Leaning against the car window, I scan the side of the road ahead for deer. I don’t know why I can’t trust John with that task. After all, he’s driving. I start to turn around to check on the children and freeze.

For a moment, I forget. For a moment, I fully expect to see Tiggy asleep in his car seat, hands behind his head, as I had seen him so many times before. For a moment. And the next moment I can’t bear to not see him, so I lean back against the window, staring down the road.

John flips on the radio.

“I think I’m going to Katmandu,

That’s really, really where I’m going to. . . “

He changes the channel.

For a moment, I can still see Tiggy in his car seat. And then it is empty. My mind drifts back to the hospital. Where I last held him in my arms. Felt his cold little hand. Kissed his cold forehead as firmly as I had wanted to before he went into surgery but didn’t for fear of hurting him. I promised to write down all his little stories and tried to figure out how to say goodbye.

“K-K-K-K-Katmandu. . .”

“That has to be the stupidest song ever written,” he comments.

He changes the station again.

I think about that long, impossible walk toward the exit. With every step, the door shrank away from me until we were suddenly there. Nurses stood at the door, offering condolences, hugging me, asking me if I needed a wheelchair. I remember being  mildly irritated at the suggestion. But as soon as I stepped out, I collapsed. My husband and two nurses caught me and carried me back inside, placing me in the wheelchair I had refused. Everyone was talking, trying to figure out who was going to ride where. A nurse suggested no one move the car seat. So it sat there empty for over a week.

“If I ever get out of here,

I’m going to Katmandu.”

John’s beginning to get annoyed.

“Seriously, I may as well sing about going to Narre Warren.”

The car seat had to come out for this trip. That didn’t really bother me as much as I was afraid it might. Slowly, everything that was his is being taken away. The last of his milk was drunk. The last of his clothes were folded and put away. His playpen was taken down. Soon, we’ll have to take his clothes out of his drawer to make room for the baby’s. Taking the car seat out didn’t bother me until I went out and found it lying upside down on the driveway.

I picked it up, dusted it off and carried it into the garage. But once there, I didn’t know quite what to do with it. So I set it on the floor and just stared at it. I had the strange urge to curl up in a little ball and sit in it, but there’s no way I would have fit. So I just continued to stare at it until John came in and moved it to the top of a storage tub where it was out of the way.

“There has to be an end to this song.”

And he hits the search button again, but without an antenna, the radio is only pulling one station.

I feel dead inside. These times are the worst. The fog is lifted and I feel just how deep the hurt runs. It’s heavy. It sits on my chest making it difficult to breathe. It threatens to consume me. But before it does, the fog settles as the numbness returns. I think for a moment perhaps this numbness I so often find myself fighting against is a gift from a merciful God who promises us no more than we can handle.

And the memory of him playing peek-a-boo in that car seat doesn’t quite make me smile, but at least I can breathe again.

Sitting next to Micah, I watch him play. Left arm stretches, little fist in a ball. Right arm tucks in, fist in a ball. Little legs scrunch up to his tummy then he gives a mighty little kick. That surprises him and he looks for a moment like he might cry before he sticks out his tongue and gets distracted by a lock of my hair.

Then he flashes that smile. He really only started smiling the week before the accident. Big, beautiful, full body smiles that could make anyone smile back.

(The day after it happened, I sat holding him while tears streamed. He seemed so far away as he wiggled and stretched until he caught my eyes and he flashed that smile. It was like a single ray of sunshine beaming through the tempest in my soul. And even through tears, I smiled back.)

“I want to remember this,” I think to myself.

(Everything is in a fog. Nothing seems quite real. My thoughts are clouded, I can’t remember what I’m doing from one moment to the next and the simplest decisions overwhelm me. I remember bits and pieces from last week, but most of it is a blur.)

But babies grow quickly. And this I want to remember. So I sketch him out in my thoughts, look over every feature, close my eyes to recall his little face.

I smile. The small joy of playing with my baby pierces through the fog and the numbness. But that lets through the pain and my eyes begin to sting.

