Change
Every day I make an effort to have a nice time out there in the World. I'm not aiming for the stars, not trying to seize every single moment with fervor and gusto, I'm just gunning for good. Good is enough if you can do it on a daily basis.
I sleep later now, every day. I need an hour or so of semi-wakefulness to gear up and get ready for the chill and sunlight and this relentless, active life. I guess I still can't believe, every morning, that this is the Universe I live in.
I take a shower and I love it. As hot as I can stand it. Sometimes I reflect on how lucky I am to even have a hot shower that I can stand in as long as I like. Sometimes when it looks like a tough one in my heart or my head, I stand there a little longer. I shouldn't because of the coming Water Wars, but sometimes I can't help it.
Guilt is gone. I've banished it. I do what I need to get by and I don't worry about perfection. Except in the coffee I roast. And in the driving. They both need to be perfect but for completely different reasons. Coffee because it feels good to do it right and it's my job, driving because anything less is disaster. I am not down with any more disasters.
The day Silas was born was supposed to be the best day of my life and instead it was by far the biggest disaster I have ever experienced. Nothing like that should ever happen again. But obviously, since we're all here together, Should is a word we all know doesn't mean a damn thing.
So Should is out now, too. Expectations are a fool's game, and I choose not to play anymore. I declare that as if it is something that can be de-selected. Mostly I try to do exactly what is right in front of me and I avoid worrying about what I think should happen next. Maybe it is the not-thinking that keeps me up at night.
3am has become my thinking hour. I know it is going to be 3:11am when I open my eyes. For a while that brief, nightly insomnia upset me, but now I look at it as a special time, just for me. Lu asleep next to me. The cat is tucked tight between us, not even purring anymore.
Usually it's a song that wakes me up. Whatever I happened to enjoy the most that day is usually the one that's still running through my brain. The same refrain, whatever it is. The song-worm, it infects me. I don't even think about who Should be waking me.
If you break these moth's wing feelings, powdery dust on your fingers or undecided undefined undeterred yet undermind and then it's the steady, static hum of my soul trying to reconcile another day without my son.
It doesn't stop, I'm sorry to say. Not so far. Not 2 years after he was conceived. Not a day goes by that somehow isn't all about him.
The ultimate reason for that is because in a way, I have become him. Silas doesn't get to do this Earth so I've got to do each day for him, too. My everyday experience has been utterly transformed, and I do not at all feel like the person I was before Silas was here. Two years since we started this journey and our lives look exactly the same, but everything has changed, inside and out. And like Julia said, it is still happening.
I live my life the way I do as an expression of how my parents raised me, of how I have come to know the World, of how Lu's love and presence have become intertwined with mine. Today is our 5 year wedding anniversary and despite the sadness of these past years it still always feels right that we are together.
Living extra for Silas--any way I can think of--feels right, too.
His brief life has transformed me in ways I am only beginning to understand. I suppose all parents go through this, but it is especially difficult for people like us because we can never hug them and thank them for everything they help us become.
All I can do is hold on to every day, every little treat and happiness. I do what's right in front of me and watch and listen for the beauty that appears. I keep going forward for Silas, for myself, for Lu, and for whatever it is that happens next. I know what that Should be, but I can't worry about that anymore. I can only face what Is and somehow deal with everything that Isn't.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How have you changed? Do you have expectations of how things should turn out? Do you get the ear-worm of music? What are your refrains? Do you manage to have nice days, despite your loss and sadness?
16 Comments
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (16)
Most of my changes are invisible, but of course the marks she's left on me are indelible. Mostly it is that my inner monologue is utterly different. The things I think about in my quietude are like I had a brain transplant. Whoever I was before is not coming back. I tried to say that once to a friend, in order to explain my distance from him. He said that was sad. It is and it's not.
Her name is my biggest refrain. Then Eva died. Eva died. Eva died. I am trying to make that 'Eva was here in my arms once,' but it's slow in coming. Some thoughts have also crystallized for me -- that life's purpose and essence is to create (create love, create beauty).
No expectations, but then, molded by a mother who also was disabused of her hopes, expectations have been easy to relinquish.
Nearly three years out, I do manage to have nice days and I feel as though I am finally starting to feel alive and aware in the lives of my other children. Sometimes I can hold Eva's twin and think of her as an individual without the specter of her twinlessness clouding my eyes.
We have nice days here, and nice moments even within the ugly days. But it's a whole new kind of nice- more subdued, more self conscious, less free.
