PLEASE NOTE:
If you wish to make deposits to Keeghan's Cell by Cell Fund, the address and bank have changed. Bank of American was charging us too much per month to keep the account with them, so instead I have moved the account to our bank, USAA Federal Savings Bank, into an interest-bearing savings until we can get the Fund incorporated into a 501(c)3.
To make deposits, please mail them to:
Estate of Keeghan Barry - Acct #103879781
c/o USAA Federal Savings Bank
10750 McDermott Freeway
San Antonio, TX 78288-9876
Because USAA doesn't do small business accounts, I was unable to put the fund name on the account. I'm not real happy about that. But I am happy that I can now watch the account earn interest every month rather than be charged a monthly service fee.
Thanks everyone who has made deposits! I am $700 away from being able to sponsor a dorm in Keeghan's name at Camp Fantastic this year, so please - go buy jewelry!
S.
2 February 2010
Having a crying day today . . .
I have a few other "cancer moms" that I check in with occasionally, and this morning I was reading one mom's blog and she talked about how she walks the aisles of stores looking at things that her daughter loved to shop for and just cries. It made me laugh and cry at the same time because I so know that feeling. The store that I have the hardest time with (and I know, this sounds ridiculous) is Old Navy!
What can I say? My boy liked to look good . . .
We go in that store and I see all the cool boys' hoodies and track pants and jeans . . . and I lose it. I miss buying those things for him. I miss him.
I have been keeping myself crazy busy lately. All last week it was with jewelry. My goal was to have 100 items for sale on Etsy by February 16th, the date of my surgery. By the end of the week I had 134 things for sale! So now I feel like I can take a break from that for a bit and (hopefully) sit back and let things sell.
One interesting thing that came from Etsy last week was that I had someone contact me and ask if I'd be interested in making a large quantity of cancer awareness pendants for a Relay for Life team. Of course I said yes! Not only would having them sell the pendants for their team be raising money for a good cause, but what they pay me for them will be for a good cause as well. What a great win-win, right?
This week my "keeping busy" has headed in a different direction. So far I have raised $430 for my St. Baldrick's team, but I have a long way to go. I set an initial goal for myself of raising $1,000 but it turns out our team captain set an even loftier goal for us - she wants the team to raise $1,000,000 by September when we all get together to shave our heads! That means each of us 46 moms has to raise nearly $22,000 to meet our goal! I know that it is unreal to expect to get that much in donations from friends and family, so I have been working this week on contacting local media - newspapers, television and radio stations - to try to drum up donations and/or corporate sponsorships. I've also contacted some of Keeghan's favorite bands, celebrities and authors. Even if all they do is put a link to my fundraising page on their own websites, that's something. I'll take anything I can get at this point.
If anyone else has ideas, pleaselet me know!
I've participated in a number of cancer fundraisers over the past few years and never once have I met the goal I've set for myself. This time I want to. More than I can tell you.
A few announcements to end this post:
- If you haven't signed the petition for a Brain Cancer Awareness postage stamp, I hope that you will (click HERE).
- The graphic shown below of my jewelry items for sale automatically updates when I add new items, so remember to check it out whenever you're here - you just might see something you like!
- My St. Baldrick's fundraiser page can be found HERE - show me how badly you want to see my head shaved!
S.
28 January 2010
I just got this over email today and wanted to share it right away. I'll type more of an update later, but for now won't you please consider signing a petition to create a Brain Tumor Awareness postage stamp?
Thank you everyone!
S.
GIVE ME 5!
Give me 5! Just 5 minutes of your time.
1) 5 is the number of different types of chemos Keeghan received while being treated for cancer.
2) 5 is the number of surgeries Keeghan had.
3) 5 is the number of children that will lose their battle to cancer in the next 12 hours. 12 HOURS!
4) 5 is the number of years without cancer a child needs to be before they are considered cured.
5) 5 is how much money I am asking you to donate. Send this to 5 of your friends and ask them to do the same. Read about my cause and make your donations here.
You can donate more than $5, all donations are tax deductible.
Thanks,
Shannon
24 January 2010
Another one of Shannon's Bizarro Dreams.
Mike left to fly to DC today for a conference, so he was up and out of the house by 4:00 this morning. It was after he left that I had this dream.
I was in a room somewhere (no clue where it was), and a group of kids, all about Keeghan's age, came filing into the room. Actually, it was more like they were walking single-file through the room; they weren't actually stopping in the room I was in. Suddenly, as I watched this group of kids, there was Keeghan with this big ol' grin on his face!
