Run Kenley Run Playlist #8: Reason to Believe

The week before her birthday is a morbid countdown for me.   Even though I have tried really hard this year to make February more positive, I still can't escape this.   I can't stop myself from remembering - from reliving.   

I was swollen and my blood pressure was high.  I had contractions for days, but I didn't know it.   She was twisting herself into oblivion, but I didn't know it.  Work threw me a baby shower and I felt her move for what would be the last time.   I spent the day before her birthday wrapping teal and green ribbon around the base of her crib, but she was already gone.  

This week brings me back to that hard, raw pain.   This week forces me to remember the noise of my own screams and the silence of where hers should have been.   I thought maybe running this half marathon would somehow distract me enough where it wouldn't hurt so much, but I was wrong.  The last week in February will always be my own personal Hell Week.  I suppose the only difference this year is I have some sort of personal success to look forward to. The anticipation of that achievement has to carry me through. 

This week is when I need my strength the most.  It's the week where I am holding all the ropes I have with all of my might to keep myself from shattering. I can feel myself breaking apart inside.  I can feel the holes where she is missing opening up even wider, the walls of my heart weakening around them.  As I tumble through this week, I am constantly on the verge of tears, perched precariously upon the edge of a spiral into darkness.   Granted, I get better at holding myself together as each year passes,  but the point remains I still have to.  That will not change.  

The desperation in this song reiterates how I feel in trying to power through this week - how I will feel every final week of February until my life runs out of them.     

Just one more breath, I beg you please
Just one more step, my knees are weak
My heart is sturdy but it needs you to survive
My heart is sturdy but it needs you

Breathe, don't you want to breathe
I know that you are strong enough to handle what I need
My capillaries scream, there's nothing left to feed on
My body needs a reason to cross that line
Will you carry me there one more time?

Run Kenley Run Playlist #7: Titanium

The only way to survive a lifetime of grief is to eventually become stronger than it.  When you first begin putting yourself back together after the initial shock wave has demolished you, your pieces are weak.   They easily re-shatter.  You feel like you are in a constant state of breaking apart and reassembly - like a repeating loop of a car detonation - exploding out and coming back together over and over and over.  

Eventually, after what seems like a million lifetimes of breaking apart and piecing yourself back together, you manage to stay adhered for longer and longer.  You still shatter every now and then.  You still break apart, but you become defiant about it.   You look grief in it's ugly, little face and you tell it you won't let it beat you.  No matter how many times it tries to tear you down, you will always put yourself back together.  You will always get back up.  You will always keep fighting.  

I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium

For me, this song is a big F You to grief.   Shoot at me.  Break me down.  Slice me open.  Do your worst.   I'm not going to let you win.   I have allowed myself to be beaten for far too long and I am done.  I know I will always hurt.  I will always miss my Ninja fiercely.   But I am not going to give in to that hopelessness that keeps me broken.   I will continue to put myself back together.  I will continue to walk through the fire.  Day after day after day.

Being weak has made me strong.   I am titanium.  

  

You shout it out,
But I can't hear a word you say
I'm talking loud, not saying much
I'm criticized but all your bullets ricochet
Shoot me down, but I get up

I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium

Cut me down
But it's you who'll have further to fall
Ghost town and haunted love
Raise your voice, sticks and stones may break my bones
I'm talking loud not saying much

I'm bulletproof, nothing to lose
Fire away, fire away
Ricochet, you take your aim
Fire away, fire away
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
I am titanium
I am titanium

Stone-heart, machine gun
Firing at the ones who run
Stone heart loves bulletproof glass

You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium
You shoot me down but I won't fall
I am titanium

Run Kenley Run Playlist #6 I Lived

When our children are born, we automatically want the best for them from day one.  We want them to live a life of greatness.  We want them to accomplish their dreams and to have as few regrets as possible.  We actually want this long before they are born.  Before they are born, we have already pictured teaching them how to ride a bike, watching them teeter, then totter, then soar down the road.  Before they are born, we have already imagined soccer games and dance recitals, first dates, school dances, and college graduations.   We have already pictured a full and happy life for our child.  And when they die before they've lived, it all crashes down in the cruelest of ways.   It becomes an alternate timeline that we carry on our backs - a timeline we assume responsibility for.    

Instead of teaching our child to ride a bike, we may instead train for a triathlon.  Instead of taking them to dance class, we may teach ourselves how to salsa.   Almost every Loss Mom I know has done something for the specific purpose of honoring the life their child didn't get to live.  From taking on a huge endeavor of starting a non-profit organization to something as simple as walking on the beach once a week.   We ALL do something to bring the life they should have had into the life we lead.  

I already have so many regrets.  I regret not paying attention to her movements.  I regret not going to the doctor sooner.  I regret not giving her the only bath she'd ever have.   I refuse to live a life that will create more regret.   

Kenley taught me to take chances.  She taught me that consequence is better than regret and that life is here to live - not to watch.   

Hope that you spend your days, but they all add up
And when that sun goes down, hope you raise your cup
Oh, I wish that I could witness all your joy and all your pain
But until my moment comes, I'll say...

I, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second that this world could give
I saw so many places, the things that I did
With every broken bone, I swear I lived

My Ninja has taught me to live my life to the fullest - to take those leaps of faith that are often so terrifying, yet often also have the greatest reward.   Four years ago, I would never have even thought about running a mile, let alone 13.1, and in sixteen days, I will cross the finish line of the Disney Princess Half Marathon.    

Every word I have written, every speech I have delivered, every step I have run, is all for her.   I live the life she will not live.  She is my legacy - and I am hers.