“Oh, Micah,” I say as I pick him up. “I hope I can still be a good mommy to you.”

“You are a good mommy!”

I hear the children say, almost in unison. My son sounds indignant, as if I insulted him personally. The tears begin to fall.

(Everyone says it gets easier. That time heals all wounds. That you learn how to move on. But when I hear these words, my heart says, “No.” Not that I don’t believe them. I do. But I don’t want it to get easier. I don’t want to move on. It doesn’t seem possible to simply go forward and leave my son behind. To allow the wounds to heal when his took his life.)

“I used to dance and sing and laugh with all of you. I just want the same for Micah.”

And I do. So I dry my tears, kiss his cheeks and hold his little hand. I still don’t know how to move forward from here . . . to laugh and dance and sing . . . but we still love. And for now, I cling to 1 Peter 4:8.

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

We’re getting ready to open presents. Under a tree the children decorated and little Tiggy redecorated. Two weeks ago, the bottom branches were bare. Between moving the breakable ones higher and the non-breakables slowly finding their way to the top of the desk where I placed them after taking them from him, our tree had begun to look a little lop-sided.

It always made me smile. He loved that tree. And the time running around at the Christmas tree farm helping pick one.

But my husband bought a string of lights last week and the children re-decorated the tree. And the ornaments stayed.

The strangest things can make me cry.

We hadn’t bought presents for the children, yet. I knew what I wanted to get for my eldest, John had something picked out for Bear. I had no idea what to get for Tiggy. I knew what he would like.

No matter what he was doing, he had two or three of his precious vroom vrooms in his hand. Everywhere we went, he adopted one as his. But how many vroom vrooms does one boy need? When we buried him, I wanted to leave him with a vroom vroom in his hand. I asked my son if he would like to choose which one, thinking it might be meaningful to him.

Watching him go over all his cars, I realized that none of them were actually Tiggy’s. All of his favorite toys were actually his brother’s, but Bear never said anything about it. He never took them away. Never yelled, “Mine!” Never fought over them.

He chose a firetruck.

Buying him a replacement was the only present that was easy. The rest of the afternoon we took to finish up shopping was hard. No one wants to break down crying when the checker at Target wishes you a Merry Christmas. Or a Happy Holidays. I’m not even sure what any of them wished us. I only remember the knot that formed in my stomach while I was waiting for it.

Watching parents frustrated with toddlers tired out from too much shopping was hard.

Looking at all the stuff on the shelves was hard.

Walking through the mall and seeing all the ads was hard.

Listening to the Christmas music in every store was hard.

Making decisions about which game board to get was hard.

Choosing presents for the children was hard.

We ended up buying a game that wasn’t even intended as a present and left.

But I didn’t want the children to remember this as the year we skipped Christmas.

So somehow we got through it. The same way I’ve gotten through selecting a casket, choosing flowers and buying a grave site. The same way I’ve gotten through baskets of laundry that still had his clothes, taken food from a refrigerator that still had the last of his milk sitting in the door, cleaned rooms where his toys were still scattered.

So the children are getting ready to open presents. After breakfast, they’re going to go clean their rooms while we wrap them and we’re going to try to have a little celebration.

I know we’ll get through it. But we have five other children. They deserve more than a mother who is getting through each day.

So I look at his little pair of socks someone stuck in the Advent’s calendar and try to smile at the memories rather than cry.

I want to take a moment to thank all of you. Our family has been truly overwhelmed by the love and kindness of our community. From the ambulance service sending flowers, the nurse who came to the viewing, the anesthesiologist telling us he saw his own children there on the operating table and total strangers who came across a link on the internet who felt moved to comment, pray and offer support.

We’ve been asked over and over what we need, but we truly are blessed to not have any physical needs. My dad and brother fixed the plumbing. A man from our church came out and fixed the chimney. The funeral home donated its services. The newspaper donated the space in the paper. My husband’s work took care of the fact he left without contacting a supervisor and is giving him the time he needs to be home during this time.

