Today an Angel

This was written for Keelys one year angel date and what we faced one year ago on June 30 th 2011. Since thispast June 30th life has been heavy hence the late journal entry. Like it or not....life keeps going even when you want to stop........I feel like I'm in a nightmare that I can't wake up from. After one entire year, I still feel like I'm walking around in a fog, that at any time I will wake up from this dream that just does not seem real! I feel heavy and weighed down, like I'm walking around with this huge invisible backpack on that has so many bricks in it. Rather than it getting lighter each day it feels like another brick is added. I feel so exhausted each and everyday whether I'm sleeping 3, 8, or 12 hours and no matter what I never feel rested. This heaviness weighs on me and my family and it makes for one tired grieving mama. One would think that after a years time this burden I carry gets lighter each day. When it's your child I don't know how people understand it to work that way? I feel like I will just always be sad and that this is my life, I don't see any way possible how it can ever go away.......I figure it has all or a lot to do with what Keely's mommy and daddy experienced on June 30th, I know this is why I don't sleep at night....
On June 30th 2011 at 5:00 am Keelys oxygen was increased yet again. Her topsy turvy night was turning into quite the gut wrenching nervous night. The resident on ordered an X-ray because her night was so unsettling and she was irritable. Minutes later the X-rays showed her entire left lung was collapsed yet again. Her oxygen was still declining off and on and we noticed it dropping lower faster. Nothing a suction wasn't fixing though. What happened next is what we weren't prepared for. I said to Scott "looks like a family meeting tomorrow and Bunns can't have anymore bipap breaks". No bipap breaks means no more looking at Keelys beautiful happy face without a machine covering half of it. Just her big beautiful eyes peering from both sides of it. This was the " grey area" all the doctors had been wanting us to decide for months. It was something I never could decide and all the while I would always just say " I feel like she will tell us and we will cross that bridge when we get there". Scott and i both decided this. In the back of my mind I knew that she was already on bipap for 20 hours a day, she was only having 4 one hour breaks with no machine on her face assisting her breathing. I knew this next step with no breaks didn't necessarily mean it was the end of her battle but I knew it was drawing near. I will stress that Keely never liked this machine. When she seen us reach for it she would start to fuss, when we put it on her she would cry....she was getting more and more used to it having it on for 20 hours a day but I felt like she just settled for the sake of her happiness. There was no way I could just take her machine away because she didn't like it, taking her machine away and with o assistance in breathing would make her suffer. It wasn't an option. She was still happy, smiling and funny with it on. Once her RT friend Ainsley took a few head gears home to sew so it wrapped her face better we had our happy baby back wearing her bipap machine. Just freeing the pressure on her mouth and cheeks did a world of wonders. This was about 2 weeks before she passed.
I no sooner talked about the family meeting we had to have and at 5:30am Keely went into cardiac arrest. I stood there and watched my precious little girl stop breathing with her nurse on my arm telling me she's going to pass away now. I froze and went into shock, I stood there and could not believe my eyes and what I was hearing. I wasn't ready for it, I was never ready for it! After all the Do Not Resuscitate papers were signed, I changed my mind. Is wasn't how it was supposed to happen. Even though I knew a year and a half prior we would one day lose her it was never something I could prepare myself for, no mother can! I yelled, I cried, I begged and I made them bring her back. I watched her heartbeat drop to zero and I jumped in her bed and begged her not to leave mommy and begged her to stay. An hour later she was stable. As we stood at her bedside the doctor told us it was time, there was no turning back this time and her little body had had enough. We knew this too. Keelys crashes has become closer and closer with each time being a longer duration for her to recover. As hard as it was to decide I knew I couldn't take the chance of her having another episode like this as it was just to hard on her little body and at this point our baby girl was starting to suffer. We stood with her doctor and decided it was time. That day we would say our final goodbyes to our little girl who had been so brave and strong for so long. We had to say goodbye to our little girl who had made us realize what life is about and say goodbye to one of the most precious gifts anyone could be given. As our family members come in by two's my head is spinning around and it feels like a bad bad nightmare that I can't wake up from. We tell our kids it's time for your sister to go now as they each lay beside her in bed. She still looked at them with her big eyes and made noises as she always did when she would see them. As I write this and think back it feels like yesterday, the pain is no less. When it came time to take off her oxygen and machines we held our baby girl in our room for 4 hours, just me and her daddy. We listened to music, she did some of her little quirks for us and she was still smiling. Our blinds were closed, our door was covered and there was peacefulness all around. We felt like we were in our own little world or like there was a part of heaven right inside our very own room. She was still happy, she didn't know she was dying and as hard as it was I tried to remain happy for her last few hours of life, I didn't want her to remember me crying and sad as she was passing. Of course I cried of course I was absolutely broken but for those moments she was in my arms. As we held her I had to tell her it was okay to go to sleep and that it was time to go because I had begged her so many times to stay and to never leave mommy. I had to let her know it was okay to go because all those times I had asked her to stay I think she did it for me. This time I knew she was ready and I didn't want to see my little girl suffer, it was getting to much. It was time for her to go to sleep. Keely passed away at 3:20pm that day and just as I held her in my arms the day she was born, I held her in my arms the day she died. I felt my heart break into pieces and since then I have and never will be the same. I was there for her first breath and her last....no parents should ever have to experience this in their lifetime. I will never forget this day and the moments that happened in this day for as long as I live. I left a lot out but also shared a lot. I have a lifetime of pain. It's took me a year to write and share this and it hasn't been easy. I hope anyone reading this will find great fullness in the things that they have in their life. I hope if it helps at least one grieving parent in their journey to relate to their own pain I've done my job by sharing. I know what it feels like to feel like that alien on another planet when no one understands your life and your pain.

As we left the hospital that day we all got into the vehicle without everyone's favorite little girl. As we pulled out of the hospital parking lot not even passed the hospital yet a bright monarch butterfly flitted up and down across our windshield for about what seemed like forever back and forth to scott then to my side then it flew off. We watched it in silence not saying a word. I couldn't get that out of my head, the more and more I pictured it so vividly I knew it was our little girl. She was freed from her helpless cocoon and became instantly a beautiful butterfly. With wings so beautiful for the eye to see as they flitted daintily and free. It was our little girl showing off and saying "look at me mommy and daddy I'm free". She was seeing all of the things her little tired body wouldn't allow her to see. We still see her today in passing or knocking on our windows. Our little free butterfly!

"As I sit in heaven and watch you everyday, I try and let you know with signs I never went away. I hear you when your laughing and I watch you as you sleep, I even place my arms around you to calm you as you weep. I see you wish the days away, begging to have me home, so I try to send you signs to let you know your not alone. Don't feel guilty that you have life, that was denied to me. Heaven is truly beautiful, just you wait and see. So live your life, laugh again, enjoy yourself, be free. Then I know with every breath you take you'll be taking on for me - author unknown"

Thankyou to everyone who has took the time to share in our journey.

Miss you everyday Keely....love you forever....Mama xoxo