Some of you may have noticed that I've been silent lately. It would be fair to say that I've been, for the most part, stunned silent. It's been well over six-weeks since my nephew died and I'm still unable to begin processing my grief. It's not that I can't handle grief, goodness knows that I can certainly handle grief, it's that I'm afraid to fall too deeply in to that pit of sadness and hurt during what should be - what needs to be - a happy and joyful time in my life.
I know that sounds selfish, but it's not even only for my own sake that I refuse to address my pain. It's for the sake of my children, the one I hold and the one I'm still carrying. For being such a young child, my son has witnessed far too much of my grief and I don't want his mind to somehow connect my pregnancy to my tears and despair because I don't want him to somehow think it's his little brother's fault that Mama is so sad. . .so sad yet again. I don't want my unborn son to be negatively impacted by my own mental state. I know that I don't care for myself adequately when I'm down there and that means that he won't be adequately nourished either. That's not even addressing whether or not a fetus suffers developmentally based upon the mother's depression or stress hormone levels. Without a doubt, my boys would suffer if I allowed myself to delve into the aching depths of human sadness.
Of course, it isn't all selflessness. This baby in my womb only came after two solid years of trying every month, after losing one precious babe, after subjecting myself to hormone treatments that made for an unbelievably stressful first half of pregnancy. After two years of bitter disappointment each month, I want to experience all the joy I possibly can. Is it wrong that I want to try to enjoy what will most likely be my final pregnancy? If it is, then I guess I'm wrong.
I simply can't wrap my head around a 17-year old kid dying from a heart attack. I just can't. It's like something you read about and feel sorry for the family who was impacted by such a fluke occurrence. Only it's not some random anonymous family. It's my family. It's my family who has been hurt by yet another unnaturally natural death. It's such a bizarre and unthinkable thing that I don't know whether to laugh, cry, scream, pull at my hair, or some mixture of all responses.
So how am I handling my grief? I'm not. I push it back down whenever it comes up and I generally pretend that it does not exist. Is this healthy? No, not by a long shot. Is this the most sensible way I can handle it at the moment? Yes. I know the time is coming where my grief will begin to manifest itself in other ways and I'm already having difficulty pushing it from my mind when it comes to me, but thus far only the silence of midnight's moon has been the witness to my weeping so I'm thankful my son has been spared. It's a scene that he's seen before, but I know it frightens him and he's seen it altogether too often.
Why do I cry in the night? Why else? It's when I say my prayers and I can't help but cry when I pray for my nieces and nephews. Most nights I automatically put his name in there, my mind still unable to accept that he no longer has need for any of my prayers, and that's when it hits me the hardest. I begin to play the highlight reel - tears always come when I think of him joking and clowning around - and I have to muffle my cries in my pillow and begin praying that sleep comes mercifully soon.
Perhaps I'd be well on the road to healing if I'd been able to attend his funeral? I don't know and it doesn't matter since I was unable to attend. My mother fell and broke her hip just days after his death (she only just returned home), I wasn't keen to leave my little boy because it really messed with his head when I did so to attend my brother's service last year, and my OB wasn't wild about the notion of me traveling 3,000 miles away when I was still having bleeding episodes in this pregnancy. So I didn't go. I wish on some level that I had, but my parents and my children needed me to stay here and I did.
I don't know that I will be able to continue blogging, but I will make an effort. Though I have always been brutally honest in this blog, I won't be able to address these emotions because they need to stay bottled up for the time being. The way I see it, I probably have plenty to write about without participating in a bit of free therapy. So I'm back. . .maybe.
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