CSM Gagnon

It's been 10 days since you left this world. Ten days your wife and children have grieved your absence. Ten days that this jokester, this gal who always has something to say, has been silent. Someone asked me to write a few words about you and I was struck by my inability to do it. I was rendered silent by my inability to define what it is that you and your wife mean to me. I still struggle to speak about you in past tense.

On Sunday, I went to Mass angry. I hope that you can relate to occasionally carrying a heavy bag of emotions to our Savior. When Father held up the Body of Christ, the image of you seeing it all in front of you, in real time, in heaven, rendered me speechless. It was crystal clear. And I sobbed. I sobbed so heavy and so hard. I sobbed because I was so happy for you to be there. I sobbed because I am so sad that your family has to miss you. I sobbed because I can only imagine the experience, and wait for my own. I sobbed because I found myself pouring out requests. Pray for Matthew. Pray for me to be faithful. Pray for Love. Pray for my Dad...

You asked me why he was better and you were dying, once. I remember standing in the hallway after CWOC. You were pacing back and forth and we ended up talking. I love our talks. What a treat it was to hear what was going through your mind. Anyway, on Sunday, I suppose that I understood why you had to go first: so you could pray for us. I find bizarre comfort in the knowledge that you understand that better than us all.

My dear friend, you and your bride are our family. You are our great friends. You welcomed us in this vast universe that is the military and you sheltered us with laughs, wisdom, advice, encouragement, support. I will miss seeing your Ranger hat and pin. I will miss your laugh. I will miss how you never stopped asking questions, no matter how silly you thought they sounded. I will miss how you made everyone who encountered you feel simultaneously like the most awesome person in the room, and driven to be a better version of themselves. I will miss how you made my son feel ever so slightly a part of the organization for which is holds such high regard. I will miss you teasing me about being embarrassed to kiss my husband at the giving of the peace in Mass (and I will think of you laughing in heaven each time it comes). I will miss going to lunch and talking about everything under the sun. I will miss how desperately you sought to understand God's Love and Mercy in all moments. I will miss your honesty about your faults with me, and your drive to be better. I will miss teasing you about running when you should be resting. I will miss the expression of awe and wonder our Savior brought over you with each new discovery.

Thank you for allowing me and my family to be a part of your life. Thank you for sharing a tiny piece of your big heart with us all. You will never be forgotten. I know I join so many others when I say: I look forward to seeing you again, in the physical presence of our King.

Chocolate

Moments come where the sucker punch is so intense you can barely see through it. The sting of grief overwhelms and your whole self is broken. This grief, this heart devastation, manifests itself in different ways. Sometimes it's crying in the shower, sometimes it's curled up on the floor staring in to space. Sometimes it's lost in silent pain, holding hands with your best friend.

Goodbye stings deeper than almost any sting. The memories become ghosts, haunting your thoughts. They randomly launch you into a happy moment, only to leave you with the grieve of the harsh reality: they are gone.

I am sitting here trying to say goodbye. Goodbye to what I envisioned, goodbye to what I wanted, goodbye to something good to look forward to. Good bye to you.

I feel sick to my stomach. I find myself alternating between functioning and disconnecting. Trying to disengage myself from the ghost of your presence is practically impossible. And I hate you for that. I hate you for hurting me. I hate me for hating you. Which leads to anger, and helplessness. Is that really the root cause of it all? Being utterly helpless?

I am so helpless. I can't do anything! I can't make anything happen, or prevent anything from happening, or keep anyone here. I can't make death go away, or the sting of loss, or eradicate grief. I am like a grain of sand, tossed around by the whims of the Ocean and His will. I feel battered and bruised and defeated.

I miss you.

Jake

They handed me a blue collar before they brought him out and turned him over to me. He was abandoned by a family who moved and "couldn't" take him with them. He was huge and gentle and energetic. Blue became Jake, but we always kept that dog collar from the very first day.

The furry four legged love of my life is dying. As I write this to you I can't stop sobbing, reminiscing, aching. It's an ache that there's little comfort for. The agony of knowing when the right "time" is, is really being selfless enough to let him go...

