25 months

25 months today.

i'm still using "months" instead of years.

i say 25 months because i try to trick my brain into believing it hasn't been over 2 years.

2 years and 1 month seems painful, unbearable.

over 2 years is awful!  

2 years without holding my son is incomprehensible.

25 months.

i say it to try and trick my brain......but my heart already knows.

my heart is the timekeeper that won't let me forget.

my heart counts every second, every hour without him and then multiplies it by thousands.

2 years?  25 months?  an eternity??

to my heart, they're all the same.

someone recently said to me, "Grieving for this long isn't exactly a good idea". 

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oh.

i see.

{????????????}

does grief go away?

is grief something you "just do" and then when all the criteria are met, it just "goes away"??

will grief suddenly just up and leave one day when it feels like i've cried enough tears, looked through his pictures enough, smelled his blankets and clothes just the right amount of times...??  will it leave when i've visited the cemetery enough or told the story of his life and death a certain number of times???  is there some date on the calendar that i should have had circled, knowing that it was the day that grief and i would part ways??

does grief go away?

NO. 

 no!

no..

grief doesn't just go away.

 at least not for me.  not for my heart, my brain.

grief isn't something i'm going to "do for a while"....grief just is.

grief is a part of me now.

grief changes, it ebbs and flows with time.

at first, grief was numbness.  

an inherent body-wide numbness that served as armor to protect me in the hours/days/weeks after my sweet boy died. this numbness was crucial for my survival at those times, for i know that my mother's heart could not have born the reality of my child's death without the sweet mask of numbness that surrounded it.  the body's ability to preserve and protect itself is a wondrous thing.

when the numbness wore off, grief quickly and abruptly turned into raw horror.

fits of crying, sobbing..... the gut-wrenching wails that were released from my throat were almost inhuman.  these sounds could not be coming from me------except that they were.

the horror of waking up each morning, and remembering all over again that my son is gone.  he's dead.  he's not in the next room over, waiting for mommy to come suction him.  he's gone, i buried him, remember??  i don't hear him because he's not there!  i won't ever get to hold him or smell him or touch is sweet face again....because he's gone!! 

the rawness of grief slowly and quietly turns into something less harsh, more familiar.

there is a tenderness now where the rawness used to be.  like a painful bruise, tender to the touch.  certain smells, sounds, songs on the radio, or even a flash of a memory i can't quite capture: these all bump into grief's tenderness and the tears will flow.  walking down the aisle of a grocery store, i'll catch the glimpse of a little boy's blue eyes and have to quickly walk myself out to the parking lot so i can break down in the comfort of my own van.  in the van, i'll turn back and see his carseat sill in the same spot it was 25 months ago and the rawness of my grief will come raging through again.

grief doesn't have rules or a handbook to follow.

there's no rhyme or reason to the things i feel most days.

some days grief is like a gentle friend, one that stays with me, silent and still, not wanting to draw attention to itself, but still nudging me to make sure i know it's there. 

 other days grief grabs hold of me and won't let go.  it sits on my chest and clenches my throat so hard i can't breathe.  i can't remember how to breathe because grief has taken hold of my mind and my heart and the only thing i can possibly think of is how much i miss him and want him back!  i just want him to come back and i can't breathe because i can't think!  i can't understand how he's not with me; why isn't he here in my arms and why can't i breathe??!!

grief is in me.

it is me.

i understand and fully accept that grief will always be a part of me.

i am not under the false impression that grief is something i'll check off a list and be done with.

my word, i wouldn't even want that!

grief is with me because my son is not.

i am a mother who lost one of her children and i will never "get over it".

nor would i want to.

i miss him because i love him.

i grieve because he died and he was my soul mate.

 grief continues because i am continuing.

it is my job now to figure out how grief and i can coexist.  i won't push it away, but will try everything in my power to balance the rawness with the tender grief.  i will understand and let myself crumble on the days where i can't contain it.  i'll move forward with the knowledge that grief isn't a terrible thing, no matter what anyone's opinion is.

there is no timeline for grief.

grief is different for everyone.

my grief is unique to me.

it is mine.

i am doing my best.

two years and one month ago my son died.

it's been a hard 25 months, but i am still here.

bear with me.

<3

transformation

So, here's the thing.

my son died 2 years ago.

2 years ago he died and i was left here, without him.....lost and broken, for the most part.

i've been lost.

i still am.

i came home without him and life kept moving forward...i had no choice but to shuffle along with it.

i made myself put one foot in front of the other; sometimes i didn't.

some days i laid on the floor and refused to acknowledge any of it.

some days i still do that.

most days that's all i can do, or all i want to do.

to the outside world, to those who know nothing about me or my life.....it must appear that i'm an ordinary person.  a mother of one child, a beautiful girl, who they see me with.  a single mom who is trying to better herself, to find a career.

i'm sure people at school see me, on campus, and assume that i'm just another student.

a stressed out, overly anxious college student just like everyone else.  (well, maybe more stressed and anxious than most..)

 i laugh.

i smile.

i'm still as sarcastic as ever.

to the outside world, i'm just an everyday girl.

