The Stroller

Ugggghhhhhh!!!

This sucks! This hurts! I miss him so much…

Today I decided Raz and I were going out. I’m restless and stir crazy and quite frankly running hard from a wave of grief and is washing at my heels. The crash is coming and I’m so tired of missing, hurting, raging being ruled by agony. I’m running, just like I always run, because I just don’t know how to stand still and be taken by this kind of pain. I just don’t know how.

I’ve been staring at Damon’s things for nearly a year and a half. I didn’t want to use any of them for Raz. Because it hurts. Because they’re Damon’s. Because… hell I don’t know. I just don’t.

But we just don’t live in that word. We can’t afford to buy a new carseat, a new stroller, a new high chair. Raz has been in Damon’s car seat since he came home from the NICU. I made my peace with that. It wasn’t that hard. Damon hadn’t ridden in that seat in over a year. But today I screwed up my courage and grabbed the stroller. It was filthy. A year and a half of life piled on top. I went after it with my Lysol wipes, determined to hold back the Tsunami of pain welling in my chest. I found myself apologizing over and over. “I’m sorry baby. I’m so sorry.”

Then the gut punch.

I opened the stroller and there in the basket were his diapers. His diapers from our last nearly daily trip to the park to play. Him with his banana in hand and his big brother trotting along beside as I pushed. We were happy. God we were happy.

The river of tears broke through. It felt like something someone would think was poetic as they dripped on the stroller while I cleaned. It wasn’t poetic. It was hell. Just another day in the hell of being the mother of a dead child.

God this hurts…

Mommy meltdown

I’m tired y’all.

My man has been back at work for just over a month. I’m so fortunate to be married to an academic. He gets most, if not all of the summer off. So, for those first crazy months trying to adjust to being home from the NICU, adjusting to Raz’s heart monitor, and re-learning how to parent a baby my partner was home.

Well, spoiled I am no more. The hubby commutes to teach at a college a little over an hour away. There’s only so much support a man can give over text message. Sympathetic frowny faces, suggestions, and reminders of where I put my blasted keys are about it. This momma is on her own and I’m tired.

I was absolutely determined to breast feed Raz. I didn’t breast feed Damon. This is one of my biggest regrets and biggest sources of guilt. My son died of an infection. I didn’t provide him with my immunity. It’s my fault. You can point out the obvious. Thousands of children grow to be completely healthy on formula. Mine didn’t. This is the first time I’ve ever “said” that out loud.

But my rainbow baby had his own agenda. When he was born six weeks premature and unable to oxygenate his blood he was far too weak to breastfeed. So, I started pumping. It sucked (no pun intended). He received my milk through a feeding tube, what little I was able to produce. Once he was able to eat I tried to breast feed then pumped at every feeding. He refused to breastfeed but I kept trying. The nurses kept telling me that once we got home and I could rest I would produce more milk. I was dubious. I was barely keeping up with him and he wasn’t eating much.

Lo and behold we came home and my production dramatically improved, thus began my love hate relationship with my pump.

For those few glorious months while the hubs was home it wasn’t so bad (except for the actual pumping part). I could hand my little one off to his daddy and go pump. It wasn’t fun but it worked and I was successfully providing my child with the immunity I had failed to give Damon.

As you can probably imagine once we finally got to hold Raz we weren’t so interested in putting him down, like ever. Therefore our little rainbow learned to sleep in our arms, pretty much exclusively. Fast forward to now with a mommy still trying to provide breast milk and a baby who refuses to be put down. There’s lots of crying in my world.

Add a very bright, very inquisitive, very busy seven year old with a life of his own and you have the perfect storm of mommy melt down.

I’ve said it before but I need to hear it again so here goes.

Losing Damon does make me more aware of what really matters. There is so much that just isn’t important and there are a precious few things that so very very are. My kids, my husband, my family top the list. BUT this doesn’t mean I’m some sort of Zen momma. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to go hide in my room so I can go five minutes without someone needing something from me. It doesn’t mean parenting ceases to be SO FREAKING HARD.

I just needed the reminder. I’m gonna go cry now.

Until next time. 

Consumed

I spent a long time not crying, barely feeling, just moving. Then I cried. I cried and cried and cried. I’ve been leaking for days now. Leaking and raging. Raging and biting and snarling at everything in biting range.

Last night as another volley of poisonous thoughts rammed through my consciousness I realized something. I’m angry. I’m burning alive with it.

I’m resentful angry. I’m jealous angry. I’m pour pitiful me angry. I’m sick with anger.

And I have every right to be.

I have every right to be angry. If any time in my life I have ever had the right to be angry it is now. Life sucks. It’s not fair. I’m so tired of watching everyone else raise their children, celebrate birthdays, smile, and have entire days, or hell weeks, untouched by sorrow.

I’m tired of being one huge walking bruise. I’m tired of being hurt so easily. I’m tired of aching to be included then running scared from people. I’m angry and even scarier, I’m bitter.

I’m bitter.

Ugh… which means I have another blasted choice to make. I have every right to be angry. I want to rage and mope and scream and cuss. But I don’t want to be consumed. I want to heal. I want to find a balance. I want to reclaim beauty and peace and life. I don’t get to have both. F-word.

I’m not saying anger isn’t ok, or natural, or even healthy. It is. I’m saying this particular all consuming, this is who I am anger has to be rejected or it will become my god. Quite frankly I don’t know if I can do it.

I have every right to be angry. That I know. What I don’t know is if I have a right to be anything else. Do I have the right to be happy? Am I even capable of such a thing? If I turn from the burning anger am I somehow saying this is ok? Am I saying my child being ripped from me is ok with me if I smile or learn to celebrate life again?

It’s easy for someone who’s never done it to say no. It feels like a betrayal. People would say things like “What would Damon want?” You have no idea what Damon would want. Damon wanted to be held and eat popcorn and poop in the bathtub. This isn’t on him. This is on me.

Yet another realization with an unanswered question.  And the pain never ends…

Until next time.