Always - 4 months

Today Jamie and I celebrate 4 years married. Today Jamie and I celebrate the birth of our son 4 months ago. Wow, what a day huh? His due date is Sunday. This week is just full of that heavy ambiance. Not always bad, not always good, but somehow always hanging in between. I hate limbo. Hate it, and this week contains so much limbo it's just about ironic. A lot is riding on this week. Our hearts, our mental state (which may be gone Monday, fair warning), our lives. So much can change in the next few days. Some of me yearns for it, some is scared to death. There could be closure, or destruction. Hope, or another failure. The only way to know is by moving forward. Forward. Forward.

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Here is another post from the babyloss board I frequent. I find so much understanding in these fellow parents of heaven children.

When do you miss him the most? Lu asked me last night.

"Alone in the car," I replied.

When I can't listen to the radio for another second and I'm tired of all the music I have and I'm just driving along quietly and my mind starts to turn, I feel him not-there so powerfully it makes me choke.

In the first months and years after he died driving alone in the car was when I cried the most.  A new story about pregnancy, or that perfectly placed Modest Mouse tune, it would annihilate me and the car was the perfect capsule to scream as loud as I needed.

It is also why I will never, ever put up one of those freaking Baby On Board signs.  I wasn't planning on running you off the road, but since you're rubbing it in my face maybe I should!?  Strange that they don't make a dead baby sticker to add to those insanely annoying sticker families, either.  Also, get out of the fast lane and learn how to drive!  My typical rant makes Lu laugh.

What about you? I asked her, serious again.

"When we're around other kids, friend's kids, that would have been the same age as him.  I always miss him, but that's when it's the worst."

Yeah, I agreed.  Absolutely.

Three year old boys just becoming little guys with their dads running around the yard or walking down the street as alive and independent as only three year olds can be.  I remember pieces of what it was like to be that age, but I will have no memories of Silas at this age.  He vanishes to shadow every time I glance toward him.

In the evening, alone, I feel more alone for missing him, for never knowing him.  The constructs and inventions to heal a day are insufficient to make sense of why we can't share the world with him.

His death added a bone in my body lengthwise through my heart, sliced my liver in two, blew my innocent vision to smithereens, twisted my ankles unwalkable, trapped my breath in poisoned lungs.  I'm not the same person I was before Silas and that kinda sucks 'cause I kinda liked who I was.

More importantly, I was very much looking forward to who Silas was going to transform me into. (insert bitter laughter)

I am transformed absolutely but not at all how I wanted.

To be so wrong about how I thought things were going to go is profoundly undermining. What else will I get wrong?  What other traumas await down the road?  How can I trust myself to make any choices, to have any expectations about the future when his absence is devastating proof of how utterly foolish I could be?

Even worse is Silas's transformation from life to death.  From potential to memory with barely a stop in between.  From ours here to love and cherish and hold, to dust we cannot hug.

A thin, young, sliver of tree quivers in the evening breeze, under the stars of his name and they remind me silently of the never-ending-quiet blasting from his vanished lungs.

When do we miss him the most?  

Always we reply in unison.  Always.

-chris www.glowinthewoods.com

What To Say

I know in a situation like ours, most, if not all people will not know what to say to us, to me, and that is 100% understandable, and something I will not hold against anyone. But here's a few things I've learned can harm or help...just have been floating around my head and I hope can help others know a little better how to act around parents like us. It's extremely honest, and not aimed at anyone, but very bare and raw. I hope that no one takes offense, but this is all truth to me.

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Don't even slightly pretend to know what we're going through, or liken it to anything that's happened in your life. It's not even close, it's not even imaginable for you, and it is so far from understandable that doing so just belittles our loss.

Don't avoid his name, and think it's easier not to hear. I crave it, I ache to hear it from other's lips, because there is nothing more normal than acknowledging my child. Just say it: Matthew.

Do listen with open ears, open hearts and open minds. Many things that may come out of my mouth might sounds harsh, or wrong, or even mean, but I am the one who has to experience this, and it is how I feel. If you want to help me, support me, and see me get through this, just listen and don't judge. For truthfully, you have no right to judge my place in life, and will hopefully never have to understand the foundation shaking feelings we go through.

Don't tell me "It's going to be OK", because it won't. It really, really won't. Things may change, and new joys may come into my life, but no amount of happiness will ever erase the loss of my son. I will learn to cope, I will learn to live again, but I will have to do so without him, and that will never be "OK", just different.