The justification process for keeping him alive is really non existent now. He isn't really eating well. He falls quite frequently now. His eyes... his eyes beg me for mercy. I yelled at him for giving me that look. I yelled at him for dying. I yelled at him because I don't want this.

We've set "goodbye" dates and passed them. We've made plans and ignored them. We've argued against ourselves about whether or not we should give him "one more day to perk up". We've looked at the events of the day and tried to decide whether or not we should push it because we have something going on. We've ignored, ignored, ignored the inevitable.

How do you know when it's time? I can't tell you how many people have said "you just know". Well, no I don't. Because what I "know" and what I'm allowing myself to "know" are not in sync. A grieving mind is a powerful tool at seeing only what it wants to see. A selfish heart is completely able to ignore how rapidly he breathes, how little he eats, how often his legs fall out from under him, how much he shakes. A selfish heart can ignore all of that or can mentally look for the one. thing that he still "enjoys" and say that's reason enough to make him endure all of this agony. And I have one hell of a selfish heart. Because I don't want to say goodbye. I don't want to take him to a clinic where they'll give him a shot and I'll walk out with his blue collar and no him. I don't want to walk into my house and not see his brown furry face. I don't want to sleep and not hear him snoring away. I don't want to sit on my couch and not have him irritating me by laying on my feet, or half on my lap.

You know the end is here when the conversations about him are all past tense.
Remember how he used to pull weeds in the yard? And he would carry them over to the rocks because he didn't want them in the grass? Remember?
Remember how he used to pick up all of the tiny pieces of trash on the floor so that the triplets wouldn't put it in their mouth?
Remember how he saved my sanity and figured out what Bruni needed when she was a baby? Remember how he rescued me from near hysteria over the endless crying? Remember?
Remember that time when he decided he wanted to be held and jumped into my lap and then had this sort of consciousness that he was massive and probably shouldn't be sitting there? But he just resigned himself to what he'd already done and decided to "roll with it" and how funny that was? Remember?
Remember how he NEVER let anyone touch the babies or Lolli, but he did it in the most gentle, unobtrusive way, so that people never realized what he was actually doing? He ALWAYS put himself between a "stranger" and our children. People thought he was just friendly, or annoying, but we knew it was really about safety?
Remember how he would kick out my giant teddy bear when Chief was deployed and slip himself in its place? He HATES that teddy bear!
Remember his last hurrah of destruction where he ate the Tucks pads? Still wonder if that was the first or final act in that day of household terror.
Remember when he fell in love with that stuffed animal bird? How he would carry it around like his puppy and love on it endlessly? Remember how he dug out the brand new one he didn't even know existed (we didn't show it to him), directly out of a pile of bags without touching ANYTHING ELSE?
Remember how he would always either spoon me, or force me to spoon him, and how the process was so slow and gradual that you'd never even know it was happening until you woke up in that scenario with him happy as can be.
Remember how he was every time it rained and he wouldn't leave the porch to go to the bathroom because of his passionate hatred of water, but if there was snow... if there was snow he was the happiest dog on the planet. He would bolt out and run around like a crazy dog, rolling, diving, jumping in the frozen water.
Remember the first time he experienced a vacuum? That thing was the devil and he was certain it had to be immediately destroyed.
Remember how he was during and after his first bath? Yikes!
Remember how he hates all small dogs with a passion, but you get him around a puppy and he becomes father of the year. He would take on this goal of protection, instruction, and leadership that was absolutely beautiful to watch.
Remember how mad he was at me when I dropped him off at the Kennel overnight because we were moving and I didn't want him getting out? How he wouldn't even acknowledge my existence for two days? 
Remember when he picked Foofi up off of the ground and launched her with his nose?
Remember when Foofi would jump up on his back like he was a step stool to reach something she couldn't reach under normal circumstances?
Remember the time he dragged a Husky and a Doberman across the yard while they struggled fiercely against him?
Remember how panicked he would get every time suitcases came out, or boxes were being packed, or anything "going away" was involved? Until he realized that when we left, we brought him too and then he started to enjoy it.
Remember how when Chief left for his gazillionth deployment he would sit and lick away my tears, and hold my hand with his paw until I felt comforted. Remember how he would wrap his big furry arms around me while I slept, as if he took on this charge of physical and mental protection of me, in Chief's absence. 
Remember all of the personal, and beautiful things that he has shared with each of us, igniting this magical bond between himself and humanity, that can't be shared?

