Through the Day

Another death anniversary has passed, and I still feel cut to the center. That day slices through me like a hot knife. My emotions run from absolute numbness to deep, unrelenting pain. It takes me back to the day of Andy’s death, and it knocks me to my knees. Tonight, I’m just glad the day has passed. I’m hoping to get a few hours of sleep and start tomorrow with at least a bit of peace. It’s such a horrible day. I can’t even put it into words, no matter how much I babble on here. Thanks so much to all of you who email with support and send along good wishes. We’re together in this terrible club, and we carry each other through the hardest of times.

A Child Remembered

Four years ago tomorrow, my son was taken from me. As I sit here tonight typing out these horrible words, I still feel like breaking in two. My son is gone. I can’t escape that. That’s why I’m terrified for the little child who is trusting me to give him or her a safe place to grow over the next seven months. After another week of nausea and moodiness, I took two more pregnancy tests, both of which were positive. Now, as I type out a remembrance for Andy, I’m sending out my love to the precious little one inside of me, as well.

Andy would have loved a sibling, I’m sure, even if he wouldn’t have admitted it. He always was a popular kid, and he had a way of making people smile. Even now, his pictures make people smile. I’m not sure how I’ll get through the day tomorrow. I just know that I will. It’s no longer about me. I have to keep going for the new little one who I am so eager to meet. Every step of this journey, though, is reminding me of Andy. I can’t wait to feel Little Person, as we’ve termed him or her, fluttering around, but I’ll remember the first time I felt Andy moving. On Friday, I heard my baby’s heart beat for the very first time, and I could hear the beat of another heart at another time echoing through that exam room. I’ll never know how my son would have reacted to his new little sibling. I’ll never get to watch the two of them playing or hear them laughing together. I’ll never see Andy, who would be thirteen years older than his brother, rolling his eyes and wanting that baby, as he would no doubt call him, to stop bothering him and his friends. They would consider themselves grown by now.

Tomorrow, I’ll remember my dear son and will allow myself to break down long enough to build back up. When Little Person gets old enough, I will take him or her aside and tell the story of Andy’s precious life, trying to share how special he was and keep him a part of the new little family that is forming.

New Year’s Eve

This feels like new year’s eve.  The old me died with my son, and the new me was born that day.  Another anniversary down, though.  This afternoon, once 3:30 had passed, I told my best friend that the current version of me had started existing at that time three years before.  Three years.  I haven’t seen or heard my son in three years.  It doesn’t seem possible sometimes.

I let myself fall apart for a few minutes this afternoon, hoping to feel better, but as it turns out, I felt no release at all.  I just felt like crying for hours longer.  I felt like it would consume me, and like it might not be a bad idea to let it.  Tears don’t come easily for me, even in the face of horrible pain.  When I do cry about Andy’s death, though, I sometimes feel worse than before.  My best friend compared it to stopping a sneeze.  As he said, it hurts to stop a sneeze.  Stopping my tears just increases the pressure further, sometimes.

But this New Me has things to do.  She has work to attend, errands to run, and so many other things to stop her staring at the hole in the center of her life.  She knows that stopping means looking at the face of loss.  This New Me just passed her third new year’s eve, though, and on this first day of her new year, she finds herself look back once again.

I’m told that one day I’ll spend more time looking forward than back, but from where I stand now, that doesn’t seem possible.

The Last Day

I’m trying to keep it together.  I’m trying not to let myself think about things so closely that they overtake me.  And I’m irritated with myself for feeling like breaking down.  Technically, it’s just another day on the calendar.  Three years ago today, though, my son died.  Three years ago at 3:31 PM.

At 3:30 PM, he was alive.  At 3:31 he was not.  I’m still confused.

Broken Hallelujah

There’s a certain emptiness to life after you’ve lost a child.  I was watching a show on television last night, and it ended with a bit of the song ‘Hallelujah.’  I’m not sure who the song belonged to originally, and many people have done versions of it.  Still, the one I like best was actually the one played on the show.  The singer is John Cale.

Every single time I hear this song, I stop.  It gives me chills.  There’s a verse that really spoke to the bitterness I’m feeling as the anniversary of Andy’s death grows nearer.  I feel like grief has taken up residence, replacing the version of love I knew before.  I find myself walking the floors of my grief over and over again.  It will definitely get much better than it is now.  January will come.  The holidays will be over, and another death anniversary will have passed.  I’ll have got through it one more time.  Like every other bereaved mother out there, though, in the back of my mind, I’ll still hold a broken Hallelujah:

Maybe I’ve been here before, I know this room

I’ve walked this floor

I used to live alone before I knew you

I’ve seen your flag on the Marble Arch

And love is not a victory march

It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.

Nearing *That* Day

Sunday marks the third anniversary of Alan’s and Andy’s deaths.  I’m not sure how to handle it.  After three years, it stills confuses me.  First comes the fear.  I anticipate that day with such great fear that it literally leaves me shaking sometimes.  This year, the fear has been followed by sadness.  It’s a deep sadness that almost feels numb.  That’s something I think is unique to the loss of a child– feeling very deeply but being numb all the same.  It’s self-protection.  We can’t handle all of that emotion at one time.

I’m not sure what I expect of that day.  It changed my life so harshly.  It took away what I loved most.  I’m angry with it.  Just a number on the calendar, but I feel like cutting it out.  Maybe if I cut the date off the calendar and burn it, things will be different.  Maybe coloring over it with dark black permanent ink will erase it.  I hate that day.  I want to yell at it and demand an answer.  It just sits there on the calendar staring at me, though.  Daring me to look at it and remember.  What that stupid day doesn’t understand is that I’ll never be able to forget it.  Even if I went completely blind, the day would simply burn itself into the back of my eyelids.

I hate that day.