Do not ever, ever, ever tell me it was "for the best" or anything similar, because quite honestly, my ears hear "your son died for a good reason", and if I don't end up punching you right then and there, consider yourself lucky. (Also this includes any reference to "God doesn't give us more than we can handle", again, punch worthy)

Do pray for me. I need it. Especially because most times I cannot bring myself to pray these days. I'm hurt, I'm wounded, and I hold a lot of bitterness towards God. I need to work through it, and I will, but it will take a while. Please, my Christian friends, do not act like "giving it all to God" will make it all go away. Not even close. God gave us grief for a reason. It's a reflection of the importance of the life lost. I feel it so deep, because the loss of Matthew is so deep. No one knows better than Him the loss of a child, he lost his son too.


Do love me. Show your care for me. I can guarantee I will not always respond fervently, or even at all, but it helps to know you care. Silence is much worse than hurtful words or actions.


Do acknowledge Matthew. He is a person, and he deserves it. Talk about him as if things were a normal situation. I had a baby. I'm a mom. In my heart, if a person blatantly will not acknowledge my son, they have no place in my life.

Do speak to me honestly and act consistent. Never pretend that you have been there for me if you haven't. If months later you are just now reaching out to me, and have been silent before, do not expect much from me. If you could not be there for me in my most dire time of need, then let us not pretend to be friends anymore.
(This is a big one. There are supposed "friends" and even family, who were not there in the darkest hour. It became clear, very quickly, that I have quite a few "fair weather" friends. I cannot any longer let things like that take up room in my life.)

Don't push me through the grief process. Don't expect me to act "normal" for a very long time. I love you, but I love my son and my husband much more, and right now, it's about us. Be there for me, put the offer of connection out there for me, but place no expectations on me.

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I hope no one takes offense to anything, or picks something and says "Oh crap I said that". Again, I hold nothing against anyone. If I was on the opposite side of this, I would have NO clue what to say or do and would probably say something wrong and hurtful. It's just a hope that others can understand a little more how to handle such terrible situations without being detrimental to the one's who've experienced the loss.

39 weeks

He was due in 7 days. He might have already been here by now.

I live my days in two worlds: what is, and what would have been. Split between the life I have to live, by no choice of mine, and the life I wish could be. Every moment has two views, every object, every emotion, every occurrence.

I could have been washing this towel for his first bath, instead of for me. The dishwasher might have been needing to be run for his bottles, instead of our dishes. I might have needed a quiet house for my sleeping son, instead of the work I am doing.

I live my two lives, hating one, and mourning the other.

I miss you so much little boy. My world is shattered without you, and will never be the same again.

As I sit and wonder what your birth day should have been, and what I would be doing right now in either preparation for you or caring for you, I am still thankful for your time here. Regardless of how surrounded in tears, grief, and turmoil that gratefulness is, it will always be there, and hopefully one day will be all that is left.

Disconnected

Feeling less than a part of the world lately. I'm going through the motions of the day to day normalcy, and I'm even starting to see people more, but I feel like I've reverted back to before I became pregnant with Matthew. Maybe it's because life had changed so drastically with him coming into my life, and now, with him gone, it feels like I've gone back in time a year. I feel like I've taken a huge step backward. The world doesn't view me as a mother, and in turn does not treat me as one. My heart is the heart of a mother, but my life is not.  I don't know what to do, what to feel, how to act lately. I have fallen back into acting the way I did before, even though I am not that person anymore, almost like an old habit.

I'm beginning to think I don't know how to cope with the person I am now. It's all such strange territory, none of which I know how to deal with or adapt too. When I see other moms talking about their day to day activities and responsibilities, all I can think is, that's what I need to be doing. That's the place I need to be, should be.

The empty shell of the present only echoes the diffused life of what has been lost. My entire existence is wandering, looking for the the road of before, looking for that place it belongs.

Less Time to Think

Working 2 jobs now, and I am so grateful for the opportunity. It fills my days with 8-12 hours of mindless business, and helps keep me from sinking into depression again. Weekends are no longer dreaded (the ones Jamie has to work were unimaginably hard), because I always have something to do.

I do have to remind myself that I am doing it for our own house, and for the things yet to come, but sometimes I miss being able to sit down for more than 10 minutes and just think about life without crying/sobbing/anger/bitterness (and the myriad of other emotions that occupy my brain when allowed too).

