Welcome Christmas. 

You snuck up behind that Turkey, why yes you did, all dancy and prancy with your Elf-on-the-Shelf and Christmas cheer. And now you are here, all lit and glittery. You are here. 

And what to do with you. And where to spend my energy with you. 

Yesterday, I volunteered at Children’s Hospital with the Bereavement Program. They organize an evening for families in their first year of loss. Families are asked to make luminaries in memory of their child.  

I came early. As I laid out chocolate cupcakes with Santa faces, I talked to the Children’s Pastor, who I like quite a lot. 

“Now Bob, I’m not going to cry am I?” 

He stole a sugar cookie. “No, no crying.” 

“You PROMISE?” 

“Yes,…..No, no promises. Wow, those are good cookies.” 

Families filtered in and were given brown paper bags to decorate. Some came alone, some came with children, some came with friends. 

Some came stoically, some came with tears in their eyes. 

And they decorated those bags. 

The tables were covered with different types of stickers. Our job was to help them find the stickers they needed to decorate the bags. 

Easy task right? 

Oh no. 

When a grieving mama is looking for a red ball sticker and she can’t find a red ball sticker, you will move hell and earth to find that red ball sticker. 

And it can’t be a croquet ball, or a balloon that looks like a ball. It needs to be a ball. 

And I GOT it . I couldn’t help with anything…..I couldn’t make anything better but gosh darn it!  I could find a red ball. 

A Grandfather came up looking for a karate sticker. And I searched frantically for a damn karate sticker. 

A mama came up with tears in her eyes looking for ladybugs. “How old was she?” I asked.

“Two and a half”

I went outside, gazed at the Christmas lights and cried. It was a short cry…..no ugly cry but enough to dab a tear or too. 

I found Bob and gave him a nudge in the ribs. “You said I wouldn’t cry.” 

“It’s a lot of sad energy,” Bob said. “First Christmases are so hard.” 

“You SAID I wouldn’t cry.”  

“Here, have a cookie.” 

“Doesn’t help.” 

“Apple Cider?” 

I stayed later and spoke with some of the families. 

I believe in an afterlife and I think someone, something, some energy was there to greet Samantha as she journeyed on. 

And I think in this journey through grief here in this world, someone needs to greet you and tell you it will be okay….well not okay….it sucks my stinky big toe but at least, at least, I will find a karate sticker for you.

Or maybe not….I’m making this up as I go.  

My last post was September 29th. 

Resilient: Capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture

Psychological resilience is an individuals tendency to cope with stress and adversity. This coping may result in the individual “bouncing back” to a previous state …

I like the first definition the best. Many times I feel like I may rupture 🙂 And I am quite sure I have developed a permanent deformation. 

The last couple weeks I have been privy to a lot of resilient human beings. Nothing makes me more proud of us, as a people, as human beings than the ability to carry on, make the best of things and live our lives with the goal of being happy, especially in the face of adversity. 

We have had these horrible floods. And I have been amazed at the outpouring of generosity in our area AND the resiliency of those who have been affected….. I work with several people who will be displaced for the next couple months, and they come into work, and they attend meetings and if you ask, they will talk about the flood and that they went to the Red Cross for a toothbrush and some new undies and they are crashing on a friends floor....but hey, it’s all good……and when did you need that project? 

And I want to fall at their feet and say Work doesn’t matter! Let me make you a tater tot hot dish! 

But they are gluten and dairy free and tater tot hot dishes don’t convert well to gluten free. So I don’t say what I should say, except that they are resilient superheros. 

Speaking of resilient Superheros, last week was Mitochondrial Awareness Week and we had a support group on Saturday. I love seeing the parents, the kiddos and the hope they have in the face of an ever-changing, craptastic diagnosis. 

That does not stop these families. 

We made thank you cards for our Courage Classic Donors

This is Robert on his bike…..he does an amazing job on this bike! 

Robert likes his bike so much he let Cal try it out. I think Cal liked it too! 