WIshing you guys a beautiful anniversary, Chris.
Oh, if I could only learn that lesson. I still expect other people to remember my children, to honour their memories. I still expect that others will remember that I am still grieving over my lost children and my lost life. I still expect it. Even though I know better. Even though my experience is like yours - that expectations are a fools game. I guess I want to hope that one day people will remember. I want to hope that one day people will know that I am no longer the same person. That I am now a mother. A bereaved mother. That my life is different. That my future is different. That one good day for me is a day which is to be treasured.
Happy anniversary. I'm glad that despite the sadness, you are still right together. That's how Craig and I feel - and we're coming up on 4 years in a few weeks time.
Chris, I feel the same way about my son. " Not a day goes by that somehow isn't all about him."
None of us will ever be who we were before. Wishing everyone comfort.
It's only just over three months and I'm a very different person at the moment. How much of it will stick, I'm not sure. One of my friends who lost her sister suddenly at 26 wrote 'You'll never be the same but that's not a bad thing.' And I guess it's not because I think not to change would be like Matilda was never here and I never want that.
I've always been social and liked to be around people and more than an hour or two alone would have me climbing the walls. It's no longer like that, I spend days alone and don't want to be around people especially a lot of people at once. I'm not sure if this is a permanent change or not.
Our first wedding anniversary is 2 weeks tomorrow. We thought going out for dinner would be an impossibility - that we'd be at home with our 3 month old. We used to joke about it. Instead we have all the time to do whatever we want but I don't want to do any of it. I guess we should celebrate that so far our marriage is surviving this and if it can, then it must be strong. Our wedding seems like a lot longer than a year ago with everything that's happened.
Mirne - I expect things from people too. I think it's difficult not too.
I have realised that if (I wish I could say when) I get pregnant again, I will need to attach to the child, even though it may not stay, because I don't want to lose it and never have loved it.
I have realised that I need to have a child. Need. If, before we had started trying, we had decided to take the other road and not try to have children, that would have been OK. I would have needed to take time to mourn that loss, but I could have done it. Now, if it ever comes to that, it will be as though I have lost all the children I ever dreamed of.
I have realised that life goes on, even when you don't want it to.
And yes, I have nice days. Part of me wishes I didn't, but I wouldn't be able to live if the grief surrounded me every minute. Last night we went and watched some bands, the husband and me. They were really good. But part of me was thinking that last time I went to watch a band at that place, I was pregnant, and the baby was even still alive. And I was worried about hurting its ears. And I should still have to worry about that.
But I still enjoyed myself. And it feels wrong.
Soon, we'll have been her parents, missing her, for longer than we lived as a couple before her, waiting for the day we could start a family & welcome her into our lives.
There are good days & moments, many of them. But there is never a day that I am not thinking about her, about the way our lives might have been. Should have been.
Happy Anniversary Chris and Lu. Cherish each other.
Do I have expectations? Hmmm. Yes and no. I still set expectations for myself and our family but no longer expect them to happen. I don't expect pregnancy to work anymore, I don't expect life to be how I thought it would be. I don't have high expectations for other people, but I also don't rely on them to remember Gabriel. He was our focus and losing him at 21 weeks means he is simply not real to much of our family because they didn't hear his heartbeat, see his u/s, feel him moving, touch him or hold him. Many haven't seen his picture. So I remind, I nudge. I don't hide away from saying "Hey, today is Gabe's due date. I'm thinking of him. I miss him. If you are thinking of him, will you consider donating to MoD in his name? Here is a link to his memorial page." I know I will do the same on his birthday this year. And I'll remember him at Christmas and I will bring him into our families' lives so they understand that he is still a part of our life, albeit not entirely in the way we had hoped and expected. That saves a lot of heartache on my part, I think.
Lots of refrains. The two biggest songs right now are' Long Trip Alone' by Dierks Bentley and 'Life Ain't Always Beautiful' by Gary Allan. I'd have to repeat the entire songs to get the refrains out.
I do have nice days and I no longer feel guilty (well, most of the time). I guess I feel it would be a disservice to Gabriel to live the remainder of my life in deep mourning for him. I certainly had to go through deep mourning, but I feel less like I'm trapped and underwater and more like I can surface and breathe now. And so I do. I hate to allude to the cliched and wince-inducing phrase 'He wouldn't want me to be unhappy' but I kind of have that sense from those times I feel him near me. His presence is always active and happy and filled with wonder and it drags me along behind him.
