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

I'm sad

Damon

I've never posted pictures of Damon here because I couldn't look at them. Today I just can't stop sobbing. I can't stop the flashbacks or the tears so I've been looking at pictures. I miss him so much. I only have these two on my computer. I'm sure that seems weird. There are pictures all over the house but I just couldn't deal with them popping up unexpectedly. Anyway, These are the two I have right now.

He was so beautiful, so amazing. I can't believe he's gone.

I can't deal

Oh guys... March. The month of if onlys and the last times. I am a complete disaster.

I'm sitting at Panera. It's spring break and the hubby and I are trading off two hour blocks of time to work, study, etc. I spent the last half hour reading the blog of a bereaved father and crying, at the corner table, in Panera. I have a book on lizard behavior open in front of me topped with a to-do list that just keeps getting longer. I can not concentrate. I've been vacillating between frantic hyper focused bursts of activity and hours curled up just staring into the distance. I can't deal... I can't deal.

I'm back in grad school. GRAD SCHOOL, what the crap Jodie? Seriously? You still can't consistently communicate with other human beings and you're taking on a PhD? What-on-earth?

If I'm being honest I've actually been doing pretty well. I get into an academic situation and people start discussing speciation and gene flow and genetic drift and some part of my brain that is undamaged wakes up. It's the scientific, logical Jodie. I can rock a scientific discussion but if you want to talk to me about the weather or my favorite foods or, hell, anything chit-chatty I just shut-down. My brain stops working, literally (and I do know the correct use of that word).

Then, enter March. I can't think. I don't care. I just want to die. I want to curl up in a ball, sob until the tears wont come anymore and then just cease to exist. This is grief. It DOES NOT get better. It doesn't you just get better at handling it, until March.

At night I sit in the dark holding my rainbow baby and the flashbacks come. I've largely gained control of them... until now. I can't stop them. I can't control them. Damon...

I can't figure out my purpose. I can't figure out the point. Everything I used to cling to is gone. My foundation that I was so sure of has crumbled. The illusions are torn away and I am here, naked, staring into a black hole.

Here's the truth. I desperately want to believe there is some good supernatural being that gives a crap. I want to so badly that it makes me feel sick but I just plain don't. I'm past my rebellious phase where my anger drove me to hatred. For a long long time I hated God. I mean vehemently, horribly, desperately hated. I would think things like 'if the bible is true and it hurts you to lose your children then I'm willing to sacrifice myself to hurt you.' That's how much I hated him. I wanted to go to hell just to hurt him. I wanted to suffer for all eternity just to cause him what little pain I was capable of inflicting.

I still have those moments but they are fleeting. Now, I have resigned to a painful increasing belief that everything I believed so fiercely was a lie I told myself to cope with the crappy reality that is life. I told myself that there was a design. That there was a way to rise above. That even when things made no sense there was a higher purpose. I just wasn't capable of understanding it, being a lowly human and all. Increasingly, I just don't buy it anymore.

You have no idea how strong the motivation is to believe in a god, in an after life, for a parent who has lost a child. I guarantee I want to believe it more than the most dynamic preacher you've ever heard. I want to... but I don't. I want to believe there is some f-ing REASON. That I will hold my child again. That he is safe and happy and not just GONE. But the more I try to work through this. The more I study, the more I learn, the less convinced I am and that is a horrible feeling. Beyond the fact that it is terribly isolating to live in the bible belt and less and less believe the bible (which, by the way, I know pretty darn well) I no longer have a direction, a point, a purpose.

I simply cannot fathom a god who would allow this kind of agony and this agony opens my eyes to the unbelievable pain, loss, and devastation experienced by human beings every second of every minute of every day. Right now thousands of parents are watching their children breathe their last breath. Stop, stop yourself from rationalizing, stop yourself from skipping over that reality. Stop your self from erecting the shield that protects your heart from the truth that is life and death and think about that. Let it touch you. Thousands of spouses sit alone in a home that they shared with their beloved for decades just waiting to die. Thousands more are watching their partner slowly disappear as disease destroys their brain and body... making choices between feeding their children or housing them... making choices between surviving or killing.

I do not know how to deal. I miss him so much. I miss him so much. I cannot understand. I cannot function. It has been nearly two years. Flashes of his sweet baby body dressed in his pajamas flash in front of my eyes. His lips slowly turning blue as he died in the a hospital bed. How... how do I cope with this? How?

I can't deal...

good

This morning I’m running like a well oiled machine, breakfast, big boy dropped off at school (with his lunch, jacket, and homework), grocery store run with no meltdowns, and the rainbow baby is peacefully napping in his crib. I’m not exaggerating when I say this is the first time since Damon died that I’ve felt like I’m on top of things.

The weather has finally turned which means this thermophile is driving with the windows down and the radio up. After a loooong month of waiting we assembled the eldest’s new basketball goal and a gaggle of little boys ping ponged between the trampoline and the driveway all day yesterday. I’m riding high on feeling good for more than a few hours in a row. It’s a new good. It’s not the care-free all is right with the world good of those whose hearts are intact. It’s a good weaved through with pain and missing, those ever-present truths, but it’s good.

And the best of the good, better than the good weather, better than a peacefully sleeping baby, better than a day of simply silliness? We go the rainbow baby’s immunocompetency blood work back. His immune system is perfect. We found out last week. It’s only just now sinking it. His immune system is perfect, PERFECT. I wish I could describe the feeling in my chest. Imagine the most relieved and excited you’ve ever been, maybe it’s a little like that.

It’s a huge relief, knowing that his body can defend itself but still find myself counting the months. It’s entirely irrational but I feel like I’m waiting for the day he reaches 20 months to believe he’s going to be ok. Last night as we played in the bath I thought “You’re nine months old. Do I only have ten months left?” I resist planning things for him. I wont buy clothes for when he’s older, bigger. He’s three months from his first birthday but I refuse to plan anything. Plans are scary, life is scary, the future is scary. What if he doesn’t make it?

But for now the littlest beckons and I plan to learn to accept this new good in my life.

Until next time…