You made have heard the news in Northern Colorado…..

It has been raining up here for five days.

Our mountain town of Lyons has been evacuated. Towns up the Big Thompson River are gone, 177 people are unaccounted for, people are now displaced, potentially for weeks. They say this has been the largest air rescue since Katrina.

And..it.. is…still….raining…..

Hubs and I are fine except for the fact that in situations like these I worry excessively. And then I listen to KBCO and songs like Sting’s ‘Fragile’ come on. Have you listened to the words? Good lord….

On and On the rain will fall
Like tears from a star, like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are, how fragile we are

I hate sad songs that have relevance to the situation…and I get all weepy.


And it is still raining. For a while this week our little town of Loveland was split in two. The Big Thompson overflowed cutting off North/South access throughout town. Interstate 25 closed because the Big Ol’ T also decided to flow onto the road and into Weld county- cutting off access into Denver and Wyoming. South of us is Longmont, divided by two full flooding rivers that are wrecking havoc and causing evacuations.

West? West is worst. West is where all of the airlifts are taking place.

I have never been in this situation before. So did what every trapped, weepy, worried, can’t-do-anything-about-it person does.

I went to the grocery store.

Unbeknownst to me, this was the only accessible grocery store in South Loveland. Everything else was North of the Big T and cut off to us. Clearly poor planning. 

This is what I found: 

There is a Florence and the Machines song that I rock out to quite often. 

The lyrics go like this: 

Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air
I know I can count on you
Sometimes I feel like saying “Lord I just don’t care”
But you’ve got the love I need To see me through

Sometimes it seems that the going is just too rough
And things go wrong no matter what I do
Now and then it seems that life is just too much
But you’ve got the love I need to see me through

This is my mantra lately. 

‘Cuz I gotta tell ya, 
Ya’ll got the love. 

Thursday was our Miracles for Mito Silent Auction and in case ya’ll are wondering what we have been doing this past year, here’s a breakdown: 

Financial help for two handicap vans
One Stair lift
One Scooter
Respite Care
Travel expenses to see a Specialist out of State
Meals delivered to families in the hospital
Supplement coverage
Sponsorship into the National Mitochondrial Database
Purchase of the Oxygraph 2K Diagnostic Machineis 

This was only possible because of all of you and your generosity. 

I was quite weepy the week before- as I get when I think of everything our tribe has given….

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It’s our favorite Sunday ritual.

Hubs and I sleep in. 

We have breakfast and a pot of coffee and watch ‘Meet the Press’. Sometimes we argue with the TV, the commentators, or each other while we eat our egg sandwiches and prep for the week. 

Today they talked about Syria. 

And I cried. My God, those pictures kill me. They physically cause me pain…the uncovered feet… 

This is not a political post. I don’t care where you sit on this issue politically. 

Where do you sit as a person? At what point in time do we say, as a breathing, thinking, moral person, this is horrific, unacceptable and awfully sad?

1,400+ people were gassed. It is gravest chemical attack in 25 years. Do you know how long that was? I was 17.

And I have no solution. Boots on ground? Military strike? I have no idea. 

But I know I am sad. 

And I think it is okay for us, as a society, to be sad, to voice our sadness, and not have any solution at all. 

We don’t always have the answers. 

This, by the way is why I’m not president, or a member of the congress, so I can just be sad without a solution. Because I could totally be president.

Totally. 

And it’s not to say I was sad the whole day. I shed tears over my coffee and went onto have a lovely day. 

Perhaps that is what living with a grief you cannot solve does to you. Everyday I am sad about a situation I cannot solve. I am sad about my daughter….not all day everyday….but at sometime during the day, there is a pang I cannot heal. 

We cannot solve what happened on August 21st. It is out of our control. But we can react, as compassionate people and voice that this is wrong. Even if we only talk to friends and family, we recognize that the inhumanities of the world make us hurt. They hurt. 

