How old are your kids?

Depression sneaks up on me. Not like I’m not always depressed, I am. And it’s not like depression itself is new in my life. I’ve ‘managed’ depression (some times better than others) since I was 16. I know what it feels like. I know the warning signs of a slide into oblivion. But depression intermingled with profound grief wrapped in a nearly impenetrable armor of PTSD… that’s new. The black heaviness creeps in little by little until I can’t process my world. The newest weirdest thing is my developing ability to hide this. Not from Will but from the rest of the world. It’s like some switch goes off and I’m on automatic pilot, my real self watching my shell self have conversations and function. Meanwhile I’m battling between the desperate desire to return to the black and the knowledge that I need to crawl toward the light… 

  

The sucky thing about becoming more ‘functional’ is days like today. Today I had my first “oh, how old are your kids?” conversation. A perfectly nice acquaintance asking perfectly normal questions… to which I have no normal answers. “Is this your first pregnancy?” (I get that one a lot. I’m taking it as a complement) “My third.” “Oh! How old are your kids?” Searing, shrieking pain that this person has no idea they are inflicting… what do I say? “Seven years and 19 months” 19 months? Damon will always be 19 months… How do you tell someone in a casual conversation who means nothing but good “my second child died ten months ago”? I don’t know…  I honestly don’t even know if I could say those words outloud.

I had my first dream about my little acrobat last night. Usually I dream about Damon… almost every night. Some nights I just get to hold him, touch him, smell him… other nights I relive the torture of his death. Last night it was little Raz (yes, that’s his name). He was unbelievably tiny and I was a bumbling fumbling idiot. How do I hold a newborn again? I almost always dream my fears… no escape for this girl. But this is the first time I’ve dreamt of him. The first time I’ve “seen” him so to speak. It feels significant somehow, like maybe my shattered heart is beginning to believe he’s real.

Life is hard, ya’ll. I miss my baby. I miss him more every day. The pain just burrows deeper and I get better at walking through it. It never lessens, never takes a break. I miss him, every second, every minute, every breath. Damon, Mommy misses you…

Until next time. 

A love letter

You learn to let it go. You learn to be gentle… to be quiet… to be interminably patient. To exercise an excruciating selflessness in the eye of a hurricane of self.  I say ‘you’… the universal ‘you’ but really I mean me. I’ve learned, rather, I’m learning.

I’m learning just how incredibly, indescribably valuable my man is to me. I’m recognizing how his touch makes life almost bearable and how with him alone I can be completely me, bereaved, devastated, shattered and somehow aching with love and gratefulness for him.

It is the everlasting duality of the grieving parent. He is the only thing that kept me anchored to this world for a long, long time. His face, his voice, his touch… only him.

How honest do I get here? How much to people really want to know?

I don’t remember much of the last nine and half months. Most of it is just choking blackness. There are flashes of memory. Memories of lying in my bed in a pool of freshly shed salt water with my arm lay across the pillow in front of me, staring. Staring at the vessels that carry my life and knowing how easily I could end it. Imagining the relief of that kind of pain… I desperately wanted to drag a blade across that paper thin skin.

People say all sorts of things about love. They throw the word around recklessly. “All you need is love,” “the greatest of these is love,” “love is a many splendid thing”…

Love, the real kind, is all about sacrifice. It’s all about choosing him because you simply couldn’t choose any other way. The tether in your chest wouldn’t allow it. Love is selfless to the point of agonizing fury. I couldn’t hurt myself.

The other day, protected in the circle of his arms, I postulated that if only everyone could experience this kind of love the world would change entirely. “Yes,” he said “until someone lost their partner.”

The love of pop music and romantic comedies misses the mark. Love is risk. Love is pain. Love is fear.

Love is worth it.   

The terror of love

I spent an absolutely, utterly, breathlessly panicked hour at the hospital two days ago. The baby stopped moving. After nearly six weeks of constant Cirque du Soliel coming to you direct from Jodie’s uterus, nothing. He just stopped moving. Day one: don’t panic, you’ve done this before… he’s fine. Day two morning: don’t panic, he’ll move any minute now… move… move now… move now… nothing. Day two afternoon: PANIC!

I had to go to the hospital… the hospital where I took my living breathing amazing Damon. I HATE hospitals. I really hate that hospital. I hate doctors (except the few I don’t). I hate scrubs and check in procedures and how damn calm they all are.

I sat in that ER. The same one and silently, thoroughly melted down. I stared at my feet. Don’t look around… too many memories. You have to stay calm, you have to stay conscious, just breathe, just breathe. They took me up in the same elevator. The exact same one. Hello, welcome to hell. Table for one?

Move, please move!!!! Nothing.

Once I got to labor and delivery the story changed. No more waiting. Maybe the sweetest most welcome face I had ever seen appeared. A friend! A friend who is a nurse. She wasted no time. I held my breath while she moved the doppler over my growing belly. Roughly two seconds later I heard him. I heard his strong little heartbeat. I sobbed. I sobbed. I sobbed. It was a good cry. I forgot those were possible. Then… he moved. Oh,yes, he did. Terd <3

He waited two more days to get back into his performance tights but this morning he’s kicking the fire out of me while he executes his acrobatics.

