Wednesday, December 27, 2006

FITYMI 2006 Holiday Roundup

It was boring living it, so I'm sure it will be boring reading about it. I will, therefore, take pity on you, dear internets, and spare you the details. Let's just say that Delphi was precisely right when she said,

"I just can't even believe it some times. I had a son. He is dead. Today I had to visit my son, who is dead and buried in the ground. I had to sit next to a headstone in a frozen expanse of snow, surrounded by other people's babies who are also dead. Babies die. My baby died. I just don't understand it, not in any way at all. There are days where it is all too big and confusing for me. Today is one of those days. I just don't understand."

And with Christmas and all the "magic" that you're supposed to feel...I finally figured out my issue with religion and religious types. It's not the God thing...though that certainly still perplexes me to no end. It's not the judgment thing...hell...I would judge me too if I weren't me (in fact, I still do judge me sometimes...what did I do to deserve this?). It's not the self assuredness of it all...or the condescension with which it is all served up. Nope...it's much simpler than that.

At it's very root, it is offered as an attempt to make me feel better.

And I don't want to feel better.

See?

Feel better...your babies are angels in heaven.
Feel better...you will be with them one day.
Feel better...it is all according to some plan and not just random bad luck.
Feel better...there is a reason for your suffering even if you don't know what it is at this moment.

Feel better.

Just feel better.

NO!

That's my problem. I don't WANT to feel better.

That's not entirely true. I WANT to FEEL better...but I don't want to find any sort of peace in this. I want to live my life without the gut-wrenching pain and sorrow I feel when I see my boys' pictures on the wall. But I don't want this to be all OK. NEVER. I don't want anyone to ever think that I have moved on...that I have somehow forgotten them. I want to remember. Not what I lost...but who they were...as their own little people...who they could have been.

Maybe they are angels in heaven and maybe one day I will get to see them. Maybe not. Maybe this is all there is. And if it is all there is, then it is my responsibility to make sure that they are never forgotten. I don't want to feel better in the hope that there is something after. Because if there isn't, I will have missed my chance...and then they will well and truly be lost.

So when someone tells me, in no uncertain terms, that I should just feel better because there is a religious reason for doing so...I want to kick and scream and tell them this one thing they seem not to understand...

I am their mother.

Yep FITYMI 2006 is OVER. It ended not one minute too soon. My face hurts from fake smiling. I have a tension headache. My neck and shoulders feel like they've been tied up in knots.

I look up on my entertainment center and see three ornaments with three names. I look around my living room and see one little boy. How did my life turn out like this?

It's all too big and confusing for me today.

And I feel the tears coming.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

When someone says that "someday" bull to me, I get angry as well because I feel like they are telling me to forget about it for now. Too many other people have already forgotten that never should have: the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the cousins, and sometimes their own father forgets.

I will go kicking and screaming as well for my daughters, even if it's just to remind myself.

delphi said...

My heart is definately in the same place.

Much love and support to you.

Anonymous said...

This is just how I feel too. About not wanting to feel okay, because it just isn't okay and it never will be okay until the day I die, and maybe even after that. I would like to stop feeling sorry for myself and how I have suffered because my baby died, and rather focus on who this little person was and the love I have for him.

Thanks for writing this post.

Clare said...

I get stuck thinking about how close I came to having my son. I was so close. I don't understand that at all. It will never sit well with me. I get what you're saying completely.

Bon said...

i hear you. and i'm glad it's over, too. i thought of your "fake it til you make it" mantra a lot over the holidays, especially Christmas morning on three hours sleep after sitting up sobbing the night before over the firstborn i wanted to honour. confused, yeh.

i'm sorry your life turned out like this. i think you do Alex and Travis great justice, though...they are remembered. they are mothered.

Kendra's mom said...

Ditto. You express my feelings so well. Can't say much more than that.

Mom

My mom insisted on living independently. She wanted to live in the two-story house she and my dad built in the 70s, despite the fact that da...