I cannot begin to recount the kindnesses shown us. For those of you who feel moved to give, please consider donating to Tiny Hands International, a ministry working in Asia to rescue children from poverty and sex-trafficking. It would mean a great deal to us if some of the overflowing generosity we have been shown could benefit someone who has true physical needs.

Deep breath.

I can do this.

I actually have already a few times. The first several times, I know the person on the other end of the line couldn’t decipher anything through my sobs. Fortunately, they were all gracious enough to express their condolences without asking me to go through it all again.

It was a horrible, horrible accident and I’m still stuck replaying all the decisions I could have made differently that might have left my energetic little boy here in my arms, dispersing my dishes about the house, sneaking fruit out of the refrigerator and eating the tips off markers any chance he got. And it is only beginning to sink in how much worse it could have been.

Friday was such a windy day. 45 mile an hour gusts. We had an extension on our chimney with a draft inducing cap on top and the wind caught it and took it down with a crash. I was so glad I don’t let the children play outside on windy days. See, we have some loose tin on one of the barns and I’m terrified the wind will bring it down.

John went up but there wasn’t much he could do other than make sure that the chimney wasn’t damaged to the point of being unusable. It was bitterly cold. Windchill that night was expected to reach minus 25. The men from the volunteer fire department who were first to arrive would leave the basement door open, causing all our pipes to freeze and break. It wasn’t a night we could go without heat.

But that caused some challenges. The stove didn’t have enough draft so the smoke started coming into the house. Flames shot out the front and scared me to death. I had the older children help me clear the area of anything flammable. I swept the hearth to make sure there weren’t any pellets or bark near the stove to catch fire and was so thankful John had been called to a job in Lincoln. I could stay up most of the night until he got home in order to babysit the stove. I got the fire extinguisher out and re-read the directions to make sure I knew how to use it.

It was bedtime, but the children were rather excited about the whole thing. I also didn’t want them breathing all the smoke. They asked for a family movie night. At first I said no, but then I thought they could get out their sleeping bags, watch a movie and hopefully fall asleep without any bedtime struggle since I really didn’t want to leave the stove.

Plus I figured if the house did catch fire, that put them all in one place. Since the first time I set the smoke detector off in the middle of the night without so much as a flinch from the children, I’ve been terrified about how on earth I would rescue six children on my own.

I finally got the smoke cleared and the stove heated up enough that the heat of the air started the drafting in the right direction. I checked on the children and they were all sitting, enjoying their show. I decided to go ahead and put the baby to bed and see how the stove was doing before maybe joining them for awhile.

As he was falling asleep, Tiggy and Ellie came up and started wrestling and jumping around on my bed. I played for a minute, let Tiggy shower the baby with his sweet little kisses but that is an amazingly difficult way to get a baby to sleep.

“Why don’t you go back downstairs and watch the movie with Koko?”

I will regret those words for the rest of my life. Over and over in my mind I keep him. Let him stay up. Let him bounce on the bed. Let the baby be awake until Tiggy bounced himself out of energy and fell asleep.

He was such a good little boy. He obeyed immediately.

I laid the baby down.

The phone rang. It was John. I had called him about the stove but it was under control now.

I heard a crash, dropped the phone and ran to the basement.

“Tiggy!”

I heard my daughter scream.

She and my son were standing there, doing their best to hold up a dresser.

A heavy dresser.

A sturdy dresser.

Nothing like what you’ll ever find at WalMart or Nebraska Furniture Mart.

I loved that dresser because it was sturdy. Hardwood, and the drawers were even made of wood, not that balsa-like material in our other drawers.

I hate that dresser. And the television we set on it because it was the most sturdy piece of furniture we own.

When the dresser started to tip, my twelve year old went for it. She was scratched by her puppy who was frantically trying to get out of the way. She was hit by a television. Still, she went toward the dresser and tried to catch it.

My three year old was hit. She has a dresser-knob shaped circle on her ankle and some bruising on her leg. She didn’t so much as shed a tear. I wouldn’t find out anyone but Mattias had been hurt until we were at the hospital and I came out to tell them how Tiggy was doing and try to calm them down a little.