And I think that’s okay. Maybe I, .as a free-thinking person can say this is wrong, this is so wrong it hurts my soul. And maybe we talk about it…. that’s all I know what to do….and maybe that’s okay

I used to write for a couple Mom Blogs before we lost Samantha. 

After we lost Samantha and after I missed a couple blog posting dates, I explained to my favorite editor that I could no longer write for Mommy Blogs. 

“I don’t have anything to contribute,” I said, “no one wants to come to a Mommy blog for support and read how worse it could be.” 

“Well maybe they SHOULD read it,” my always-optimistic editor said. 

“I don’t want to subject a new mom to our experience unnecessarily, I don’t want to scare her.” 

And so my lovely editor let me go and I thanked her.

Because it IS scary. Our story is frightening. And the last thing a new mom needs to hear is, “well it could be worse….and let me tell you how bad it could be.  

In the realm of what is helpful to hear and what is not, our story hits the top ten unhelpful. 

This week was hard, unexpectedly hard. I gear myself up for the biggies; Samantha’s birthday, Christmas, Jack’s birthday, even Halloween. 

I forgot one……Back to School……

Back to School, you relentless un-holiday, you poster of cute first and second graders in their back-to-school outfits. 

Crap. 

What comes along with Back to School is Back to School stories around work. People are late because it’s back to school. Kiddos are meeting teachers, new classes, new friends, LOTS of anxiety and stories around a usually business centered office. 

I listened a lot and I turned my ipod on a lot. 

Here is what bereaved parents go through……

We LOVE your kids. We love you. And we want to hear stories about your kids.  But we cannot listen without comparing, without feeling a tad jealous, grieving and without secretly wishing that this conversation be over.

But we can’t. This week we live in a Back to School World and it was all back to School. 

At one point a co-worker said, “I’m sorry, this is hard isn’t it?” 

And I could have put her in my back pocket and carried her around  for recognizing how hard it was to hear about back-to-school drop off that morning. 

So I put on my Big Girl Panties and wrangled through the rest of the week. 

Until I made a HUGE mistake. 

Although I no longer write for Mommy Blogs, I still subscribe to them. On Friday, I found myself opening a blog called “Motherhood, The Big Fat F*ck You.” 

And I read it….I don’t always have the best judgement. 

And I got mad….as I knew I would reading a post called Motherhood, The Big Fat F*ck You. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. It was about feeling unappreciated as a mom and stressed out about Back to School. 

And I wondered, How do stressed out parents of children, who need to vent and Bereaved Parents, who wish nothing more than to be totally, completely stressed out about their kiddos……How do they get along?

My genius answer? 

I have no clue. 

Perhaps it is a sense of perspective….perhaps from both sides. A couple months ago, a new mom cried at lunch because her baby had been sick; she was sleep deprived and  absolutely spent. 

We met later while picking through Jelly Bellys in the break room. “I’m sorry this has been hard.” I said. 

And she started to cry. “I am such an asshole,” she said. “This will pass, it’s nothing like what you have been through and I feel like such an asshole.” 

I gave her a hug, told her she was not an asshole (my goal is really NOT to make people feel like a-holes) and we picked  out the green apple Jelly Belly’s together. 

But that moment for both of us, that moment of recognition, was so very important. 

I’m not sure how it works. I know my friends….my Moms and not Moms who have stuck by me through this crazy grievous process, who have asked the hard questions and stuck around for the hard answers….are worth their weight in gold. 

And Mommy Blogs? I am banned from Mommy Blogs, perhaps for every one’s best interest. 

And I think that might be okay. 

Adios July…..

Hasta la Vista!

Au Revoir!

Tschuss!

Sayonara!  

July is my emotionally schizophrenic month. Somehow the emotional landmarks of my life all seem to deposit themselves in July. All I can do is hold on, navigate through the bad and absorb the good…absorb it like Vicks Vapor Rub 

Here is my July calendar: 

July 1: We gave birth to, and lost Jack
July 18th: Samantha’s birthday
July 20th-22nd: The Courage Classic
July 25th: The day we lost Samantha

I also have two Non-Profit Conferences in July on the East Coast….just to make things a little fun. 

