. I could see the difficulty she was having keeping her brain on task, talking her way through it all just as I have to now. I saw her face get red and her nerves jump when the dogs got rowdy or her phone chimed again and again and again with messages. I realized during these moments that although we both have different grief, we struggle to function in many of the same ways. It was comforting to see that and realize that. I think I got up several times during our meeting, one device or another kept needing charged, I was working to stay on task just as hard. That’s what is so interesting about it. How hard you have to work to do something pretty simple. Something that would have been so easy for either one of us before. Instead I think we both said “what was I doing again?” multiple times.

Some mornings I wake up and the irritability cannot subside. I do not know how to answer a question from my 4 year old again and again and again in multiple different ways. I do not know how to handle my one year old climbing up my leg crying when I am just trying to hurry and make him dinner because he has no patience. I snap at my husband when he does his usual jokingly peck at me for answers when he can tell my mind is elsewhere. Things that would be stressful for anyone, but the intensity of it now is sometimes unbearable. Focusing is very hard. I almost giggle as I write that. Doing one task with simple distractions is the hardest thing to make it through sometimes. But we did it today. We still had to do more Raise for Rowyn work once we were home, I had to pick up my other son from daycare, and we both had to throw on our mom/wife hats and make our families dinner, do bath time and bedtime.

How do you make it day to day after you go through something so tragic? Just like that.

We will be sad when this special day is over. When the day is over, it will be Rowyn’s 2nd Birthday. She would have been here with all of her family, opening her presents, smiling, talking, and almost undoubtedly with some sort of bow in that white blonde hair. It is a hard thought to swallow, especially for me and my role in her passing. Her birthday is in Heaven, the most beautiful place on earth. And what is she doing for her birthday? Well, she is blessing families all around us who need financial assistance following the loss of a child. Literally…. What an ANGEL.