And the dresser my husband had pushed and shook and stood on when we bought it to make sure it could take some climbing landed on my little Tiggy, cracking his head against the concrete floor. I don’t remember getting from the stairs to him. I only remember kneeling over him, the weight of the dresser on my back and screaming.

“Call 911!”

I shouted and my daughter was already running with the phone. I didn’t make a lot of sense, I don’t think. I said my address over and over as clearly as I could, but the lady on the other end wanted to know what happened. I remember screaming about my baby and blood and just screaming before taking a deep breath and repeating my address. She reassured me an ambulance was on the way. She had my address. But when help arrived, all they understood was that there had been an accident and a baby was involved.

I was panicking. I thought blood was coming from his eyes, nose and ear. I didn’t think there was any way he would live long enough for the ambulance to get there. I called my husband and told him he had to come home. Tiggy was dying. I was so incredibly thankful he had been called to a job in Lincoln. He stepped off the train, told his train crew  he needed to go and got in the car. About an hour later, he was at the hospital. Normally, it would have taken several hours to get off the train in some outlying area, wait for a bus and so forth.

When the paramedics did finally arrive and I listened to them describe the injuries, I realized all the blood was coming from a cut above his nose.

For a moment, I could breathe. For a moment, I thought maybe he would make it.

One of the men from the volunteer fire department drove me and all the children to the hospital. The same man who dug out our whole road when our mini van fell in the ditch. The same man who advised me about the dangers of winter, the need for an alternate heat source and the need for food and water stores. The same man who put our little grass fire out. And the same man who re-graded our road after the fire.

We got to the hospital and Mattias was still alive. He was responding to pain. He had a bite reflex.

I thought maybe. Maybe there was a chance. But he was so little and that dresser was so heavy. I wanted to be in the room with him. Holding him. Talking to him. But I didn’t want to be in the way. I didn’t want to distract anyone if I screamed. I didn’t want to take nurses away if I collapsed. I knew this might be the last I saw him alive and I had to fight all my maternal drive to be with him to give him the best possible medical attention he could get.

They wanted him at the Children’s Hospital in Omaha but Life Flight wasn’t flying. The sheriff was checking to see if the roads were open. They were. They began preparing him for transport. I told my parents Omaha and they left their home in Kansas. Omaha called and said he needed to be at a trauma center. Lincoln would be best. I figured my parents would figure it out. My husband arrived.

My children were taken to someone’s house.

We left for Lincoln. An hour drive in good weather. It took us a little longer. It took them 40 minutes.

But when we got there, Tiggy was still alive. Getting a CT scan. We sat in a room with a nurse offering drinks and heated blankets. John wrapped me, practically swaddled me, while she discussed their respite rooms and that we could stay there at the hospital.

The CT scan was not good. Severe fracture to the skull. Severe brain trauma. They described the surgery and the risks. They wanted to make sure I understood the risks and I wanted to yell at them for talking to me when they could be getting started.

We were led out to the hall and told what we were to see as Tiggy would be carted from the intake room to surgery. They paused with the cart so we could see and talk with him ever so briefly before continuing the dash to surgery. Something in me knew it was goodbye. But I kissed him ever so lightly on the forehead because I was terrified of hurting him.

“I love you, Tiggy! Be a good boy.”

And they took him. The last thing I heard as he went through the door was one of the nurses informing the surgeon that his blood pressure was improving.

And again I had a glimmer of hope that would flicker faintly for another hour before we knew for sure.

He had held on for five hours.

He was a fighter. Strong and sweet and full of a life that could not be easily taken. He hung on long enough for my husband to see him, so my husband and I could be together to see him for the last time.

His funeral is tomorrow and I’ll hopefully share a little slide show if anyone wants to see snapshots of his little life that was far too short. (Update: The slide show is posted.)

