How is Trey?

Many of you have asked, “How is Trey?” I will give you the recap of what we have done to help Trey cope with the loss of his sister.

My philosophy on parenting is that my responsibility is not to shelter my kids from the world, but to assist them in coping with it. Madi passed away around 3:00 AM. Before the ambulance came we woke Trey up and told him that Madi had died. We asked him if he would like to say goodbye. He asked, “How can I say goodbye if she is dead?” I explained that her spirit has left her body and lives on, so she can hear us. We took him in to see her body. We explained that her body would no longer be with us on Earth and that her spirit has gone to heaven. We all stood by the bed and told her we loved her and goodbye. Trey asked to go back to bed.

The next morning Trey got up and got ready for school. School seemed like the best place for him. He needed to have closure with Madi, but did not need to be consumed with the details all day long. He needed the normalcy of a day at school. Before he left for school and before the ambulance took Madi’s body away, we all went in to say one last I love you and goodbye to Madi. I walked Trey in to his class to notify his teacher of what had happened and asked her to watch him and let me know if he needed anything. He had a great day at school.

A few days later we had the viewing. I had gone earlier and Trey came with someone else. Without my knowledge someone sent Trey over to see his sister in the casket. Someone let me know that Trey was standing at the casket alone, almost frozen. I bee-lined it over to him to help him through a difficult experience. I asked him if he thought Madi would approve of the job I did getting her body ready. “I curled her hair and put on a tiara. I painted her fingernails purple. Can you see the bling I added to her thumb nails? You know she would love that. I made sure that she had a ring, and a bracelet, and a necklace, and earrings, and she is wearing her favorite dress.” He nodded that Madi would’ve approved. “I think she’s beautiful,” I said. Trey responded, “So do I.” I asked if he was done. He said yes, and we walked away.

At the end of the night I explained to Trey, who had seen Madi three times since her death, that we would no longer see her after tonight. As a family we said a prayer around her casket and said our last goodbyes. Trey asked if he could be the one to close the casket. I agreed. As we left the room, Trey broke down in tears. I sat down to comfort him. I said things like, Madi is much happier now that she isn’t so sick anymore, and her spirit lives on in heaven even though we can’t see her. But the thing that finally brought him peace was when I said, “Even though we can’t see her body anymore, we can go home and look at lots of pictures and videos to remember Madi.” He dried his eyes and said let’s go.

I think remembering Madi is the thing that has helped him cope the most. We do lots of things to help Madi live on in our memories. We keep a running list of things that remind us of Madi. Whenever anyone thinks of something we add it to the list. Trey will come up with things we don’t even know about. “Oh Mom, add ‘Capture’ to the list.” “What’s that?” I ask. “It’s a game Madi and I used to play.”

We did a good job of staying very busy through the holidays, but January seemed to be hard for everyone. One night Jay and Trey were playing xbox. Jay was headed out for a guys’ night out, so as he left, he told Trey to play for five more minutes and then go to bed. Please tell me I’m not the only one who sees the ridiculousness of the situation. Five-year-olds have no concept of time. He could have at least said two more guys or levels or whatever. On top of it, Jay doesn’t bother to tell me. I thought Jay put Trey to bed and then left. Imagine my surprise when a fully-clothed Trey comes into my room at 10:30 to tell me something. My eyes got huge. “What are you doing?” Trey explained to me what had transpired and then asked, “Am I in trouble?” I responded,“No, but your dad is big time.” I assured him he was not in trouble but that he needed to go straight to bed. He left and a few minutes later I hear wailing upstairs. The kind of crying where your sure someone lost a finger. I jump out of bed and ask what’s wrong. Through tears, a very loud, “I miss Madi.”