I had to confront the reality that as much as I have desperately tried to remain logical and calm about this little one growing inside of me. As much as I’ve tried to remind myself that at any second he can be taken, just like Damon. As much as I’ve tried so hard to not plan, not commit, not feel… I’m madly in love. Who knew that could happen again?

Until next time…

Give

They say that the horrors of life, the true horrors like removing the tube that keeps your child’s chest rising and falling, can bring out the best or the worst in people, can reveal one’s true nature, will utterly strip you bare.

I can tell you that it’s true. Deafening, decimating, tragedy, the kind whose blows never stop coming, the kind from which one emerges desperate for death strips you. I don’t think I’ve ever been one for pretenses. I’ve always been a bit to blunt for my own good but this, this is different. I’m laid bare beneath the scrutinizing gaze of my own eyes… I’ve been dragged through the muck of my own thoughts, my own mistakes, my own soul and I’m still tied to those wild horses. Who am I? I have no freaking clue…

A lot of the time I’m barely aware through the haze of loss and pain. I’m slowly emerging, back into the world. It’s jarring, frightening and so overwhelming. When did it get so bright and loud and busy? I’m so tempted to retreat. I’m fighting that particular battle daily. I want to curl back into the black hole inside me where the only sound is my sobs. My therapist likens it to the life-long hearing impaired receiving a hearing aid or implant and suddenly being assaulted by the sounds of the world. She says many such individuals turn their devices off preferring the silence. Will I turn it off?

One of the most vicious blows of grief is the realization that it isn’t going to kill you. My conscious mind didn’t even know that was my expectation but when I slowly started to confront the reality that I was still alive… that I was going to be alive for the foreseeable future the reality kicked me so hard I barely moved for days. I’m going to live through this… what a betrayal. 

  

As I grudgingly, painfully awaken I blink in the blinding light and see patient, loving faces there. There are people who haven’t given up on me. There are people who have quietly, patiently walked the path I’ve crawled ignoring the snarling and biting, believing in me. There are people who have expected nothing and given whatever I would take. Such patience is certainly not deserved. I am amazed that such love continues when I am so very unlovable, when I have less than nothing to give, when all I can do is take… reluctantly at that.

Maybe, someday I will have something to give. If I ever do I intend to follow your example.

Until next time.    

Acceptance

Acceptance… one in a long list of words and phrases that I loathe. The very idea that I would ever accept my beloved Damon’s death is just offensive. My son was ripped from me, torn suddenly and violently without warning, without reason. I will NOT accept that. When the word tumbles from the mouths of therapists and well wishers I bristle and the wolf replaces the dog. I. HATE. That. Word.

The very idea that grief could be predictable could be explained or boxed or packaged is infuriating and sickening. My life after the death of my baby is as unique as my relationship was with him. Every individual, special, only one of a kind intricacy of our love is reflected and played back in grief. No one will ever grieve like me and I will never grieve like anyone else. I’m not supposed to.

Today I cried while I pumped gas. If there is any version of ‘acceptance’ that makes any sense to me at all this is it. Today the fog surrounds me. Its heavy and its hard for me to breathe. The weight of missing Damon, of aching for him drags at my chest where the gargantuan Damon shaped hole will always remain. Always.

This is acceptance. The acceptance is the dragging myself up underneath the unbearable pain and simply bearing it. The acceptance is knowing that no one understands and no one ever will. The acceptance is knowing that every day, every moment from now until death I will ache for him, always and putting one foot in front of the other even when I have no idea why.

It isn’t  a happy ‘ending’ but there is nothing in me that believes the pain will ever lessen, the missing will ever subside. I don’t even know if I would want them to. Instead I grow accustomed to them. I compensate with other muscles and learn to function in the middle of the screaming in my head that says ‘curl up and die!’ Because there are still those beautiful amazing people whose feet trod this soil. Something worth fighting for. I accept the battle that is the rest of my life.    

McDonalds, News and iPhone keyboards

I'm writing this at McDonalds. I'm sitting in an awesomely orange chair in my bright orange hoodie watching my favorite 6 year old run up and down three levels of mesh and plastic and bright colors. How crazy is this? 1) I'm at MCDONALD'S! No sign of a panic attack in sight. There are all the familiar stabs and aches at the sight of a little one and the thought that I should be chasing a stubborn two and a half year old all over the place. Those never fade but I'm here and I'm functioning. 2) all of this is being written from a phone! Yeah I know I'm light years behind but technology still blows my mind even if it makes my typing thumb sore.

When I woke up this morning with an unmistakeably rounding belly I figured it was time to let you guys in on some news. We're expecting Isaiah and Damon's little brother. I'm not sure how much I want to write about the cacophony of emotions surrounding our unexpected addition. I feel very protective of this little person who could read my words one day. In short this little guy will be welcomed, adored and loved getting there is just going to be a lot different than usual.

Until next time