Love, beauty, happiness...can all be captured sweetly in prose so that you almost feel what the author is feeling. Sadness can be written about so beautifully that it makes your heart ache for the person behind the words.
But this place...it can not be written about in a way that will adequately convey this darkness. What words do I use to describe this place? This is the place people point to when something bad happens so they can say, "I always knew something was wrong with her...poor thing just needed mental help." This is the place where all the ugly thoughts and feelings lie. This is the place most people are afraid to acknowledge exists. The place where, if you're lucky, you only dip a toe during your entire lifetime. You flirt with it, daring it to swallow you up...not realizing that once it does, it may never let you go.
The same questions turn around in my head incessantly...
What kind of wife and mother can I be that I'm not fulfilled by my husband and son? What kind of family are we supposed to be now that two of us are missing forever? Are we supposed to be a family with only one child? Is Sam supposed to be without siblings? So why our babies? What are we supposed to be without them? How am I supposed to care about the daily happenings in anyones life when I'm barely able to get showered and dressed in the morning? Is it my need to be comforted that is driving my faith? Or is my faith the source of my comfort? Where are you God? How could I have been so stupid? Did I do something to cause all of this? What do I do with the guilt? What bad thing is next?
The questions just don't stop.
I go through the motions every single day. I even smile. My eyes, my face, and my head hurt from crying. My neck and shoulders hurt from being tensed and sleeping poorly. My breasts and my uterus hurt from the absence of my baby. And that feeling of really caring about anything is simply gone...vanished.
I often contemplate sitting down in the middle of the sidewalk and having a good cry. No, not a cry...a hysterical fit. I don't even worry if people would understand. There were so few who understood me before...now there are none. It just wouldn't matter.
People ask me if it's a good distraction to be back at work. What can I say? Sure. I forget I have two dead children by playing lawyer during the day. I can no sooner forget I have two dead children than I can forget I have one living one...do you ever forget you have three living children? Don't you get it? I have three children too...but two of them are dead!
Good God...TWO of my CHILDREN are DEAD! What happened to our life? We were supposed to be happy...
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And before anyone suggests I see a therapist...don't.
And before someone suggests I trust in God...don't.
Just don't.
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11 comments:
Thanks for your honesty. It is easy for those around you to say it is time to move on... but you have to mourn.
I won't tell you to have faith but I will pray for you.
I think if someone asked me to move on, I'd slap them in the face.
I won't.
I'm just here to listen. (read.whatever.)
If you were completely fulfilled by your husband and son you wouldn't be acknowledging the children you so recently lost.
I think all you can do is yell and scream and be angry. I don't know what else there could be.
By suggesting a therapist it would be suggesting that there is something you are doing that is not normal andwell adjusted. Like you say TWO OF YOUR CHILDREN ARE DEAD. I doubt there is a therapist alive who could tell you how to 'deal' with that. Hell, you go to work and have the ability to *appear* normal. The world can ask of nothing more from you. At least it shouldn't.
And anyone who thinks Steve and Sam should step up and try to be themselves PLUS two other intensely loved people is plain silly. They are who they are, not Alex and Travis and no matter how good they are, they cannot be everything those two boys were and were going to be.
And trust in God? He's playing the 5th at Royal Neptune Golf Club. He's worrying about his next shot. He's not watching us. Not all the time anyway.
You certainly won't hear any of that God b.s. from me, and while I won't recommend a therapist, I will say that mine (who knew me well before my son was ever conceived) has been a great sounding board for all my various ugly thoughts and feelings, and has never condescended to me or pretended to know the answers. I needed her because no one else, not even DH could bear to hear all the jealousy, rage, panic, fear, and repetition of the gory details that were all I felt like talking about for months. But the very best thing she did for me was to give me a prescription for Ambien without my asking, which no doubt saved me from becoming an alcoholic. I hope it's okay if I recommend Ambien and a hot bath, and remind you that it's okay to take time off if you just can't handle getting out of bed sometimes. I don't know that I could be half the mother, wife, and employee you are right now, if I were in your shoes. Try not to be too hard on yourself.
I won't.
I just have hugs for you. Not that it helps much.
I agree that no one could ask more of you. I don't think that you should ask yourself to give more or be more than you can handle right now.
Love you.
Just hugs and ears here. No great words of wisdom. I love you, lady.
The fact that you haven't yet broken down into hysterics in the middle of the sidewalk is a testament to your strength. I think they would have carted me off a while ago... No matter how much you love your husband and son, Alex and Travis have left permanent imprints in your life and their losses are part of the fabric of your story now. There's no making sense of it, it just is. And you can rant and rave and rage at us all you like -- we're cheaper than therapy!
Jill put it so well. I don't think it's that Steve and Sam are not enough, it's that they're only half of what should be - and it's impossible to forget that. You can't look at them without thinking about the two little boys who should be here too.
As you said, do people with living children forget about them? No. Not for one second. It's no different for us, the mothers of dead children. Only we have to work much, much harder to sort out where our children sit in our minds at any given moment, and how we deal with the fact that they cause us so much joy and so much sorrow all at the dame time.
It's hard to feel like what's left behind is enough, even when you know it is. Don't add this guilt to everything else you're feeling, sweetie. You have nothing to feel guilty about. Not one single thing.
(((((((((HUGS))))))))))
I agree with the others....sending you ((((((((((hugs))))))))))
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