In the meantime, take a look around your home. Not just at bathtubs and outlets and choking hazards for we always emptied the bathtub and had the bathroom door closed; we cut his grapes and hot dogs in half so he wouldn’t choke; we did everything we could so we urge you take a long hard look at the things you never thought about before. The things you thought were sturdy and secure. The old, heirloom pieces of furniture that seem so very sturdy. I climbed that dresser once to fix a curtain. I never would have thought it would fall. I know you can’t bubble wrap the world, but right now, I’m in the mood to try.

Please, check your homes because the everyday ordinary may not be as safe as you envisioned.

And hug your little babies. I hope and pray you never know how much you can miss all their little mischiefs.

Mattias Ryker Hanley

February 23, 2009 – December 12, 2010

Tiggy, our little oatmeal Pollock.

I don’t know what else to say.

I recently came across Handmade and Homegrown’s 12 New Things Challenge post and it has been waiting patiently in my bookmarks ever since. I liked the idea. Kind of like the Homesteading Skill-A-Month Challenge over at Frugal Living, but open to any old new thing I might like to learn. Seriously, Sarah Mae at Like a Warm Cup of Coffee wants to learn to style her hair.

That’s a skill I could use, but have no interest in. Which is probably why my hair styling equipment consists of a brush and a brush alone. The hair dryer lurking in my drawer was purchased for a homeschool project and the box of curlers is something my husband found in the attic while going through the wrapping paper, also left by the previous owners.

And still the post sits. Why? A few years ago, I would have been all over a challenge like this. I remember the year I taught myself to crochet, knit, quilt and can. It was an exciting time of learning born of an internal battle against the simplest of all foes: boredom.

I used to go to the Y twice a week and as I worked out on the treadmill or the bike, I’d look out the window and think there had to be a better way. But with small children, the walks were too short and too slow. And as tired as I was at the end of the day, the running around after them never seemed to result in any sort of improved fitness.

Now, I’m in a very different place. It has been over a year since I’ve done any sort of formal exercise plan. No trips to the Y. No daily walks. No exercise videos. Just life as needed and I’m in better shape than I have been in years.

That Year I Taught Myself Everything was a lot like the time I spent at the Y. I was occupying myself with a substitute for what I really needed. Lifting weights is good, but it doesn’t really compare to regularly hauling and stacking firewood in order to heat your home. There is purpose added to the physical exercise.

Don’t get me wrong. There are still a ton of things I would like to learn. I’ve been devouring books about raising poultry, beekeeping and gardening. I’m still wavering on the best cultivars for our orchard and my mind wanders to sheep and our dreamed-of family milk cow often enough to disrupt lesson planning.

This year has been an education and I know that it is just the tip of what we will need to learn to be successful in our little venture out here. I no longer need anything to fill the void or to challenge me to keep expanding my skills. Life as needed is presenting me with all the challenge I need just now.

But there is one little thing I’d like to try to do this month: make candy canes. I have no idea why that fascinates me so, but this year may be the year I finally try.

How about you? Anything you’ve always wanted to learn to do but never got around to? I’d love to hear about your progress if you decide to tackle something new!

Now that Homeschoolblogger is up, so is the Carnival of Homeschooling!

See, I wrote this post. Some of you may have read it. It was about the chaos six children can achieve in an amazingly short amount of time. I showed it to my husband. He liked it. I showed it to my mom. She liked it. I showed it to my dad. He told my brother and sister-in-law about it. Figuring family knows best, I published it.

But all this conversation also piqued the curiosity of my 12 year old. Her comment?

“Mom, where was I?”

Where were you, indeed. Why, right there in the middle of it, my dear. At the same table Tiggy was on and Bear was under.

Well that did it. Now they all had to read it. Except most of them can’t read so I read it to them.

Big mistake.

Now “I Came to Dance . . .” has climbed the charts to number one, beating out “We Are Sparks for Jesus” and even “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star“. I’m treated to a chorus every day. Every hour, it seems.

And when my daughter, my twelve year old daughter, begins spinning her bowl of half melted ice cream for some reason beknownst only to her, you know what she has the nerve to tell me?

“It’s not a mess, mom. It’s million dollar art!”

Real sense of humor, that one has.