Nonsensical Time

The days blend
One into another.
Then
        Now
                When?
Distinction lost
Within the grief.
The past is the present.
The future never to come.
Locked, stuck in today.
Today that is
Today that was
But what is today?
What was yesterday?
When is not
What was when
When your heart is dark
When grief swallows light.
When what was is not
When who was is no more
When 12 days will be all there ever was
And grief swallows time
Spits it out crumbled and incomprehensible
When I blink time flashes
Then I blink again and time feels like sludge
With no in between
Only nonsensical time.

Should it still be this hard?

You think 11 years in and I'd be used to this feeling. This dread and ache that October brings. Eleven years of doing this and it still gets me every time. Every time the air cools and the leaves start to change. Every time the pumpkin spice is rolled out and Halloween decor put up. Every single fucking year, it all just crashes around me. So here I am, my eleventh October without him, trying to figure out how to make it through the month. Not only the month of October, but then past the anniversary of his death. Trying to stay afloat with all the obligations that life brings, that his living siblings bring, all with my heart in the depths of grief. 

And I'm feeling that grief so intensely right now. Sometimes I question myself, should it still be this hard?, should it still hurt this much? I don't know if it should, but it is this hard and it does hurt this much. Right now at least. Maybe not as constantly as it once did. It comes in waves. One of those waves is hitting now. Knocking me down. Down hard enough it feels like I can't get up. But logically I know I will. I know I'll likely wake up tomorrow not feeling so intensely. But I also know that another wave can come by at any time and do it again. 

I think I've been putting too much energy into fighting it. Fighting against the grief, fighting against the feeling of being knocked down. There are times I really just need to lean into it. To let the wave take me. Because no matter how much time has passed, it will always just really fucking suck that he died. So tonight after the kids went to bed I intentionally got out my journal and just let the feelings come. Just let the tears come and come and come. Instead of attempting to hold the grief close to my heart, I let it move. I let it wash over me. 

So for the next month I need to remember to have grace and patience with myself. I need to remember that it's okay for me to feel up and down with big emotions that take over. That it's okay to have happy, calm, peaceful days. And it's okay to have hard, grief-filled, difficult days. Or to have both scenarios in the same day. Yes, it's been 11 years. But the grief of losing a baby is honestly beyond comprehension. There's no timeline. There's just continuing to move forward. But that doesn't mean I won't get knocked on my ass here and there, especially during the month of October and the beginning of November. Yeah, I'm putting these words in my blog to send out into the internet for other people to read...but they're really for me. They're really some important reminders for myself. I'm doing the best I can during a difficult time. And I will get through it and the next time it happens I'll still be doing the best I can. It's all any of us can do. So, as I often tell my kids, we just gotta keep on keeping on. 

Additional note: I went back and read this post I wrote in Oct 2017. It's all still accurate. 

Don't they know

My gmail keeps telling me I’m almost out of storage

But don’t they know that I can’t just blindly delete the past

Don’t they know that inbox holds a snapshot in time

Of when you were alive

Of what my life was like when you were in it

Don’t they know that’s all I have of you

… a snapshot.

Such a short moment in the amount of time that is my life

That every piece of evidence of your existence

Or of what I was doing during your existence

Is priceless

 

I thought to myself that I’d clear some emails out

Thought it would be quicker to go oldest to newest

And just bulk delete all those emails from years and years ago

 

But I was wrong

It wasn’t quicker

Because it caused me to freeze

Even trying to do the “Promotions” first

I froze when I saw that email from baby center

The email I starred to come back to later for a discount on diapers

And then my frozen self froze even more when I saw

An email I sent asking for help enhancing your photos

So brief was the snapshot of your life that it quickly turned in to the eternity of marking your death

Asking for help to fix the color of you in the moments immediately after your death

Help for the only photos I have of you without tubes and wires

Help me treasure these photos of my dead baby

Help me makes sense of this aspect of my life

Help

A Grieving Mother's Heart

When your baby dies your heart shatters on the floor. 
Your heart there in pieces, millions of sharp-edged shards. 
Shock renders you immobile. It feels impossible that the pieces will ever go back together. 
You just stare at the pieces. Unsure of how to continue on. 

The first time you attempt to pick them up they cut deep. They bleed. 
You can't grasp them. Yet your being somehow continues on with your heart still shattered.

The next time you can pick up a few pieces. You can hold them in grief. 
But yet, they don't go back together. You set them back down gently with the other shards.

Eventually you find some string to tie some pieces back together. 
It holds...temporarily. But it easy slips apart leaking heart pieces back to the floor. 
And over and over and over again the string is cut, rendering it useless.

But you try again and again and again to have the string hold your heart together.
And during some of this time it's secured, some of the pieces mend back together.
You oscillate between shards on the floor, putting them back together, and mending. 

At some point enough pieces have mended back together that the string is no longer necessary. 
But the repair points are weak. 
There are times your heart cracks. 
There are times pieces break off and fall to the floor. 
There are even times your heart completely shatters again. 

But now you know the process. The process of finding the right string to hold things together.
The process of letting the pieces merge back into place. 
The process of waiting for your heart to feel okay. 

You know it will never be as it was before. 
It will never feel complete. 
There was a piece that never made it back in. 

But you know how to live with this heart you now have. You know how to care for it. You know that while it feels grief, sadness, heartache, pain....that it can also love fiercely, feel joy, gratitude, and peace.

This grieving mother heart, it feels deeply. Be gentle with it.

To Be A Mother

 

11 years ago a positive pregnancy test told me I was to be a mother,
I had given birth before, but yet I had not mothered,
For 8 ½ years I yearned and wondered, what could it be like to mother.

My heart felt mother love,
I felt that shift within me when she was born,
but I had no where, no one, to pour that love to.

