At some point during our hospital stay, I started to keep track of the things that were happening in the world as an outside time stamp on the duration of our stay…it turns out to be another way of looking at the time that Liam was with us. I wrote it in an amateur attempt to emulate the Harper’s Weekly Review that they do each Tuesday, so here we go:

A new country joined the world when people in southern Sudan voted to separate from the north. Citizens in five countries spread out on two continents started revolutions – Tunisia, Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt – and the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl.

Christmas and New Year’s were celebrated, as was Jamie’s 40th birthday. People remembered the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster; and President Obama said “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment” during the State Of The Union speech.

A suicide bomber attacked the Moscow airport and killed 34 people. In Arizona, a failed attempt at assassinating Representative Gabrielle Giffords did end up with six others dead – including a 9 year old girl. The US Congress first voted down the 9/11 Responders Bill, then following much public displeasure, reversed course and passed the bill. Politicians in Wisconsin tried to pass anti-union measures.

Wikipedia turned 10 and Facebook turned 7 while world food prices hit record highs. It snowed a bunch and turned bitter cold in the Denver area, and Oren and Ahna entered the world of smart phones and digital readers. A computer beat a human at Jeopardy. Wikileaks exposed thousands of classified documents, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was finally repealed. We celebrated Valentine’s Day and there were 93,052 visits to the blog.

This list is adapted from something that the hospital gave us and another parent had put together. It is our hope that you read this and it will hopefully allow you to feel more comfortable around and with us. This is a very difficult time for everyone, and we know that none of us really know what to do or say.

– We wish that Liam hadn’t died. We wish that we had him back.

– We wish that you won’t be afraid to speak Liam’s name. He lived and was very important to us. We need to hear that he was important to you also.

– If we cry and get emotional when you talk about Liam, we wish you knew that it isn’t because you have hurt us. Liam’s death is the cause of our tears. You have talked about him, and you have allowed us to share in our grief. We thank you for both.

– Being a bereaved parent isn’t contagious, so please don’t shy away from us. We need you now more than ever.

– We need diversions, so we do want to hear about you, your family, and your life. But we also want you to hear about us. We might be sad or cry, but please also let us talk about Liam.

– We know that you think and pray for us often. We also know that Liam’s death pains you, too. We wish you would let us know these things through a phone call, a card, a note, an e-mail, a text, or a real big hug.

– We wish that you won’t expect our grief to be over in six months. These first months are traumatic for us, but we hope that you understand that our grief will never be over. We will suffer the loss of Liam until the day that we die.

– We are working very hard in our recovery, but we wish you could understand that we will never fully recover. We will always miss Liam, and we will always grieve that he is dead.

– We wish that you wouldn’t expect us not to think about it or to be happy. Neither will happen for a very long time, so don’t frustrate yourself.

– We don’t want to have a pity party, but we do wish you would let us grieve. We must hurt before we can heal.

– We wish you understood how our lives have shattered. We know it is miserable for you to be around us when we’re feeling miserable. Please be as patient with us as we are with you.

– When we say we are doing okay, we wish you could understand that we don’t feel okay and that we struggle daily.

– We wish you knew that all of the grief reactions we are having are very normal. Depression, anger, hopelessness and overwhelming sadness are all to be expected. So please excuse us when we are quiet and withdrawn or irritable and cranky.

– Your advice to ‘take one day at a time’ is excellent advice. However, sometimes a day is too much and too fast for us right now. We wish that you could understand that sometimes the best way is a minute or an hour at a time.

– We hope that if you see us out and about that you say hi. We might be smiling or laughing, joking or having a good time – that’s okay to do. Please don’t think that it’s because we are not appropriately grieving.

– Please excuse us if we are rude, it is certainly not our intent. Sometimes the world around us goes by too fast, and we need to get off. When we walk away, please let us find a quiet place to spend some time alone.

