Grieve

Wednesday night we started backing pies for thanksgiving dinner the next night and I lost it.  Uncontrollable crying and tears that simply wouldn't stop.  I was so scared that I wouldn't make it thru the next day with the baking of a pie was that painful.

Thanksgiving morning was also 7 months since we lost our tiny man.  We got up and went to the gym and burned over 650 calories.  I put it all into my exercise.  We hit the store and finished a touch of baking.  I knit for a bit until it was time to head to my parents.

We ate, not really discussing at all that it was a holiday.  Bob and I went on a walk after dinner burning another 200 calories.  By the time we came home I was exhausted and was ready to go right to sleep.

We did everything we could to make it a regular day, no extras, no fluff, pretending it wasn't a holiday or anything extra.  For thanksgiving that all in all worked.

Christmas is already proving to be another issue.  The kids lost it when we talked thru what type of decorations we really wanted.  Ben screamed that we were getting a tree, end of story.  So here I sit in my living room.

Today we went shopping for our ornaments and a tree.  We also selected our tree topper which will be specially made by my mom.

Christmas decorations on all the shelves, an 8 ft tall tree covered in LED lights, and decorations covering the walls, and doors, and pretty much every surface.  In the midst of my coffee table is the sleigh.  The sleigh that held my baby when he was a few days old for his newborn Christmas pictures.  Yet it not longer holds my baby, the memory of it feels so damn recent and fresh.  The moment the sleigh came out of a box the tears poured, yet again.

Tomorrow the kids want to do ornaments.  Nothing is more personal and special for our family than ornaments.  Every year each of us picks an ornament and our collection grows.  I have my ornaments all the way back to the year I was born, as do the children.  The stories that are told as we unpack and hang each ornaments have always been one of my favorite parts of Christmas.  This year I am unsure how to make it thru all of this.

If it weren't for the oldest 4 there would be no Christmas for me.  I would do everything I could to make it a normal weekday, like I did for thanksgiving.  But that simply won't be possible.   There is no way to take the holiday out of Christmas.

For now I'm trying to blur out my vision, numb my heart and soul, and walk thru the world like a ghost.

My next hurdle is sunday.  Sunday, December 1st.  4 short years after I gave birth to my beautiful boy, yet I buried him 7 short months before.  How can the world be so fucking cruel to not allow my beautiful bright shining smiling ray of light to never see his 4th birthday????  How can I still be here, standing and breathing and walking around without him?  Why could my body grow and nurture and birth such a beautiful creation, and then when it is needed the most not be able to protect my baby??   How can a world be so cruel to not allow a mother to lay down their life to save their child?  We say it so simply all the time "of course I would die for you.  I would lay down my life for you."  Yet we can't.  We fucking can't.  We don't control it at all.  We aren't able to do a damn thing when it all comes down to it.  All I could do is scream and cry and rock him and hold him and talk to him and sing to him and stroke his hair and beg...oh did I beg.  But it did nothing, nothing.  Here I sit at the time of year I'm supposed to be so happy and thankful.  When I should be shopping for his 4th birthday.  When he should be placing his ornaments on the tree.  Here I sit empty and broken and there isn't a damn thing I can do but grieve; and fuck am I grieving.