There aren't words to describe the instant, absolute joy I felt when I saw that smile! Just know it was a powerful thing.
I immediately held my arms out to him but he made a motion to me like he had to stay in the line and couldn't come hug me, but he touched his fingers to his lips and then held them out to me. I touched my fingers to my lips and held them out toward him as well and then just continued to grin like a fool at him.
After the whole group got into the next room Keeghan came back to me. He sat down next to me and said, "Mama, did you see the shining star?"
"What star?" I asked. He pointed to a photograph of a star in the sky that was on the wall right behind us. "Yeah Bubby, I saw the star" I said, smiling at him.
Then he reached his hand out like he was going to push my hair out of my eyes. The minute his hand touched me, I let out this sort of gasp/sob. At that same moment I woke up, letting out that same gasp/sob. And then the tears came.
I don't know anything about interpreting dreams, so I have no idea what this meant, if anything. It just felt so real, even though I have no idea where the place was or who any of the other people in the room were. Keeghan was there and I was there and we were both so happy to see each other. That part felt real.
S.
21 January 2010
Not a lot to write about today, but I wanted to post a link to my Etsy shop. I've been busy, busy, busy making pendants this week, many of which are cancer awareness ones. I'm trying to get my shop up to at least 100 items for sale before my surgery next month so that I can take a break. The problem is that people keep buying things, so then I have to make MORE! Of course, this really isn't a problem at all . . .
Anyway, feel free to take a look!
Sometimes it is impossible to stay busy enough. I know this because no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to escape the tears this week. I have been a jewelry-making fool these past few days, having made at least 30 pendants and earrings. I listen to audio books while I work, or blast music and sing along. And always Keeghan is there with me. I don't mind it though. It's not like I want him to go away, or thoughts of him to leave me. I just make sure to always have a box of Kleenex nearby.
The car still seems to be the hardest. I needed to run an errand first thing this morning. As I left the house my thoughts were only on getting to Michaels and then getting home; I was anxious to get to work on the cancer awareness pendants I was going to make when I got back. I don't know what set them off but suddenly, as I was driving on the highway, tears were streaming down my face. It's like my subconscious does everything possible to keep that one thought - that he's gone - from surfacing but then reality, as it is known to do, pushes through the haze.
Yesterday I had the fun task of having to call our bank and tell them that they no longer need to send Keeghan new debit cards. Apparently his old one expired a few months ago and they sent a new one. It's been sitting on my desk all this time, just waiting for me to call them. When it came in the mail and I saw that it was addressed to him I was a little confused because we had let USAA know that he had died not long after it happened. So I couldn't understand why something would arrived from them addressed to him. Anyway, I finally forced myself to call the bank and got some poor young man on the phone who, upon being told that my son no longer needed a bank card because he had died, became completely tongue-tied. He eventually managed to get out, "Can I place you on hold for a moment?"
It was probably a good thing that he put me on hold because as soon as I spoke the words "he died" I started to cry. Seventeen months of having those two words be the first that come to my mind every morning when I wake up and I still can't speak them out loud without crying. I can't even type them without shedding a few tears! Eventually the young man came back on the phone and stated that he was transferring me to a manager and she took over the call. She was very pleasant, extremely apologetic, and said she'd make sure we didn't receive any more mail to Keeghan.
Those are the kinds of little things that still come up occasionally that, on the surface, seem like mere annoyances but when you actually try to deal with them, are crippling. I keep thinking that it all has to end at some point and that someone has to jump out and say, "Ok Shannon (and Mike and Maxx and everyone else who misses him), you've suffered enough, here's your boy back." But that can't happen.
So instead I keep busy.
S.
11 January 2010
Starting off with another pic of Keeghan that is new to the site. I'm trying to use pics that weren't used on the old site so that people can see my baby in ways that don't always relate to cancer. He spent 10 years of his life as just Keeghan, not Keeghan The Boy With Cancer. That's who I wish to share with you now.
Eleven days into the new year already . . . seriously? The Christmas Season (or Season of Ugliness as I like to call it) took FOREVER to go by and now we're already almost half way through January.
That's so annoying.
Life is going well here I guess. Maxx is back into the swing of school, Mike is back to work, and I'm back to blogging and making jewelry. I have a goal as far as jewelry goes this year. I want to raise enough money ($1,000) to sponsor a dorm at Camp Fantastic and name it "The Celts" for Keeghan, and I want to raise enough to sponsor Mike with $1,000 for this year's Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation Ride for Kids. It seems like raising $2,000 should be pretty easy, right?
