Lost in Time

I don't know how I'm doing lately. I feel weird. I have felt different the past week or two and I don't know why. I can't say that I feel good, but I do feel that this roller coaster ride is about to dip. Soon. I haven't shed many tears lately. That is odd. I feel like they are close, but they are not falling right now. I don't feel any peace. I don't feel normal. As usual, I feel like the facade I am displaying is very believable. But it's completely fake. I don't know if I feel numb. I don't think about Chase any less. I think of him all day long, when I fall asleep at night, when I wake up in the morning and a thousand times in between. I still miss him...but some days it feels so unreal. Like, did it really happen? It feels like yesterday, but yet so long ago. It's so hard to explain.

I don't know why I feel this way. It is unsettling. I doubt so many things about myself....am I good mother? A good wife? A good homemaker? A good ANYthing? I can take compliments, but I don't believe them. Not at all. I have no confidence in me right now, or who I am. I don't even know that person. Sometimes it feels like the old me almost, but I know that person died with Chase, so it can't be. I'm confused. I'm lost..... Hoping the dip in this ride comes and goes quickly....just waiting.

Dry Eyes

I had gone probably 4 or 5 days without shedding a tear and it was not because Chase was on my mind any less. And it wasn't like tears were not appropriate in the kind of week I had. But despite their being just below the surface, even welling up in my eyes, I was unable to cry...to let go and let the tears fall. It was really odd to me but I think I was dealing with things that I was simply too exhausted to cry about this week. We picked out our stone for Chase, but it was I who met with the funeral home guy (what's his job title?). He came over twice and, being a small town, he is very easy to talk to. In fact, I think in this town, in his line of work, he makes it a point to "talk" to his customers if that is something they so desire. There are times when I do think I need to talk to someone, but it's so hit or miss when I want this that it has never been worth my while to check into it. But it did help, a little bit, to talk to this man and share with him some of the difficulties I was having with my grief. It's also about "sharing my story" in this small town so that people know what happened, what happened to me and what precisely we are dealing with besides the loss of our child. But I never cried. I got cold and shivered like I always do when I talk about it, but I had no tears to share with this man.

I had some deep conversations with Emma about Chase this week. The kids go to a counselor and I talked to her about how that was going and we decided that it was time to end this. She feels much more comfortable talking to us about Chase than the counselor because the counselor doesn't know what she's going through. I understand. I feel her pain. I see her pain. I hurt because she hurts. But I shed no tears.

Patric has been working extremely hard and been away from us alot for the last week. All I want is to be alone with him. I want to be able to talk without distraction and since I stay home and our business is out of the home in his opinion, we have all the time in the world any couple would want together. But he is my everything. Besides the kids, who are my best buddies in the world, he is who I confide in, socialize with, share ideas with, dream with, grieve with and love with. And when we are not on the same page, things just don't feel right. I raise all these questions in my head and my imagination runs wild. Out of hand, as he would say. I had just ensured "the funeral home guy" that we were cemented to each other...stronger than we ever have been together. And then we have an argument and suddenly I don't know what page he is on, what chapter he is in or if he's even reading the same book. Fortunately, though, we are cemented. We are united. And we can talk (eventually). And then just like that, we're back on the same page again. We're on the same team. The one that has had some rough games, but the one that wins. Somehow. Because we have what it takes. And for that I am thankful. I need him to get through this. I need him to keep living this life we live with all the pain and sadness and the love and happiness, that is still to be had. I have changed, just as he has, and I no longer have the outlets I used to have to share my pain. It only makes sense that when you change, you have to start over with everything else, too. The five of us are different. And only we know who we are now. My adult relationships have changed....I have begun starting over that aspect of my life, as well. What I seek from adults is far less than what I used to. I have started new relationships, to replace the old. Or just left emptiness where there used to be something I needed. What I need is in front of me, in my reach. We lean on each other and we get through those hard days. And then we cry together, when the tears start falling again.

