Sleep eludes me. I am always aware. I hear everything. I never stop my thoughts. Time to get up, Harlen has left with Giles earlier for a bull haul. The other 4 need to get up get moving, but the bed, so warm, so safe, so quiet. Alone, alone in my thoughts until the 'Why' hits again, or how my life eroded to this?
Now the bed is not as inviting, the quiet is suffocating. Up and ready as we head down that road, not once but twice because True forgot something too important to leave behind. It is like an invisible barrier, a reminder of what I have done, what I have done to them, how I have changed their life. I can never change it back. It will never be the same.
Wait who is in front of us? The air is pressed from my lungs, the jealousy, the remorse, the longing. That is right, he would be driving now. He would be taking the kids to school. I would be home in my soft bed. It is his best friend and look there passes another one, all driving, all dating, all having their hearts touched or broke for the first time, but not him. He will never have any of those things. He is gone and we are just left with pictures and worn out shoes, under our laundry sinks, that we still can't put away, but he is not coming home, not today, not ever. Why am I here again. Once was enough, twice is not working. I am not enduring. I am crumbling. I am slowly dying. The pain is excruciating. Can a heart really survive this?
And yet as you pass me, there is a smile, a post about an 'A' on an essay. All of these things are empty, they mean nothing. Lea she hugs me, trying to say mom I am here, I love you. Somehow we will make it, but will we? The walls are so thick, so tall, will they ever come down? Leave me alone, but don't leave me. Call, I won't answer but I know you tried. I want to run but there is no place that will take me, so I just stay and watch as if I am a spectator, seeing, touching, hearing, tasting but it is just there, nothing impresses but I am a good pretender, actress. If you don't look to close, you will never know the difference.........
4 comments:
I tru;y wish that there was some way to say all the right things and to lift this heaviness. I truly think of you often and wish there was something that I could say that wouldn't sound stupid or that would truly make a difference. We truly care about you and want to see you happy again. Just thought I would share since I don't get to interact with you much anymore. We love and care for you and your family very much!
Schulthies Family
thank you for sharing, we are not a family memeber trying to be nice and say the right thing, we are not a well meaning friend over coffee, we are strangers who hear your pain and a grateful that you are in our lives...sometimes it can get lonely inside those walls and reading your blog helps each day...just to know there is someone else inside the walls of pain...love from down under x
I saw your post on another blog about miracles. It's all just a hard thing all around, and I wish I had some advice or insights, but I'm asking many of the same questions you ask and really don't have any good answers. I don't know that it will ever get better. I really don't know. It's been more than two years now since Bridget died, and more than eight since Dominic died, and I don't feel better at all. It still hurts. It's still heavy. I see children the age they should be all the time and think things similar to what you've shared. I also desire the outreach of people, even if I don't have the strength to respond.
It's all part of this. It's just unbearable, and yet somehow if we are still suffering isn't that evidence we are also in someway enduring? I don't know if it qualifies as enduring "well" but it is all I know how to do.
One thought that has gone through my mind over and over the last couple of days, when the holidays make it just so hard, is the story about the two women who each had an infant and one infant died. They go to King Solomon to settle who is to have the living child. The mother whose child dies goes along with the suggestion of cutting the living child in half (which would result in the living child's death), while the mother whose infant IS alive begs that the other mother be allowed to take the child to spare the child of the same fate the other child had had.
There is a lot to be learned. But I think the thoughts I am having focus on a couple of things. The mother whose child dies is just truly irrational. I don't think she is thinking clearly. Some might think of her as cruel or heartless, but I just think it is representative of what grief does to you-- mess with your mind so you don't see things through always. I just think her response was out of desperation, not *all* out of jealousy. The mother of the living child just really doesn't understand at all, but she understands enough to not want her own child to have to go through that.
Well, I think of myself as both mothers. I am a mother of two children who died. I'm irrational and overwhelmed and desperately hurting. But I am a mother of six living children. That mother in me is desperate to keep them alive! But if I let the mother of the children who died have her way, she will sacrifice those living children to satisfy the irrational, difficult feelings the grieving mother has. And that just cannot be!
Holidays are especially hard. These little ones who are still alive still want to have the excitement and fun of it all, and yet the grieving part of me... well, I think I am just trying to be the mother that fights in whatever way I can to let the living children have a life to live.
I can't change that Dominic and Bridget died, and really I can't change how profoundly their deaths have impacted me emotionally, spiritually, physically.... in so many ways, you can understand. I miss them! I ache for them! I always feel a sense of guilt that I am responsible for their deaths, especially Bridget's because I should have definitely known better to have done more for her. It is just so terrible to have to go through this!
Last night my girls picked "The Secret Garden" to watch. I'd never watched it, and I don't remember reading the book. I had no idea the plot. There is a mother who dies in child birth, and the father fearing he could not bear more pain refuses to love the child who is born because he expects him to die also. This little boy lives a decade before in the end, his father realizes that he has a son who he can love. It is a process. Grief is just something we have to cope through, work through. And yet, I think of that little boy and then think of my living children. How I panic so much about them dying, too, and in some ways hold back because I cannot bear to love them just to lose them. This doesn't mean I don't love them, but I certainly am more cautious and also am just working through grief.
I have a way of rambling. I'm sorry.
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