Five years ago I lost my mom, one of the hardest things I've ever had to go through in my life. The next year was a nightmare. It was my senior year in high school, got rid of a verbally abusive boyfriend, could have been killed on a run away horse wagon, my sister had my neice 8 weeks early, we almost lost both of them, my family fell apart. In all the confusion and heartbreak I met Jason and little did I know that my life would have been changed forever. I also didn't know that I'd come to love his neices and nephews as my own and feel honored that they choose to call me Aunt Shelby.
Here's a bit of background
Jason and I were together a month when I met his sister Deanna and her three kids,Jonathan,Kelly and Robert, miss Zola was still baking for a few more weeks. On this first meeting Jonathan asked me "are you going to be my new aunt?" I giggled nervously and had no idea what to tell him. I was 17, I had no idea what my future held for me and definitely wasn't thinking about getting married or even being in a long term relationship. Jason told him "we'll see" and Jonathan went back to playing. These kids grew on me everytime I saw them. They trusted me, they loved me and gosh darn-it I loved them which scared me to no end. I had been through alot and to fall in love with these innocent children and then break up with Jason and never see them again frightened me, to lose another thing that I loved I just didn't know if I'd be able to handle it. The fear didn't last long as I grew closer to Jason, I grew closer to his family and deep down inside knew that neither of them were going anywhere anytime soon.
Fast forward almost five years to today and what I have watched these kids go through this summer is heartbreaking. Watching their parents go through a very long, drawn out divorce, moving to a whole new neighborhood away from every friend they had ever known through all of that I feel they adjusted very well. But the first of August their lives were changed forever. It was their weekend with their father, he stayed the weekend at their house and everything seemed to be going just fine but as usual he was drinking and passed out. Deanna picked them up early that afternoon. They were dropped off to us at about nine that night. At 930 we get a call that she found him seizing and the ambulance was on its way. That was all we knew until monday morning.
Monday morning we found out he was in acoma and it was because of drugs that he had been found seizing. All I could think about was the kids and how his selfish decision has changed the lives of his children forever. How could you do that to them? What goes through you're mind as you ingest that poison? It made me angry but I had to stay calm and act as if I had no idea what was going on. The kids had stayed the night with us and knew something was up but I couldn't tell them exactly what. It broke my heart to lie to them but it was for the best since I didn't have many details. Deanna came and got them that morning and they were told that the doctors weren't sure if he'd ever wake up.
Tuesday went on as a normal day. Deanna went to work and the kids came over to me as usual, it was a fairly calm day until almost 6 pm when Jonathan was told on facebook that his father was gone. Gone meaning braindead which we found out way later. Our calm day turned into confusion, anger, and a ton of drama but in the end everything was worked out. The decision was made to take him off of life support thursday after his dad had said his good byes.
Wednesday night we got a text telling us to get to the hospital because his organs were shutting down. We loaded the car and off we went. We got there at about 9. Everyone seemed fine when we got there and as everything calmed down the kids got emotional. The little ones didn't know exactly what was going on and didn't understand that he was losing his fight. The older two kind of knew. It was so hard to sit there and watch this. To see them hurting and the question in their eyes broke my heart into a million pieces. We were there at the hospital until about 330 am when I couldn't take it anymore and needed to go home and sleep. Emory was sleeping restlessly and we needed to be at home. Luckily if anything happened we live about 5 minutes from the hospital.
Thursday we dropped Emory with Alisa and headed to the hospital to be there for Deanna and the kids when they pulled his breathing tube. I should mention that I refused to see him with the breathing tube in and at first I was refusing to see him altogether. I sat with the kids while Deanna, Jason and everyone else went into the room to be in there when the tube was pulled and to clean him up before the kids were allowed back there. It was so hard to sit there with them and watch them go from giggling to bawling. Kelly was so sad and all I could do was hold her and fight back tears as my heart broke even more for them. I didn't know what to say or what not to say so I remained quiet. After about an hour the kids were allowed back in the room and as much as I didn't want to go back and see him I went to comfort the kids. With me back there, there were enough laps to hold each one as they sobbed, asked questions, and occasionally got up to hug their father for the last time. He was still breathing on his own and nobody knew when he'd give up his fight it could have been hours or days. We sat back there for maybe an hour and then Martha and I took the kids down to get a snack. We came back up and ate in the waiting room. After we were done we went back in the room and then just about everyone went down to get some dinner. Then we left to relieve Alisa and I needed to laundry to get ready for my Arizona trip.
Later that night we went to take Deanna Jonathan's pills and new clothes for everyone as well as stuff for them to shower. While they were showering Deanna came out and told us that the kids were not allowed to back any more. His breathing was getting worse. We left the hospital at about 1130 that night with all the kids.
Friday morning Mike called Jason and told him that Jon had passed at 7 that morning. His fight was over and I was relieved to know that we didn't have to guess and the kids weren't guessing anymore about when it would happen.
And now almost a month later we are dealing with kids that are still confused, sad and angry. It changes day to day which is expected. I remember when I lost my mom how upset I was. I was angry she was taken from me, I was sad. It was rough time in my life and I was older then they are. Zola is four and everyday this week she has told me more and more of what she remembers from that weekend. It's awful. The details she tells us are things no four year old should ever know or have to experience. I'm glad she's getting it out but it hurts to hear the things that she says. It hurts that we live in the SAME complex and had no idea this shit was going on that weekend. It hurts me that these babies had to experience all of it.
Why didn't anybody know? Why would you do this with your kids in the house? Why did he think it was okay? WHY?! We'll never know why.
I didn't know the level of love I had for these four kids until last month when my heart broke for them and I had to be strong for them. I love these kids as much as I love my own neices and nephews. I'm honored to be their "aunt" Shelby.