On top of all that I have joined a team of women who are planning to have our heads shaved in September to raise money for St. Baldrick's Foundation. Because 46 children are diagnosed with cancer every day, our team captain wants to get 46 women on the team to shave our heads and represent those children. As of now we only have 24 team members so if you or someone you know wants to join our team, please go to our Team Page. If you would like to sponsor me as a shavee, please go to my Participant Page. Our captain is working with St. Baldrick's to get national media coverage for our team. In fact, she's hoping to get us all on Oprah for the actual shaving! We'll see how that goes! As of right now I am the only team member in California, so I will soon be starting a serious media campaign, contacting all of the major newspapers and news channels in the state in an effort to drum up attention.
So, that pretty much sums up what's going on around here. I'm still wanting to look for a part-time job, but until I have surgery next month and am released to work, I'm just filling in the time with the things I do best - yakking on my various blogs and making jewelry. I do whatever it takes to keep myself so busy that I don't have too much time to think. Thinking is bad. Thinking brings on tears, and if I give in to those, my day is pretty much shot. Keeghan is always on my mind - the emptiness my arms feel without his hugs, the silence of the house without his laughter, the boredom I experience without his conversation, the hole in my heart that misses his life . . . all of those are never ending. I have no choice in that, so I just do what I have to do to keep moving.
Welcome to my world.
S.
I'm ending to day with Maxx's camp picture from last summer. Isn't she beautiful?
5 January 2010
I have been working for about two hours now on formatting the old guestbook entries, trying to make them a little easier to read. In doing that, I find myself reading the posts and I can't help but be . . . humbled. I've spent so long now being angry, and I know that isn't what Keeghan wants for me. But gawd, it's so hard!
Before Keeghan was ever diagnosed with cancer, Mike and Maxx and I used to say that, even though he was the youngest, he was the wisest of us all. He was certainly the most mature! In so many ways, he was the heart of the Fantastic Four. He had the biggest heart, that's for sure. He was kinder, more compassionate, and more forgiving than any of the rest of us.
We have all suffered for not having his grounding influence around. I look at what it has done to our relationships - with each other as well as with others - and it kills me, but I don't know how to fix it. So instead I get angry. Man, do I have a serious capacity for anger! It's not just anger at cancer. It's anger that I kept bottled up for years, trying to be a mature adult and "let it slide." Screw that - I'm letting it all out now! I feel anger toward people who have done absolutely nothing to me. I'm angry that they have whole families and don't know my pain. I still get angry at stupid stuff people say - "I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm sure you have lovely memories of your son." You don't even want to know what I say to those people!
But the truth is, I don't want to be this angry. I want to be happy. I just don't know how. I read all the beautiful things people said about Keeghan, and I feel shamed. So much support sent our way and all I can do is be pissed off? What is wrong with me?
I have bought so many books since Keeghan died . . . books about After Death Communications, and Life After Death, Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. I read books about people who have lost a child. I don't know what answer it is that I'm looking for . . . I guess I just want to know that he's ok. That he's not mad at me for not being able to fix things so that he could stay. Because I'm definitely mad that I couldn't fix things, so I can't understand how he could NOT be mad.
I'm a mess, eh?
I thought things would start to get easier after that first year without him went by, but it doesn't seem to be that way. It comes in waves though. I can have a few weeks of doing alright - crying occasionally, but being able to smile when I look at his picture - and then I'll have days of nothing but tears. Nothing but missing him and feeling so broken. I must be a real pain to live with!
Anyway . . . in an effort to stop rambling and crying, let me just say this. To all of you who have offered support and who may think I seem like a complete ingrate - thank you. I'm sorry that I'm not able to let you help, but I do appreciate the offer. I hope that my anger problems will not stop anyone from remembering Keeghan's bright light, or Maxx's beautiful soul. I just need to figure myself out I guess.
S.
4 January 2010
As you can see, the website has changed. This wasn't exactly by choice. As many of you who visit here often have probably noticed, the old site was . . . well, broken. The Guestbook hadn't been showing up for a while, and I was no longer able to add new updates. When I tried fixing it I found that the software I used to create that site was no longer being supported by the ISP I use. So I had to start a completely new site.
So as always, this site is a work in progress. I will be working on it quite a bit in the coming weeks I'm sure. I am having surgery in mid-February to have my thyroid removed and have already been told to expect two weeks (minimum) of doing nothing after surgery, and then another four weeks after that of minimal activity. That is when I will probably work on adding a lot of the pictures from the old site onto this one. For now, I will settle for this one picture of my beautiful boy with me in happier times.
Shannon