For what he is

I had a mother of all roller coaster days today. I had lunch with some great ladies and just by chance the conversation turned to my pictures of Chase. I happened to mention as we headed out the door to our cars that the nurse who was in the operating room for my surgery had taken some pictures of Chase soon after he was born (because our camera was no where to be found) and had supposedly emailed them Patric but we had never seen them. And her phone had gotten stolen by the time I asked for them so apparently there were some phantom pictures of Chase out in cyber space that no one has ever seen that I will never get. My friend immediately speaks up and says, "I think we have them." I have been thinking/searching for these pictures since April to no avail. It's an ever longer story how she ended up with them so just know that I was hit with one of those tidal waves of grief. I was so hopeful that she might have them, but prepared that she wouldn't. I wanted to see them so badly. The earliest images of my newborn son, captured in time. Before I had even got home, she had already texted me that she sent them to my email address. I don't know why, but as I drove home, I felt like I was going to get to see my baby for the first time again. That's what it felt like. But I knew that I didn't really have him. But it was still a sense of anticipation like I was about to get something that I wanted for a real long time, but I would never get what I really wanted.

So all those emotions come back to me. How perfect he looked. How chubby his legs were. My, his nose looks big! How could he have died? He looks too healthy. How could this have happened? Anger rages within the depths of every cell in my body. Pain fills my heart, my head, my gut. He just needed his mama to hold him, it feels like. It hurts so incredibly bad. This wave is way over my head. I'd been keeping my head above the water up until this point.

I struggle with many things. As time keeps on, there's a part of him that feels like is slipping away. Because I know he is no longer a newborn; now he is 8 months old. And I don't know what that looks like on Chase. In these pictures I know he was going to have his own look. I can't imagine what he would look like at 8 months. I can only see him as he looked days old. And I feel like this is jading me. I don't know what I am supposed to think of him like? I read many different ways people imagine a lost child. And I feel that everyone has their own opinion and own belief. But the problem is, I don't know what I believe. And I feel like it is getting in the way. I can't think of my baby the way I want to because I don't have an image. Or the only image I have is frozen in time the day after he was born and is that what he is looks like in heaven? I had read in a book that he will look age appropriate and I will recognize him when I see him in heaven so that was what I was trying to do....imagine him growing up. But I can't. I don't have a picture in my head of that because I never saw it with my eyes to transfer it to my brain. I need something tangible. Or I need to freeze him in time.

Moreso, I need to think of him for what he is. Not what he is not. He is my baby boy, perfect in every way, with a head full of hair, perfect nose, chubby legs and 10 perfect fingers and toes. And he lived with us for three days. He loved us and we loved him, more than anything in this world. He knows that and so do we. He taught us things that we never knew. And we taught him what a family can be and is. That is what Chase is to me. And always will be. No more struggling to conjure up an image of what he must look like to all those who are up there in heaven with him. No more struggling to grasp how he would look as an 8-month-old baby if he were here with me. I have my photos to remember him by and that is how it will remain for me. Frozen in time.

Lost

I haven't felt like blogging lately. I think it's because I am either preoccupied....or just plain numb. I feel emotionless often...when I see babies and things to do with babies (which is almost everything). Chase does not consume my thoughts to the degree that he once had. I hate that. I hate that more than anything. I have said before that I control my thoughts. Consciously, I do. But I find myself not so continuously haunted by him...unless I specifically try to "go there." I don't automatically think of our traumatic night everytime I drive by the hospital anymore. Then there are times I look at that building and my stomach turns inside out. I force myself to think about the two miracles that took place there when I brought home Reese and Karly. Because to think about the chaos that occured when Chase was born, it sucks the wind out of me. Nausea sets in. Again. So I do still control my thoughts. And because I don't allow myself to focus on all the horrible things that happen, I find myself not so consumed.

But I want to be consumed. I don't ever want to forget him. I don't ever want to try to remember him. I want him there, in my thoughts. Always. I want him behind my eyelids. I want him in my breaths. I want him everywhere and I don't want that feeling to ever go away.

I fear more than ever that it is going away, though. I wake up now and try to remember if I was thinking about him before I fell asleep. I feel bad still, for smiling and laughing. Because I have so much to grieve yet.

...

I watched Taylor Swift win Entertainer of the Year last night and though impressed by her accomplishments, I wonder when she will find herself changing. She graciously accepted her award and said something to the effect, "everything that I have ever wanted in my life just happened." I wish we all had the chance to say that just one time in our lives. She is merely 19 and got her turn. But is that really everything? We know it is not. And at 37, I have never wished for my turn more than now.