He has etched his very essence into my soul. He was our first family pet. I told Chief that I believed him to be a guardian angel sent to help us. He really was the only being that could soothe our daughter when she was little. He was the one who understood what she needed when we could not. He is the one who brought me, and the rest of my family, endless hours of comfort, laughter, and love. So please bare with me as I will myself to let him go. Please pour out grace, kindness, and mercy on my devastated heart. Please pray for my children, and my heart, as we say goodbye. Our children have asked to be present as he goes off to heaven.

He came into my life with a blue collar. And short of my memories, it's about to be all that I'll have left to hold. My God, this hurts.

Edited: Jake went to heaven today. He laid in my lap as I kissed him over and over again while he left this earth. The sobs are heavy and the pain is great, but he is worth every bit of it. He went to sleep hearing over and over again "I love you so much!" By the grace of God, I was able to love him enough to finally let him go...

4

They told me it would get easier, having multiples. They say time heals all wounds and that life goes on and you get over things and you accept them and they get easier. In some ways that's true. In some aspects it is easier. I get to sleep at night. I'm not constantly changing diapers or feeding an infant who never. stops. crying. But that's not unique to a set of triplets. All mothers endure the same agonies: exhaustion, sleep deprivation, physical and emotional fatigue...

They are so much older now. Their conditions have become "normal". So normal, in fact, that when a physician diagnoses your son with one of the world's rarest gastrointestinal condition it doesn't even phase you. How completely screwed up is that? You don't even blink an eye...

My children are about to be baptized next Sunday. In the process of this experience, there was a discussion about their Catholic names and who their patron Saints would be. It was discovered that all of my children are named after saints. All of their names accurately define their personalities. And I couldn't help but wonder about our dead baby. What was that baby's name? What was their personality? Who would they have been?

It was a silent agony. It was something that I didn't share because at the time I was immersed in the circumstance of keeping the other three alive. The fourth child is something the triplets talk about constantly. I hate that. I wish they wouldn't. It hurts like hell. But then there's this part of me that knows it's incredibly selfish to prevent them from talking about and remembering the fourth member of their group. The four of them, collectively, attached to my body. The four of them heard my heartbeat and knew each other from the very beginning. The four of them experienced this endeavor from the beginning...

But three were born alive, for a reason that I will probably never know. One went to heaven, before ever seeing the light of day, or feeling the sun on their face. One went to heaven before feeling my kisses, or knowing my touch. One went to heaven, possibly so that others could live. Could that one child have been so self sacrificing so as to give their very life up, for the other three?

The triplets function as one. They talk constantly about feeling each other, knowing what they're thinking, and the agony they feel when they are apart. They function with one brain, or soul, or being that I can't relate to and I don't understand. But maybe they function as quads. Maybe there's one aspect of themselves that's in heaven, calling them to Christ and waiting for the four of them to be together. Maybe there's one who prays for them in a realm that I can't see.

I ache for that child. I ache for the remains that I gave birth to when the three were born. I ache that I wasn't strong enough to handle the situation before me, at the time. I ache that I didn't honor that child, or grieve for them adequately. I ache that we didn't give that baby a name...

They say that time heals all wounds. They said this would get easier as the years passed. But I tell you, that in the five years since I gave birth to my four children at once, only three of which had beating hearts, the ache has not disappeared. The guilt I carry is everlasting.

I wish I could have known you, known your quirks, known your face. I wish that our relationship would be deeper than the-four-that-never-were. I wish I would have talked about you and shared about your existence. I wish they wouldn't talk about you and miss you as much as they do. But most of all, I wish that it wasn't necessary for you to go to heaven before the rest of us... I wish we weren't here without you.