Grief is like a wrecking ball. It swings through, destroying everything it touches. The quake subsides and you think it's past when it rivets back on the pendulum and slams into you again.
Through time the span widens, the time between impact broader.
If you know anything about physics or the laws of gravity, though, you can guess what that extra time does to the momentum and point of impact.
*SLAM*
*CRASH*
*CRUMBLE*
Where the hell did that come from? How long has the grief been suspended in space, so that when it hit it debilitated me?
Two days ago I found myself gasping for air. The thought of Colton slammed into me, knocking me from my precarious perch of sanity and mobility through life. I spiraled down a dark, all too familiar path of despair.
Last night I lay there, at the bottom of that pit. I laid there, my arms wrapped tightly around a stuffed monkey that protects the sound of my sons heartbeat, and covered in the only blanket to ever touch and protect my sons skin. Desperately begging it to protect and comfort me.
I sobbed myself to sleep. Engrossed and devoured by the horrific reality ... my son died.
Some days it doesn't seem real. It feels like a story someone told me. Something make believe from someone else's book of life. A bad dream. A fallacy of my memories.
When the memories crash into me I sucomb and drown in the pain of the reality. Acknowledging I didn't feel him, no heartbeat on the dopler, no movement on the ultrasound, no waves of boom-boom, boom-boom....
Silence.
Yet that wail...? That primal deep wail of excrutiating pain and overwhelming grief....
Holy shit, that's me...
Shhhhhhhh .... No one can hear! What if you scare someone else? Make them uncomfortable?
Silence came with a price. I silenced my screams in that moment to spare everyone around me. Not realizing that was the first time of many. Not realizing silence meant death for me, too.
I lie to everyone daily, including myself. I walk around like a whole person, with a whole life, with a whole heart. I am a shell. I am what was left after that primal scream ended and the silence began. Just like the ultrasound, just like my sons heart. Silent and dead.
Jenn, I get it. I feel that way not as much as before but for me its like the oceans' waves. Sometimes gentle and comforting, sometimes knocking me off my feet and leaving me under water to drown. Cullen would be 12 years old in May and I feel a storm brewing inside of me. Leah
ReplyDeleteJenn, I am so sorry you have to deal with this so often by yourself. I am not going to say I understand - because there is no way I could fathom what you've had to endure. But I DO love you, I DO feel the pain and loss of Colton not being here with us, and I DO have deep empathy for you and what you've gone through. I am ALWAYS here for you, you can call ANY time if you need someone to talk to. Don't worry about "who can hear you" or the grief you may be expressing. He is missed every single day. He will be loved for eternity. I often think of him and send you hugs by osmosis. I'm only one person, and I'd be a fool to think I could make any of it just a nano second better?. Easier? No. Just life on earth without him - livable. Bearable. But I will always try. ~Mary~
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