I've always liked a little alone time. But now I don't just crave it, I NEED it. I need quiet, solitude, peace, for just a little while each day, or I completely lose my composure. I even unplug the phone, if I need to. I no longer feel obligated to others. I feel free to say no, or I'll let you know, to them. And I don't feel guilty like I used to. I treasure every single moment with my son, even the tough days full of whining, because he is now even more precious to me, if that was possible.
I do manage to have nice days, mostly focused around my son, but my girls are always in the back of my mind. I sometimes feel guilty about it, that they are no longer dominating my thoughts every second of the day. The day just grinds on, & I have no choice but to roll with it. (Usually late and harried, looking like a "before" shot on a makeover show, but still plugging along.)
I wish the song-worms were what wake me. I have incredibly violent dreams, which started when my pregnancy became high-risk. it's a little disturbing, but a dream dictionary has helped me thik about the symbolism, rather than taking them so literal (the likelihood of encountering a pack of ninjas in a hospital elevator mid-renovation and spearing them all with swords a la "Kill Bill" is probably less than winning the lottery, not to mention that I have never seen, held, or would know what to do with said sword, and the fact that I faint quite easily make the outcome even less likely...) These dreams probably have something to do with how angry I am, another way i have changed. Even though I have so very much to be thankful for, I can't help but be really, really pissed.
At this point, I am afraid to have any expectations. I guess if I don't, I can't be disappointed, won't have to feel loss and pain again. But at least i've begun to consider possibilities, which I would not have done even a few weeks ago. Only time will tell.
I think that living in each moment, not pushing too hard for anything abstract and yet to be is really the only thing we have at times. But coffee perfection is good. Blessedly so.
I'm so new here, not quite a month in yet, so I don't have great perspective on our loss, except to know that it has forever changed me and my life. My hubby said the other day that he missed me. I knew what he meant. It's like the old me died wth my Will and now I have to create this new me from the ashes.
I know well that 3am hour, and have begun to embrace it as well. It's my own private mourning time. It can be lonely, but I find myself missing it on days where sleep pushes its way through an entire night.
My refrain would be "Losing Will", as this is what we call it. There is the time before I lost Will in my life, and the time after. It is a marker that forever severs my story into two distinct pieces. I don't know much of this piece yet and what is in store for me. I can only look to the distance of my hand each day I go, further out from there holds no merit any longer.
The shower is my safe haven, the place I find safe and comforting. The steam builds into a thick blanket and I allow myself this little pleasure without guilt of wasting water. My showers are too long, too hot, but I need them just as they are.
This post reminded me of so much that is important in living this existence. Thank you.
"It won't always feel like this. It (the grief) changes you and then changes WITH you."
Thus far I've found that to be very true...
The song I've had stuck in my head lately is "Love is all I have for you" by Brad Yoder. It isn't meant as a grief song, but it resonates with me that way.
But the fact is, we were dealt this horrendous reality, of human form and experience and it is difficult to frame all that has emerged over the past year but MY GOD, how far we have come and grown is off the rickter scale... My daughter continues to be the greatest teacher I have ever known and like you, Chris, I am her, she is me and I live my life differently due to her presence as I have slowly been able to let her go, knowing she is in every breath I now take.
I continue to be taught many truths about life, due to her death and Jasmine's first birthday, for us, turned out to be more of reflecting on how much we have gained over the past year. Of course we will always long for her life with us but having suffered the worst. through losing Jasmine, we were able to experience how far we have come over the space of a year, having been wiped out, flattened and destroyed beyond all recoginition.... that day, one year ago..... From a place of now knowing that none of us ever know what is coming next, I GET IT, and thank God this is teaching me how fragile and precious life REALLY is and not to have grown into a space of bitterness, but of greater love and this, my daughter continues to teach me.
We were also blessed to find out we fell pregnant on Christmas Day and are 10 weeks into the pregnancy of our second child. A whole new and different journey of pregancy has begun and Jasmine will continue to be a source of elevated anxieties at times and in the same breath, a calming perspective of reality too. After what felt like a lifetime for us, we are able to experience excitment and anticipation again but with something else I find difficult to express, underlying all associated emotions. To hold onto both ropes - one that says 'nothing is guaranteed' and one that says 'so today, and now, is your life' reminds me of a beautiful quote from a song, 'is best our lives are left to chance for else we would miss the dance'.