Eric hit it off instantly with Jasper and Tei.
They absolutely adore their Uncle Eric. Everyone who has known Liam and Madigan *and* Jasper and Teiley have actually been a little freaked out at their similarities. Not just in age (Jasper was 7 months older than Liam, and Madigan was about 16 months older than Tei), but in their personalities, mannerisms, likes, etc.
Both the girls were big into gymnastics, and sassy as heck, I'm told. Both Liam and Jasper were the sweet ones - thoughtful, kind, eager to please. And at the time, both boys were into martial arts.
Liam loved the movie Cars. (For Jasper, it's Planes.) To this day our family still watches it on his birthday, or on the anniversary of the kids' death.
I've always left it up to Greg how to acknowledge those days each year - or I did until a couple years ago. For the first couple of years the whole Murphy family would go to the kids' favorite restaurant to remember them: Red Robin.
Can I be real honest? I came to dread those dinners.
When gathered all together, we're a large family. So we'd go to Red Robin (or one time, Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse), order a large amount of food, and we probably looked like a normal family just enjoying each other's company.
Inevitably, the unsuspecting waiter or waitress would always show up halfway through the meal and ask, "So, what are we celebrating tonight?"
*insert real awkward silence*
Suddenly we're all quiet, choking back the tears. Finally, one of us will gather the courage to vaguely share we're celebrating a birthday.
"Oh, fun! Whose birthday is it?!" always comes the reply from the kind waitperson.
*more silence*
How do you even answer a question like that in this situation? It almost seems unfair to me to put that on the poor guy or gal who is just doing their best to earn a good tip. Just bring us fries and run away, please! Finally, again, someone - usually Pat - will reply that we're celebrating the birthday of someone no longer with us.
You can see the waiter's face fall and change color some. This is always the part where I wish the earth would open up and just swallow us all whole. I can feel that person's confusion and shock. I can feel the pain of every person around me. He or she will mumble a sincere "I'm sorry", ask if we need more fries, and then quickly make their way back to where they came from.
It seems so wrong after that to eat any fries.
But after a couple years, after Eric moved back to Colorado, we stopped gathering as a family to acknowledge the big days. For a couple more years, Greg thought he wanted to just move along and not acknowledge them. Especially not the May date. I was more than happy to accommodate no longer suffering through the Red Robin fiasco.
But approaching every March - Madigan's birthday...
...every May - their death...
...every November - Liam's birthday...
...a cloud would start to hover over my normally jovial husband.
I wish I could say that I always had these dates in mind and was ready to help my husband through them with grace and love and compassion. But in truth, it always took me a week or more to stop being frustrated with his sudden frequent bursts of anger and impatience with myself and our kiddos.
And then it always hits us.
OH.
It's almost her birthday, or his birthday, or the anniversary of the day our family changed forever.
Moving on after someone has passed away - especially in a terrible story like this one - doesn't always feel very right.
I'm certain that's a billion percent more true for Eric than it ever will be for me. And for Greg. It turns out he needed to keep acknowledging those days even when he didn't think he did. So last year we bought balloons in the kids' favorite colors and wrote messages to the kids on them, and then let them go from our front yard.
Greg thanked me for helping him put words to his pain. We're a good team like that. He takes good care of me in ways he's able, and I do the same for him.
And we still watch Cars on Liam's birthday. We still try to do something animal-related on Madigan's.
I've always struggled with my feelings about Liam and Madigan. I often hear these voices in my head that tell me I have no right to have feelings about these kiddos I never met, that I am selfish for having any kind of feelings about the whole situation when I didn't "lose" the kids the way everyone else did.
I believe these voices to be from the enemy of my soul, who is on the constant hunt for any areas of weakness where he can sneak in and try to separate me from those I love. So I talk about these feelings. I pray about these feelings. And my kind husband assures me my feelings are valid. My kind heavenly Father reminds me He is always with me and that He grieves when we do.
For me, the deaths of Liam and Madigan are *only* sad and tragic. Not that they are anything other than that for anyone else...but I never got to meet the kids. So when the family starts reminiscing about the good times with the kiddos, it only breaks my heart. When I look around and see their pictures that never age, or the sweet memorials in various places...they only hurt me. I don't have the sweet memories of them to buffer the pain of losing them. It took me about 5 years to work up the courage to watch the memorial video their Aunt Kristie made of them. And as Eric and Greg cried and giggled together, I could only silently sob.
I mean, their deaths, as cold as this seems to say, didn't change my day-to-day at all. But I believe it changed the future I was picturing. And when I think about what good friends Liam and Jasper could've been...when I close my eyes and imagine the sweet cousin sleepovers and summer visits that Teiley and Madigan could've had...well, this is where it's hard for me not to get angry. Sometimes, when I think of it - which is admittedly less and less as time goes on - I feel robbed. I feel like my kids got robbed. I know Eric was robbed. And Greg - he was an amazing uncle and so close to Liam and Madigan. I know Kristie was robbed. I know Pat and Carol were robbed.
It is so hard to make sense of a tragedy like this. And by that I mean, it doesn't make *any* kind of sense. Not to us humans at all.
The best I've been able to come up with is this was the Lord protecting Liam and Madigan from what I assume would've been a very difficult life on this earth, with a mother as sick and selfish as theirs became. I tell myself this to stay a little more sane. But it's probably arrogant of me to even consider I have a clue why the Lord allowed this.
All I really know is, the kids are in heaven and they are good now. They are celebrating and partying with Jesus. It's only hard for the rest of us. Only the rest of us suffer.
This kind of event is where my faith in God is tested and tried, and I have to just repeat to myself over and over that the Lord has plans and I don't need to understand them. I am not promised I will understand His ways, but I am promised that His ways are not mine (Isaiah 55:8).
So in my suffering, I can choose to stay angry. Or I can choose to believe that everything He allows is for our good and His glory. And I choose to believe this because His very words tell me so, and because in other situations, I've actually seen this to be true.
And later, Greg and I would see this horrible situation as preparation for another one.
Xoxo.
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