And it’s hard to separate the good from the bad. The money we have raised from the Courage Classic is amazing. But it has been born from the fact that Samantha had a terminal disease. 

And so we hold on and ride the July ride…..

On July 16th, I started crying to a song called Florida, Georgia Line, otherwise known as Cruise. Here are some of the lyrics: 

“She was sippin’ on a Southern and singin’ Marshall Tucker
We were falling in love in the sweet heart of summer
She hopped right up into the cab of my truck and said,
Fire it up, let’s go get this thing stuck.” 

WHAT is emotional about those lyrics???!!!!

Nothing. But it brought me to tears, blinding tears on the way to work. The lyrics aren’t even GOOD! 

This is emotional roulette we play in July. 

And in between honoring my babies;  friends and family donate, come up to Copper, ride 156 miles in the Colorado Rockies and raise $82,000 in the memory of Samantha. 

$82,000 so far!!!!

MMMYYYYY Goodness!!!! More tears. 

Here I am on the ride

It is a three day tribute to Love. Love for my daughter, support and love for our family…as my dad says in the middle of July, “Thank God for the Courage Classic!” 

Indeed. 

Here is a video….little preview of the amazing weekend we had: 
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10201195395600090

I cannot thank our supporters, riders, donors enough. You keep my heart beating in July. 

tum-tum, tum-tum, tum-tum…..hear that? That’s my heart, beating in July.

As July ended, I found myself in DC at a conference. The opening speaker is one of my favorite authors, Cheryl Strayed who wrote Wild. 

Wild is about her path, hiking on the Pacific Coast Trail after her mother died. It is her journey through Grief. Oprah picked it up and started her book club again, starting with Wild.

Here we are bonding- I told her briefly of our story and how her journey spoke to me. 

Today our first born, Jack Jorgenson Schichtel would have been eight. 

Eight! 

Crazy. 

But today is not my hardest day.

Yesterday was my hardest day. It was yesterday, eight years ago that we learned our baby, that we came into the hospital to give birth to, had no heartbeat but still somehow needed to get out of my belly. 

Yesterday, eight years ago, was quite awful.

But yesterday…yesterday…..Hubby and I got up at 4:45 in the morning and packed up our bikes to ride Idaho Springs to Arapaho Basin. At 5:30 we were in the truck, bikes in the back and coffee cups in hand. As we watched the sun rise, I patted his leg. 

“Eight years ago today really sucked,” I said. 

“Yeah,” he said. “No matter how hard today is. It will never be as hard as that day.” 

Nope, I thought, It never will. I could climb Loveland Pass 1,000 times.

But I felt so grateful, that in some crazy way, we were riding out our grief together. 

So we rode. And every once in a while I would think “Wow, at this point, eight years ago, we knew Jack had died.” or “Wow, eight years ago, I was checked into the hospital.” 

But most times I thought “Wow, today this bike group is kicking my butt.”  

Or “Wow, Loveland Pass at this point of view looks really high.” 

Or, “My thighs really stinkin’ hurt.” 

Because I’ve I said before, thighs yell louder than grief when they are really, really angry.

And so we rode, Hubs and I, up to Loveland Pass: 

Today, we woke up and kissed each other. 

“Happy Jack’s Birthday.” 

Tonight we celebrated….

I have a ring that is a frog (Jack’s animal) he came along with us and enjoyed some creme’ brulee. 

And we talked about little signs that our kiddos are still around….two doves in the garden, a callous on my hand that looks like a heart, a crazy fledgling robin that won’t leave our yard……I KNOW, I’m a freak…but this is what I need to hear the night of Jack’s eighth birthday.

Grief is hard. Sometimes you need to climb a mountain and eat some creme’ brulee with a frog. 

The best part is to celebrate in some crazy way, with Hubs. For that, I am forever grateful. 

Happy Birthday Dear Boy.