They say in the eye of a storm everything stops. The winds are whirling around you, debris ripping through the air. Yet the spot you are in stays completely still, untouched, numb to the chaos around it.
The world around me continues to turn. People bustle from place to place, errands to run, things to do. Work continues to flow all around me. Children continue to run on the playgrounds.
Yet, in my little bubble, there is silence. There is stillness. I am stuck, suspended in this time, with the chaos around me and stunned stillness in me.
This week a year ago I realized my son was dead. Tuesday a year ago - today - I confirmed it. In about two hours will be the year difference in today and the start of meds to induce my labor. Tomorrow is the actual date - 11-16 - that we confirmed Colton was dead and began the process to release him from my body, which was so desperately holding on to him. Thursday (last year Wednesday) was a day of blur, a day when I realized that as each moment passed part of me seeped away from myself and into the storm whirling around me, shredding everything in its tracks. And Friday will be the 18th ... the day Colton's body (his soul long gone) entered this world. And the last little bit of strength gave like a rope frazzled enough to snap.
People talk to me, and I hear them, yet I do not process. Thoughts pass through my mind and leave no footprint for future reference. All I can think about, all I can feel, is the deep loss and desire to have my son with me.
I know, realistically, that won't happen. I know he is gone and this situation cannot be fixed. I know, reasonably, that no amount of tears will fill the gaping valley ripped in my heart when I lost Colton.
Yet the tears still fall in buckets. The sadness still swallows me whole. The world, if only - hopefully - for these next few weeks, freezes and there is nothing but the emptiness he left behind.
I continue to work. I continue to be domesticated. I visit with friends, I make plans. I pretend to be normal, to be infused in the storm around me, in the cyclone of life.
Inside me, though, is a stillness, a silence, a void ... Just like any center of a storm.
I have no words for you dealing with such a high level of grief Jenn. I read your words you write down and try to hear you. This week also marks one year of the death of my Step Dad who was basically my Dad for the last 25yrs. I stopped talking to him July when I discovered he was slowly killing himself with alcohol, he was in liver failure. I refused to watch him kill himself, to stand by him... He died last November with out me. I regret at least not being there in the very end to say goodbye. I had a friend who lost her special needs son yesterday a year ago. He wasn't supposed to live past two, he lived until he was 17. Life can end so quickly and so abruptly it does make me so scared for my family. I read about your grief for Colton, feel mine for you, for my friends other son and it has been suck-ass week. I realize in saying this your grief is ongoing but I wanted you know that I hear you and I will never forget Colton. Sending big hugs.
ReplyDelete<3 Hugs my friend. I greatly admire your ability to write out your feelings in such a way. You're amazing....
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