Gut punch

You never know when they will come, when you will get dropped smack onto the pavement at full speed, just when you thought that maybe you were doing ok. I found these this morning. 

It's painful in every possible way. I look at myself and I remember. I remember how he felt in my arms. I remember what happy felt like.

Damon, mommy loves you. Every day, always, I love you.

Until next time...

A quick way to make me crazy(er)

I talked to god today…

Sort of, maybe, kind of.

I’ve had a good day, a good weekend in fact. The rainbow baby is finally starting to sleep, not through the night or anything crazy like that but he’s sleeping. There is no describing the bliss of sleeping 6 straight hours when you haven’t gone more than three in over a year. So, there’s that.

The hubby and I also spent the entire weekend just being together. My man can soothe me in ways no one and nothing else can. We piddle farted in town, went out to eat, played with the baby, watched movies, and just generally enjoyed each other. My batteries have been recharged. It feels good.

This afternoon as I headed out of town to pick the eldest up from his biological dad a heavy weight settled in my chest. Back in the days of obnoxiously insistent faith I would have perceived this to be god telling me something. It meant I needed to spend time with him, that there was something that needed sorting, something I needed to give over, or just that it had been too long since I had been still with him.

I don’t have the energy for that tightness in my chest. There is so much hurt, anger, confusion swirling inside of me I absolutely cannot carry more. I just can’t. It’s frightening how fragile I am, how easily blown over by the slightest breath of wind, how easily wounded by a stray word.

For a while now when I feel this tugging and my instinct is to turn to this invisible being I once called father I’ve furiously refused. Um… no you asshole. If you are in fact real, you do not get to talk with me. I hate you. GO AWAY.

Followed by… Jodie, you’re talking to yourself. That feeling you got when you believed you turned to God was the placebo effect. Think… of course it worked. It worked because you believed it would. People heal themselves with the placebo effect for god’s sake! (no pun intended)

But today I was not up for the mental ping-pong match. I had felt pretty darn good for two whole days. There was the ever-present ache, the missing, and the daily tears but for the first time in so long I was happy.

I’m not letting you ruin this! I defiantly thought.

“Fine I’ll talk to you!” I blurted at the grey pavement as it disappeared beneath the car. And the tears started.

No, I don’t believe in god again. I don’t know that I ever decided I didn’t but whatever position I had taken hasn’t changed.

Probably isn’t real… if he is he’s an ass… if he is modern Christianity still turns my stomach… if he is he has a lot of explaining to do.

But, this is where I am. I’ve tried so hard to be honest. To document this painful journey and today I talked to god… or myself… or the highway. I’m not sure which.

Until next time…

An odd place for comfort

Oh god... I'm an athiest

My baby died two years ago, suddenly, completely unexpectedly at 19 months old. 

I laid on the floor of his PICU room, on my face, and begged, begged God.

I had what anyone would have characterized as a strong relationship with God. I believed with all of my heart that we had a relationship. I spent large blocks of time intimately communing with him daily. I thought I knew the bible well. I spent a great deal of time studying it. I trusted him...

Then Damon died.

I clung fiercely to my faith. I was sure... absolutely positive that at some point it would start to make some sort of sense. I studied harder, enrolled in graduate theology courses... and the wheels started to come off.

The thing is I had stopped seeing the scriptures through rose colored glasses. I started to see all of the things that didn't make sense. I started to see a god I wanted nothing to do with. I started to see holes and cracks... 

Then I started to mourn, not my son, I had been mourning him long and deep and hard since the day he passed. I had been laying beneith the waves of grief and PTSD, suffering through flash backs and panic attacks, crying until my vision went blurry for months. No, I started to mourn my faith. I didn't realize it at the time. I desperately tried to rationalize, to cling, but now I have started to realize that I really don't believe in god anymore. 

I want to. I wish I did but I don't. 

What do I do with that? I think there is still a part of me hoping that something will click. That some light will come on. That I will come back from this but I doubt that less and less.

The loss of my son and then my faith is horrifying, sickening, and terrifying. What now?

Jealousy

It's really not fair that good things increase the intensity of grief from its constant undercurrent of pain to the deafening roar of an impending tsunami. Not fair. Story of my life since March 27th 2012. NOT FAIR!!

I'm so damn sick of not fair. I'm sick of always being sad, even when I'm happy. Most of all I just miss my son. Constantly, always... the missing.

I've read some books written by people who have lost children that are incredibly optimistic, that talk about happiness and fulfillment. I find myself wondering if its real. Is it possible or are these writings one of our many coping mechanisms... one more way to try to survive... fake it till you make it?

There are have been a rash of beautiful, amazing, precious babies entering our lives of late. I hesitate to publicly admit that this has been so hard for me. It has, so so so hard. New life, new babies, new hope... it's hard. It's hard for reasons I can't fully identify.

Will and I have been at odds about the possibility of more children. He has every conceivable good reason not to do it again. I mean seriously, Damon died. There is nothing worse, nothing ever ever worse. As bad as you can possibly imagine it to be, it's worse, by a million. The rainbow baby nearly died... As if those two reasons aren't enough there's the whole I basically can't eat for nine months because I'm so sick thing, the I pass out on a regular basis thing, and the we're dirt poor PhD students thing. Bottom line, the hubby is right.

But I can't let it go. The idea that I will never feel a child move inside me again. That there will never again be that moment of birth, the possibility of a full healthy life. I just can't let it go.

I wonder if maybe I just really really want to get it "right." If I want to have a healthy baby who grows to a healthy adult... or if I will just always want one more because every fiber of my being aches from the gargantuan Damon shaped hole.

There is so much jealousy weaved through my grief. Is this true of all grief? I don't know. I'm so jealous. Why? Why do you get to tuck your babies into bed every night? Why do you get to watch your child grow up? Why do you get to have a normal, happy, ordinary life? Why??

It's a weird jealousy because the agony I feel for any parent whose child dies is tremendous. I don't want you to lose... I just want mine back.

I don't understand. I hurt. I'm tired. How am I supposed to live like this for the rest of my life?

Until next time....

honest

When I woke this morning my eyes were swollen almost completely shut and my heart was screaming in agony. It was my hope that last nights purge would lift some of the immediacy of the pain, it did not.

Last night, for the first time in a long time, I wailed. I moaned, uttering sounds to express the pain for which words do not exist. My hands groped the air, reaching for my son, coming back empty time and time again. These inexplicable expressions of grief are irrational, nonsensical. I know I will not reach into the dark and come back with my child in my arms... and yet my hands still reach for him, over and over.

"I'm sorry. I'm so so sorry."

"Damon"

"Damon"

"Damon"

"I miss you. My baby boy, I miss you"

"Do you know? Do you know how much you are loved?"

"I failed you. I'm so so sorry."

It has been a while since living with this grief has so overwhelmed me. For so very long I did nothing but grieve. I cried so much, so long, so hard that my vision went permanently blurry for a time. I thought maybe I'd go blind. I didn't care. I found a lump in my abdomen and was almost hopeful, maybe this is cancer, maybe it will kill me. I'm struck by the selfishness of that notion now. But for nearly a year I have functioned.

Some time ago I saw a quote that I think encapsulates grief so well. "It doesn't get better. You just get better at handling it." I've gotten better at handling it. The "handling it" feels so fake, so untrue. Often at the end of the day I lay in bed thinking "What are you doing? What are you doing acting like a normal person, making plans, pursuing dreams? You're shattered. This is fake." The months of endless tears, indecipherable moans... those were real. That was true.

Today I am not better at handling it. Today I am a mess of torn flesh, aching, missing, moaning, questioning, longing, and raging. Today I am honest.

Until next time