When Codolence Cards and Cookies Turn Into Collection Calls.

(This is a picture of our preppy little man a week before he turned 4 months old.)

Tomorrow will be four months since Jack went home to be with our Lord Jesus.  Four months is almost how long we had him in our arms.  Four months was how long he lived before he went into the hospital.  Four months is nothing, not enough time to be with your baby and entirely too long to be without him.  For us, four months is just the beginning.

Our pain has in no way started to subside.  If anything, it is more real and more raw with each passing week.  My heart physically hurts.  It is heavy.  It is hard to breathe.  I feel physically ill when I think back to Jack's last week in the hospital.  Just when I think we are really grieving, it hurts even more.  I asked a friend and grief specialist from a local church how I would know if we were grieving.  She told me that grieving is sleeping more than normal (check), eating more than normal (check) and not wanting to be out in public or around other babies (check). 

We just do not want to leave the house much, especially after a long hard day of work and mourning.  Last week we were too sad to go to puppy obedience class with Lucy. We decided to home school her for the week.  We have not been to our regular Thursday night Bible study all month.  We would rather eat dinner and go to sleep at 8pm...and that is what we do almost every night.

We have even skipped the last 2 sessions of the parents' grief group.  It doesn't start till 7pm and is a solid 25 minute drive from our house.  It is just too much hassle for now.

On Saturday, we went for a day long drive.  It was the perfect solution to my desire to both run away and stay isolated.  We drove all over and ended up in North Conway, NH for dinner.  We ran from the sea to the mountains and were still able to spend most of our time alone together (with the dog) in our truck.  Perfect.  Then a family came into the restaurant where we went for dinner and they had the audacity to have two adorable children with them, one looking about Jack's age.  Ugh.  Kids are everywhere.

I love kids. I want more kids.  But lately, they just remind me that they are not Jack.

So, here we are at four months without our our beloved son.  The condolence cards and coffee cakes have long since dried up.  There was that initial flood in the immediate weeks after Jack's death.  There was love literally pouring into our lives in the form of greeting cards and baked goods each and every day.  It all came at once and before we could even really process it all.  We were still too numb.  Now the lonely reality is setting in and other people's lives are carrying on, as they should.  We are still here, missing Jack constantly and instead of cards from loved ones, we get hospital bills.

These days opening envelopes from the hospital is almost a daily occurrence.  Or at least it feels that way.  First come the bills you get before insurance has been billed.  I am not even sure why they send these because we have insurance and clearly they will pay for some of this.  The first one of those arrived the day before Jack's funeral.  He had been gone less than a week and we get a bill for well over six figures.  My son died in your care and this is how much it cost us?  Why can't the case managers connect with the billing department to at least delay things like that from happening?  Give us a week or two, ok?  They should figure out a way to communicate better with their own billing department.

Pretty soon we started getting actual bills.  We had spoken with our insurance company while we were still in the hospital and our understanding was that we had met all of our deductibles with Jack's birth and that insurance would cover the rest of his care in 2012.  I even called at one point and talked to billing for the hospital.  I explained what I understood and that Jack had not come home from their hospital.  We agreed that it would take a while for insurance work it all out.  She promised me she would flag the account so that it would never be sent to collections. So when the bills kept coming, we filed them away assuming that insurance would eventually pay them.  They did not. 

The bill collection calls started.

Are you kidding me?

We paid the collection agency promptly to avoid hits to our credit scores and two weeks later another bill shows up from the hospital for the same amount.  Another call to the hospital billing yesterday, this time I am in tears with this woman.  Why?  Why does this have to be so difficult?  She apologized profusely once I explained that Jack had died at their hospital and she assured me once again that we were paid in full and would not be sent to collections.

So, this morning I see another envelope from the hospital.  I think, well, it can't be too bad, we are paid in full.  So I opened it.  And I was treated to an itemization of the services that were administered to save Jack from septic shock on September 29th: Insert emergency air: $328, Insert non tunnel cv: $383, initial pediatric CA: $619, Insert needle in bone: $188....the list goes on and immediately I am back in the PICU that night.  It all seemed like a terrible dream when it was happening.  All kinds of nurses and doctors swarming around Jack with tubes and needles and machines ready to be plugged in.  I stood just outside the door watching.  Frozen.  Not able to look away.  He had been in the hospital for three weeks at that point.  We were supposed to be on our way home in 36 hours. I am weeping while I type this.  Thinking of his physical pain and suffering is unbearable.

Every time I open one of those envelopes I am reminded of the physical nature of Jack's life and death.  It is much easier to step back, detach myself and take a spiritual approach.  Easier is a relative term in this case, I suppose. I fully believe that Heaven is a real place.  I believe Jack is there.  I believe he knows how much we love him and I believe we will be reunited with him one day and for all of eternity.  I believe all of those things but I cannot touch them or see them with my eyes or lay hands on them yet.  I suppose that is where faith comes in.

I need that faith to overcome the physical reminders of the physical reality of what happened.  The bills dragging me mentally back to the hospital.  The daily drives past Jack's cemetery reminding me that his body is less than 2 miles from me even now.  The memories of holding his puffy little hand and begging him to open his eyes or pee a little more for us.  The last time I held him in my arms.  The physical is painful.  I cannot even put a happy cherry on top today.  I am hurting.  This is so very hard, every single day. 

The only way I am making it through this is by fully admitting personal defeat and asking God to carry me each day.  I do not have the strength to do any of this on my own.  I am living that Footprints in the Sand poem that is in my grandparents bathroom.  There is only one set of footprints today because God has me in his arms. 

I am reading a book by Beth Moore "Praying God's Word" and there is a chapter on overcoming grief.  That is helping.  There is also a song by Plum, "I Need You Now (How Many Times).  The first time I heard this song was back in September when Jack was still with us.  Now when I hear it, I sing at the top of my lungs and bawl.  I heard it on the radio this morning on my way home from the grocery store.  I sobbed the rest of the way home.  That is all I can do some days. 

How many times have you heard me say, God please take this? 

How many times have you given me strength to just keep breathing?

Oh, I need you. 

God, I need you now!