Part of me knows that he is just exhausted, but part of me knows we need to deal with the emotions however they get expressed. So I let him crawl into bed with me and asked what happened to make him think of her. He said that whenever he or Madi couldn’t sleep, they would sneak into each others bed. I said, “Oh I remember that! Do you remember how mad I used to get? I used to yell and say everyone get back in your own beds. Remember how she used to come in your room when you were trying to sleep and turn on your light and start playing with your toys? You used to say, ‘Moooom, Madi’s in my room again.’ You guys were such stinkers.” Then I gave him tickle torture, which resolves most issues in our house. I let him fall asleep with me that night.

The next morning he was exhausted. He cried for Madi right into his cereal. Jay and I discussed letting him stay home from school. I felt like letting him stay home from school might teach him that saying you miss Madi would get you special privileges. Then it would be hard to tell which future emotions were genuine. I told Trey he needed to go to school even though he was tired and sad. “We all miss Madi but we still have to go to work and school. But when you get home we can look at pictures of Madi and take a nap.”

We haven’t had any breakdowns since this one. Trey and I work on Madi related issues about once a week. We have some workbooks and literature that we use as our guide. We write in a journal, answer questions about cancer, draw pictures about different emotions we are having, and talk about Madi. When Trey can’t sleep at night, we invite him to go into Madi’s room and pick one of her favorite stuffed animals off her bed to sleep with. A few small gifts from friends have gone a long way to comfort both Madi and Trey.

As February approached so did Madi’s birthday. We anticipated it being a hard day so we did what we could to make it a special, happy day of celebrating Madi. Trey had begged to go back to Universal’s Islands of Adventure ever since we went with the Make-a-Wish foundation. We decided to go for her birthday. We had so much fun. We decided that we should all get henna tattoos in honor of her birthday. Trey got a chain around his arm, I got a tiara, and Jay got a purple cancer ribbon. When we got back to our resort, there were flowers waiting in our room from our friends in Atlanta. We got a few other birthday presents from friends as well. It amazes me that every time I come upon something that I think is going to be too much to bear, there are wonderful people there to carry me through. I love you all so much.

Another comfort to our family was a camp we attended in March. Camp Stars is an organization that provides a weekend family camp for those who have lost loved ones. On the first night we had to introduce ourselves and tell about the loved one we had lost. Trey begged to be the one to talk for our family. He got the mic, introduced himself and said, “My sister, Madi, died of a brain tumor. She was beautiful and we love her.” It was very sweet. There were tons of activities like, fishing, paddle boats, rock climbing, archery, arts and crafts, etc. We split up into age groups and were able to talk with others about our loss. We brought tons of pictures of Trey and Madi together and for one of the crafts we made a scrapbook of the two of them. We had a candle lighting ceremony at the end with a slide show and we got to say a few words about Madi. It was a very special weekend for our family. We are thankful for the donations from the family (we were able to meet them at the end during the ceremony) that made it all possible.

In April, Trey got spoiled by his grandparents in New York. Ever since we got back, he constantly says, “I heart NY.” At the end of that wonderful spring break came Easter which we spent at my brother’s house. Easter was hard for me but I don’t think Trey noticed. It should be an easy time because remembering the resurrection is what gives us hope and brings the peace of knowing we will see Madi again. I think it was just very emotional because never in my life has Easter meant so much to me.

It is amazing how much having kids teaches you. You think that you are going to teach them how to get through this life and end up learning so much from them. Madi has already taught me more in the last year than I could have taught her in a lifetime. By helping Trey through this process, I am learning even more. Trey has been on a kick of asking crazy “would you rather A or B”-type questions. He turned to me and asked, “Would you rather see Jesus or Madi?” I responded, “Trey, I would rather see Jesus, because then I would know that I would see Madi.”

Everybody deals with trials. They are all different, but we all have them. Life is not about avoiding trials; it’s about what you do after they happen to you. When you think about past events, you make a choice. What will your events motivate you to do? I hope to teach Trey to choose to be motivated to do good. That is how we allow Madi to continually bless our lives. I’m optimistic after the ride to school this morning. Trey said, “I want to write a book, so that after I die people will remember me, just like Dr. Seuss.” That’s my boy!