Sorry I disappeared. To the observer, I've been busy--but I feel numb inside. Like someone rubbed Novocaine on my brain. It's different than I thought it would be. Grief, that is.
It doesn't have definitive boundaries--no starts and stops. It just stretches on and on. Not that you are sad all the time--heavens no. I'm not Eeyore with a perpetual thunderstorm over my head (sorry, the nearly 3 year old is way into his Pooh and Friends puzzles, must have been on my mind. What a whiz kid. 25 piece puzzles are child's play for this boy. sorry, tangent.)
No, grief is different. No two experiences are the exact same. And no one can tell you how to grieve because each of us experience and interpret things differently. Anger, sadness, disappointment, frustration, annoyance--they tell you it is normal to experience these things. But the fact is there isn't anything normal about this. The crying I expected--every morning, every night, sometimes in between for the heck of it. And even the aching emptiness--longing for a baby to hold, breaking anew when I walk past the baby section of a store, or hear a baby cry. But the nightmares, the questioning, the flashbacks--like salt in a wound that refuses to heal. This may sound awful but sometimes I just wish it could all go away. (Que the Toys-R-Us theme please and pour me a bowl of Trix. ugh.) At other moments it feels surreal. Did I really go through this? Does my life history now include the death of a child. . .a son. . .a beautiful son?
Yes. This is your life. This is a part of you now. Face it--you're down in the valley. Put your boots on and start climbing the mountain. Besides, the view from the top will be spectacular as it always is. Then you'll go through another valley, and there will be another mountain to climb--on and on. It might feel like Everest, but it isn't. Odds are, this is conditioning for a future climb. That is life. And it is a great life.
As my neighbor back home said, 'God, don't remove the mountain--just give me the strength to climb it.'
Thank you God for the climb.
Excuse me while I go lace my boots up.
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