Between the extra work, 4 days of gym a week, and the constant tornado of animal hair that seems to follow me, the quiet moments of solitude are few and far between. Never thought I'd hate them and be glad they're gone.

Then, every once in a while, I allow myself to just sit and feel it all. Feel the rush of the tangled emotions and craziness that is always present up there, but that I keep walled up for fear of losing control. In public, online, alone, at work, driving....wherever I may be, that tangled, intricate, all encompassing mass is there to swallow me if I let it.

My unbidden passenger, the unwanted, yet clung-to roommate, the thing that will never be understood, never diminished, always tasted, and always changing.

Dream

For the first time since Matthew died, I dreamed last night. I dreamed all the time when I was pregnant, and quite frequently before getting pregnant, but the last few months have been dreamless.

I've actually ached to dream, in hopes that my "life that should have been" with Matthew would bleed through the edges of this world into my nights. I have wished that I could live just a few of those moments unconsciously. But my REM moments have been empty of glimpses of my son.

Last night I dreamed about another son, and oddly enough, I actually remember almost all of the details.

I dreamt of his birth, and the moments that followed. I dreamt that we named him Jayce Matthew. I even dreamt of the midwife cutting the cord, and handing him to me. The weight of his 6 lbs still lingers in my arms. The image of my brand new son, Matthew's little brother, lying purple and pink tinged, covered in that coat of fine, white hair on the scale, and screaming his brand new lungs off is still fresh in my mind.

I remember him wrapped in a receiving blanket, and showing him to his daddy, pointing out his chubby cheeks, and how much he looked like me, but with his dad's legs and arms. I even remember posting his picture and birth details on Facebook!

So, even though I didn't dream about Matthew, and the life he was to have, I did dream about the promise and hope of another son, which is something I have needed. We've been robbed of a future with our first born, but I hope, with all my heart, another little boy will come into my life some day.

It's A Little Thing...

I decided, randomly and out of the blue today, that I am going to start wearing 2 memorial bracelets around.

Here is why:

When we started having to plan Matthew's service, we were trying to think of little things we could do that would stay forever as a daily reminder of him. When my water broke, and it became clear that Matthew was coming within hours, and would be gone just as quickly, the hospital gave Jamie and all of the visitors (family and friends who were there while I was in labor) a purple bracelet that said "Forever in our hearts". I still wear Jamie's. We decided to get similar bracelets personalized to pass out at the service, and give to anyone who might like to have one.

The aim behind it is simple. I want my sons name to cross the minds of as many people as possible. I want him known, I want his tiny legacy to last as long as it can, because to me and his father, there can be no person we think about more than our little boy, and we'd like that to carry over to those around us.

We've adopted the habit of following up our frequent  "I love you"s with "but I love Matthew more". It's a small thing we do to remind each other of how much mutual we love we have for that little boy, and how much meaning and intimacy his life has brought to our relationship. We are no longer merely husband and wife, but have been replaced by the relationship of "the parents to our son". The two relationships exist side by side, but the latter brings SO much more meaning to anything we could ever be with just the two of us.

This is just a small example of how we feel the desire to "change" the world, in the wake of losing our son. One of the things that hurts the most, and is the hardest thing to understand, is why the world does not stop when your child is gone. Life, should not be without that little face in it. These things are our way of making sure that his little life did affect the world, even if it didn't make it stop turning.

So, I will, from now on, have 2 of Matthew's bracelets on at any given time. One for me, and one for whoever might like to have one.

I do not expect people to wear them all the time, or even at all, but I will rejoice in the fact that perhaps one or two more people might come to know the name of my son.

So if you see me, and would like to have one of Matthew's bracelets, just let me know, I've got plenty.

July

It was just a few months ago that I "couldn't wait for July". Now, I wish it was a few months ago instead of today. July was supposed to bring the child I have ached for, fought for, sacrificed for.

But instead, in 20 days it is our 4 year wedding anniversary, in 20 days my son would have been 4 months old, in 21 days I will have been without my precious boy for 4 months, in 25 days Matthew was due to be born.

July holds so much, yet so little.

I should be 37 weeks pregnant, and Matthew should be full term, ready to enter the world.

So many "should be's". So many "would have been's". So much lost, so much gained too soon.

So much gone until the day I meet my maker, and my life is ended on this Earth. So much to look forward too after my time here is ended.

So much emptiness where my little boy "should be".