Sadness and Balloons

C is in the hospital and not doing well. She is technically my "step-grandmother" and I sometimes refer to her as "my grandfather's wife," but I don't like those terms, which both sound very cold and distant for the relationship we have. She married him after my grandma died when I was 11, so I've known her for much longer than I even knew Grandma. I lived in the garage apartment of their house for four years during college. She and I don't agree on many things relating to politics and religion, but she is very sweet and one of the sunniest people you'll ever meet. One of those Texas ladies who calls everyone "honey" and "darlin'." She has been fantastic life partner for my grandpa.

For the past several weeks, they thought she had a blood disorder, but it turns out instead she has an unknown primary cancer that has metastasized to her bone marrow. They are going to start serious chemo, but her platelet count is nearly zero. She doesn't realistically have very long. I feel so awful for her.

In other bad news, my friend Pedro lost two friends, a married couple, in a horrific mountain-climbing accident last week. The mom was the childcare provider for his four-year-old, and he was gathering tips from people on how to tell his son about their deaths. I said that I wished I had a suggestion, but no one that close to Lauren died when she was that age.

Then, late Thursday night, just hours before he and his wife were telling their son, I was brushing my teeth and it hit me, out of the blue-- Lauren's brother Michael died when I was six months pregnant with him, when she was six years old. And we did something very special with her to help her deal with the loss.

When I was telling all this to Laura yesterday, this is the point in the story when Laura said that was the FIRST thing that popped into her head when I said he was looking for suggestions. Yeah, I'm not sure what is up with my brain lapse there, but I'm glad it eventually occurred to me.

So we did a balloon release for Michael at the park back then, just the three of us. It was a happy event, rather than something somber and serious. We talked about how baby Michael would see the balloons and know we were thinking about him. It was a perfect memorial activity for Lauren at that age. I would recommend it for anyone with young kids dealing with a death. A note- many states and cities have laws that prohibit releases of more than ten balloons, so be sure to keep it small and use only latex balloons, which are biodegradable, unlike Mylar.

Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon. -Winnie the Pooh