the thing is, on the inside.....inside my world, my head, my life.....there's so much more going on.

so much more of everything.

so much more. 

i may appear to be "moving on".....and i am...i mean, in some respects i am.

i'm going to school, i'm searching for a way to better myself and Aubrey's lives.

i'm living....each day i'm breathing and waking up and putting one foot in front of the other.

i'm trying.

i've been trying.

but then there are some things i haven't been able to do.

there are things that i've tried to do and haven't been able to do just yet.

this week i did one of those things.

let me explain..

 during my beautiful boy's life, he was either in my arms or right beside me on the floor of the living room.  when i wasn't holding him, he was laying on the floor, right beside me in a makeshift bed that was permanently assembled right in the middle of the living room floor.

almost every picture i have of him was taken with him safe in my arms or lying on this "bed"...

it was a permanent fixture in our house, like a worn piece of furniture.

when he died, when i came home from the hospital without my baby boy, the first place i went to was to his bed....his spot.  i laid there and wished he was here instead of these stupid blankets and pillows.  i wanted him to be there and yet all i had was the empty space where his beautiful body used to lay.

every day for weeks i would lay there and try to see if i could still smell him....i just wanted to smell him one more time, for my arms to stop feeling so empty and for the memories to stay fresh and not fade away.

when my sweet girl couldn't be consoled, when she was too sad to express anything other than tears for her little brother's death, this was where she came for comfort.

she held her baby brother here.

she played with him and gave him kisses here.

he was her prince and she was the princess, here in this very spot.

this was his spot.

well, it was all of ours really.

i thought i would move it, his bed.

i thought, after the funeral, I'll move it.

but i didn't.

i would clean the room and move it to vacuum.

maybe this time i won't put it back...maybe this time i'll actually move it.

but i never would.

when the one year mark of his death was approaching...

i'll move it then, on the 23rd.  on the one year anniversary of his death, i'll surely move it.

but i couldn't.

Aubrey would ask me, "when are we going to move Connie's bed?"

honestly, i didn't know.

i couldn't tell her because i didn't know.

i got rid of the pillows surrounding it, made it smaller, in a way.

but i still couldn't remove it completely.

his bed stayed, in the middle of the living room floor.

i would put my school books on it, studied on the floor next to it.

i still sit on the floor 90% of the time.

i never sat on the couch when my son was here because i needed to be near him.  he needed me there.

there are things i still can't do, or haven't been able to do yet.

his meds are still in the fridge, untouched and unmoved.

his carseat is still in the van.

the hangtag still hangs.... almost 2 years expired.

his coats still hang on the coat rack downstairs.

i haven't been able to bring myself to go through his room.

his drawers remain untouched, clothes hanging out the way they were weeks before he died.

i go in there every so often to try and catch a hint of his scent...but i never can, i never do.

these are things i still can't do.

these are things that no one in the outside world would ever know about me, just by looking.

i started telling Aubrey we'd move his bed in the living room "maybe when we get new floors".

i told her this, thinking it wouldn't ever really happen.

not soon, at least.

my dad came out for Christmas this year and sped up this reality.

i knew he was coming and i knew he planned to redo my living room floors.

i knew this.

but i still didn't really think it would happen.

here's the thing with me.

i feel like i'm a semi-intelligent being.

intellectually, i know that not moving his bed won't bring him back.

i know that moving it won't erase his memory or mean that i will forget him.

intellectually, i know all of this.

but sometimes i feel like my heart is a complete moron.

my heart is the one who tells me that keeping his bed means i don't have to acknowledge that he's really gone.

it's my heart that makes me believe that moving it means i'm betraying him in some way....i'm moving on and moving on means i'll surely forget everything i ever knew.

 i don't want to forget anything about my son!

i'm stuck, in that way.

it's the inside parts of me that don't want to let go of anything he touched, anything that reminds me of him and the life i knew and loved.

it's the inside parts of me that are terrified to let go!

a week ago, my dad was here and i moved his bed.

i moved his bed because the carpet and floor underneath it were ripped up to make way for new flooring.

i moved it because i had to, i just had to.

it was terrifying for me.

change.

transformation.

making room for new things that my son will never have touched, will never be a part of.

i moved it and it was hard.

i didn't think i could.

i surely wasn't ready.

i don't think i would have ever been ready.

i moved it and i thought the lack of it would consume me....i was afraid i'd run and move it right back the second my dad left.

i didn't.

i won't.

it's different now.

transformed.

my dad and brother in law put in the new floors and i am learning a new way to live without it.

it's okay.

the floor is different and it's okay.

his bed is not here and i'm okay.

i miss him and wish he was here instead of new floors, but i have to learn to be okay.

i am learning, i am trying.

i'm still petrified that i'll forget everything, that it will be as if it never even happened..

it's such an empty feeling for me to realize that anyone i ever meet from now on will never have known him, my son.  i fear that no one will ever really know me because they won't know him.

these are my fears.

i have a lot of them.

i am transforming, no matter how hard i resist or how many times i try and fail.

my son is part of me, no matter how much i change or grow.

remind me of this, when the fears get too loud......yes?

<3