 It was Mother’s Day that day,
And I held my secret for hours,
Only sharing with strangers on the internet,
Waiting to tell Mike in person.

Mother’s Day,
A day that had been difficult since she was born,
A day I didn’t know how to view,
Didn’t know where I fit,
Because do birth mothers count as mothers?

How healing in that instant to know,
To know a baby was on the way,
To mother,
A child that I would get to mother,
To call my own.

May 8^th, 2011
Just like this year,
Just like today,
Was Mother’s Day.

It was a day to celebrate,
It was filled with joy,
With hope, excitement,
The sting of the pain caused by placing my firstborn for adoption,
Lessoned for a moment.

And now today,
11 years later,
On this Mother’s Day,
I think of the short 12 days I had to mother him.

12 hectic, fearful, difficult, intense NICU days,
But also 12 beautiful, joyful, love filled days,
12 days I cherish forever.

He may have only been here for 12 days,
But I will forever be his momma.

7th birthday thoughts

On October 28th, 2011 at 10:01am a 3lb 2oz and 16in long baby boy came into this world without a name. He was whisked away to the NICU before I could even see him. But my heart swelled with pride. "It's a boy!" the most beautiful words I have ever heard. (We weren't leaning one way or the other, I was just so happy he was okay.) The look of joy and pride in my husband's eyes is something I will never forget. The beaming smile on his face as we were in awe that our son was born. Not under the circumstances that we had hoped, but we still felt on top of the world to have welcomed our precious baby boy. Through the fear and the unknown of the NICU we loved on that baby boy fierce. We named him Marcellus Robert. Marcellus after my grandpa and Robert after his daddy's middle name. A strong name. A name we felt was meant for big things. And I guess in a way that name is still doing big things. Just not here on earth like we had envisioned, like we had hoped and dreamed for. 

I'm still so proud to be that sweet boy's momma. Marcellus's mommy, an honor that belongs only to me. A part of me for the rest of my life and beyond.

That little baby should be turning 7 today. My first born son that I will never get to watch grow up. And I have to admit that I'm tired of the grief. I'm tired of the hurt. I'm tired of the longing. I'm tired. It's been 7 long years without him. But at the same time it's only been 7 years. I'm in my 30s, it could be another 50 years of life without him. And that blows my mind.   

Every year it's a new grief. The grief of what should be. The grief of missing a child that was here for only 12 days. We only knew him on this earth while in utero and as a preemie in the NICU. We never got to know him as an infant, toddler, little kid. We'll never know his 7 year old self, never know his interests, dislikes. I often think of what he would be like. And I always come back to the same feeling. I have a strong feeling he would be very thoughtful. Not just thoughtful as in considerate to others and to nature. But thoughtful as "in his thoughts", introspective. He'd be quiet, but have deep questions. Living in such a loud household with 3 younger siblings would probably be hard for him, but he'd be an amazing big brother.

And while having such a strong feeling of him brings me some comfort, comfort that his energy and love are with us in a way that we can't understand, I want to know my child I have these visions of. I want to know him physically on this earth. I want to hold him, to smell him, to kiss his owies, hear his laugh, answer his questions. And I know if he were here he wouldn't just be this perfect kid with no faults. He'd have his faults and I want to know what those would be too. So no, he wouldn't be perfect, but he'd be amazing. I'd be in awe of him and who he was.

But all I can do is speculate, focus hard in those still moments and feel his energy, visualize where he should be in every family picture or picture of his living siblings. I want to know him as I know them. So while I am so thankful and will forever be thankful to be his mom, to have felt him grow in my womb, to have birthed and brought him into this world, to have had 12 days to physically love on him, to feel the incredible softness of his hair, see his deep dark wise eyes, to have smelled him and felt him in my arms....while I will always be thankful for that...it will never be enough. I will always long to hold him just one more time, to lay eyes on his beautiful little self just one more time.


Happy birthday Marcellus Robert! You would be 7 today and I wonder what you would be like. I have a feeling you wouldn't want a big party and instead would rather do something special with 1 or 2 friends, or even just with our family. We went to Hillridge Farms the other day to celebrate your birthday. Fall is your season, and it was a way for us to celebrate this beautiful time of year. We had fun, but I ached for you at every moment. I smiled watching your siblings, but then my heart would drop wondering what you would be doing. It's so hard having a heart that's so full, but hurts so much. I miss you love. I miss you so much. But I am so thankful you chose me to be your momma. I will always be your momma. I will always always always celebrate your life. I love you!!! xoxox.

I cried for you today

I cried for you today.

It had been awhile since tears flowed just for you. There have been times I've cried and pure overwhelm, when many things have bubbled up at once. But today I cried for you. I cried because of your absence.

A friend came over to help me organize a closet. A closet that holds many of your things. But you see they're not really you're things. They are things that we have because you died. The Marcellus's Marchers shirts, the clothes we wore the day you died...that we wore as we held you while you took your last breaths, totes full of sympathy cards, keepsakes gifted to us in your memory, but nothing of yours.

And I started to feel angry, angry that we have this stuff in our house. Angry that it's stuff we have because you died. Your death taking up space in our house. I want your life taking up space here. I want you and your clothes and your toys and your books. I want you.

So I cried, for you my sweet boy. But it wasn't enough. There are more tears hidden there in my heart. I let out just enough to ease the heaviness in the moment and push through. I wanted to get done. I needed to stay present for your siblings. But it was a glimpse at how my heart holds the ache of your absence. How it is always just right there ready to bubble up.

I will cry for you again. When will it come out? I can't say. But the tears will need to escape sometime.

I will cry for you again and again and again and again. I will cry for you until my last day on this earth.


I love and miss you more than even those tears can ever express!