– We wish you understood that grief changes people. When Liam died, a big part of us died with him. We are not the same people that we were before Liam died, and we will never be those people again.

– We wish very much that you could understand – understand our loss and our grief, our silence and our tears, our void and our pain. But we pray daily that you will never, ever understand.

Well, we have been here a lot longer than any of us have anticipated…so, it’s time for a quick revisit to the answers to see if they have changed or been rethought at all.

Where are you sleeping? On the same crappy bed, but it seems to have gotten a lot crappier over the past several weeks. We are still both staying each and every night here (also meaning that our parents are still shouldering the load of watching Ezra – and doing it beautifully, if I might add). Unfortunately, beds don’t seem to grow over time – no matter how much you wish for it. The good news is that our oft-wondered question has been answered in the affirmative: If you through-hike the Appalachian Trail, do you think you could stand months on end of sleeping on a thermarest? Ok, that has never been a question that has seriously been asked, but still the answer remains the same…and the thermarest might even be more comfortable.

How is the cafeteria food? Although the ketchup situation resolved itself with the help of friends from Ohio, the overall food situation hasn’t improved. We have broken out of here for a few meals, and we have had family bring us some stuff; but 7 weeks of eating away from home is getting really old no matter how you cut it. We have found some ways to cope by bringing stuff in (cereal, snacks, etc), but we are still often limited to the offers from the kitchen staff downstairs – I can confirm that they have a very limited vegetarian selection….and I know that both of our digestive systems have undergone a reconditioning that will hopefully make them tough enough to handle the most remote food options after this.

How’s the drive? Well, you’ll have to ask our parents that question. Due to a combination of Liam’s condition and the weather over the past two weeks, we haven’t gone home. We just don’t want to end up that far away if we are needed here…and a lot of snow on the roads have really hampered any thoughts of going somewhere other than the occasional local Target run (it isn’t the snow that we are concerned about, but the fact that we would end up 35 miles away with slow driving people in our way). Since we haven’t been able to go home, our folks have been more than accommodating in figuring out a way to get themselves and Ezra up here almost everyday – which is always a remarkable bright spot in the day.

Showers? I think that we have figured out that the earlier you go, the warmer your shower is likely to be…which is somewhat confusing to me since we are in a 24-hr hospital. It’s bizarre that they are apparently on a limited water supply that would rival most residential home systems. When we were still going home pretty often, it was nice to be able to shower there and do the things that take more time and space (good clean of hair – for Ahna…the jokes about me are too obvious, a shave, etc); but since we are showering here, we are forced to make due with what we have…and Ahna can confirm that blow drying a head full of hair in a steamroom is annoying at best; and I can confirm that trying to shave using a sink with an automatic faucet that times out and stops working after a little while will make you want to say a lot of four letter words.

Do you get sick on those elevators? Still no, but we are completely sick of the elevators. There seems to be one that breaks down fairly often, leaving the vast majority of people fighting for space on the other one….and because of this, you can count on stopping at each and every floor each and every trip up and down. We do try to take the stairs when we can (even though they are completely out of the way…very poor design), but sometimes after that cafeteria food it just isn’t that good of an idea.

How are you doing? If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you could probably come up with the appropriate answer to this question. Still mostly the same, but really stir crazy right now…and really wanting to be back home. We have found a game that we have been playing back and forth to occupy some of our time (Words With Friends…do you have the app? If not, go get it…and let me know your username…maybe we can play sometime).

Update on the nurses and the pumps….not really an update to a FAQ, but an update none-the-less. A few days ago I did a posting about the pumps in the rooms and mentioned how it seemed that the alarms would inevitably sound whenever our nurse was unavailable. Since then, it was nicely brought to my attention (insert throat-clearing noise and sneaky look to another person here) that perception doesn’t always meet up with reality….and that the majority of the time the nurses are really and willing as soon as that alarm sounds. Because we truly have the best nurses available, it’s time to smile and not insert the sarcastic humor that would normally go here.