Kade had colic beginning at about six weeks old until he was nearly four months old. You could set your watch by it. He started screaming at 6:00 pm and stopped at 9:00 pm. Every night. It scared Billy Don and I so badly when it started, we thought something must be terribly wrong with him. Bill would take our older son, Kendall to Dairy Queen each evening and they would eat inside then go to the park or on long rides, maybe go visit the Grandparents. It was summer and we lived in an old farm house from the 1800’s that the farmer Bill worked for furnished as part of his pay. It was a neat old house with lots of floor to ceiling windows in every room. It had tall ceilings and real hardwood floors. And no air conditioning. I lost every bit of my pregnancy weight in two months. Sweating and walking. Sometimes I cried too. It was exhausting.

Kade was a trying child. He was curious as a cat and was forever getting into something or creating messes or scaring us to death.

He emptied an entire can of comet all over the bathroom one day while I was changing my sheets. It took me more than an hour to clean it all up. When I finished, I took all of the towels, washcloths and rugs and shook them out outside the back door then put them in the wash. When I got back in the bathroom, he had done the exact same thing with a whole container of Johnson and Johnson’s powder. I sat down in the middle of a fog of talcum and cried. Then got up and cleaned it again.

He drove Nana’s car into the side of her house when he was three. It pushed the wall of her bedroom in several feet. Kendall was in the backseat and never even looked up from his book. I cried hysterically at the thought of what might have happened and didn’t.

He hid in the dog house when he was about four and when I went running to the phone to call the police after several minutes of panicked searching, he came out and said, “Here I am Momma!” I paddled his butt and bawled the whole time I did it.

He got stuck in the clothes dryer because he thought it would be funny to hide from me and shut the door behind him. I found him by following his hysterical cries that time. This time I laughed instead of cried.

He started talking about ‘bad guys’ when he was three. He was afraid to go anywhere. We were cautious about what the kids watched and listened to. We still have no idea why Kade was always scared.

Kade had a terrible temper. He got mad at Kendall when they were four and ten. Kade chucked a rock at Kendall because he was provoked in some way and Kendall fell off his bike and broke his arm.

He took a stick and ran it down both sides of both of our neighbor’s cars and left nice, deep scars the length of the cars.

The strange thing was, he was always startled he was in trouble. Most of the time he couldn’t figure out why anyone was mad at him. He wasn’t malicious or pernicious. He was curious and inquisitive. He just wanted to ‘see what would happen’ in almost every scenario I’ve described.

He was also the sweetest baby you’d ever have the privilege of holding. He hugged on everyone he met. He said, “I love you Momma” or Sis, or Kendall or Daddy or Kyler. He wanted to nuzzle in beside you and just be held.

And he wanted to please. That lasted his lifetime.

It wasn’t until Kade was eight that I really noticed the different way he handled things, felt things, thought about things. That’s when the fear he never escaped escalated into something that was a hindrance to him. That’s when the OCD really started. I don’t know if it started before then, that’s just when I remember noticing small things that, at the time, I didn’t understand at all. I had no idea what was happening.

That’s when the anger began to rear its head.

That’s when I realized that Kade wasn’t just ‘ornery’, something else was going on.

Unfortunately, these things weren’t even on most people’s radar at that time. No one spoke about this stuff. I don’t know if others talked about childhood depression, OCD, anger issues. At school he just got into trouble and at home he got more of the same.

I had four children, a bad marriage, a business to help run. I had no idea what I was doing. And I was doing my best. I know that in every fiber of my soul. I tried so hard at everything. But I was lost and floundering. The chaos between my husband and I created a space that left my children feeling so insecure. I just couldn’t see the forest. I certainly couldn’t see Kade. Not the way I wish I would have.

Kade always just had a hard time.

The one thing I think made Kade’s life nearly impossible was that he couldn’t feel love. He always felt unworthy and left out and unloved. If you know our family, if you know me and what kind of mother I tried to be, you’d think I was just pulling that out of my behind. The thing is, what I know now, it wasn’t my parenting, it was Kade’s brokenness. I didn’t know he was broken and it wasn’t addressed at all. Not for years.

We created the perfect storm for Kade’s ending. He was reeling and we had no idea.

When I finally figured out something was seriously wrong, he was a teen and it was like trying to shut the door on the barn after the horse was out.

Next week I’m going to talk about what school was like for Kade. He struggled so much.

I’m hoping that these steps I’m writing about will help me understand and come to terms about Kade’s death. I’m praying it will help me put the puzzle pieces together just a little bit. Or God willing, a lot.

Kade had mental health issues from a very early age and I had no idea. Hindsight is 20/20. That’s the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever had to dwell on. What I didn’t know then that I know now. It leaves me wretched and fractured. Please pray for me.

I’m also praying these will help someone else. Trigger something about someone you love because you recognize them in what I write about my sweet son.

He was, just my sweet son. Being here without him is an anguish that’s unexplainable.

Thank you for sharing in this with me. I hope you continue to walk through Kade’s story with me. Please share these. This is part of the good from the bad for me. Trying to help someone else.