The Nursery

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

There comes a time where you logically know that you have to let go of some things. That there is so much that has changed in a short period of time. In February my entire life changed in a huge way, my husband and I separated, we were separated still when Dominic had passed away. I had put the nursery together by myself, piece by piece I created a room that was just my room with my son. It is strange to think that he so rarely spent much time in there, but still it is a pulse of him.

Since everything happened, Frank and I have been mostly impossible to separate since Dominic passed. We use each other to keep ourselves strong, when one of us falters, the other helps us back up. It's strange to think that something so tragic could bring two people so closely back together, but no one else in the world understands what we are going through. Even people who have lost a child will tell you they understand, but no one grieves like you because you were the only ones to have that child. 

Naturally, the course of time we have decided to merge our households back together. It is a survival tactic. But, what that means is that now... we have to do what we think would be impossible: we do not have the room for all three boys to be in one bedroom anymore. They have to be spread out between two rooms.... Dominic's room.

We put it off for the last two months, half the time the door was closed or one of us would go in to bask in the smell of our child who you could still feel in the room. But, it has to go... the nursery has to go. 

So, we started doing it. Jordin helped Frank take down the crib, I started pulling clothes out of dressers. I put aside one tote, it is the only thing I am allowing myself to keep. I put in a couple onesies, a few blankets that were specifically his, odds and ends that meant something to Frank and I. Once it was done, I piled his stuff that we didn't need, messaged Frank's cousin to come get things from us, she just had a little boy, so it is a perfect resource to give them to. It was after that, once I stopped moving and stopped focusing on the next step it all hit me.

I sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by parts of the crib that meant so much to me to have for him. I had finally done it right... the way I wanted to do it from the start. A nursery, a rocking chair, an organized room with all the cute baskets and the clothes bin that matched. It all was still there like it had been to begin with. I sat there, on the blue carpet I started to stare at.

Where had I gone wrong? I certainly loved him. I made sure he was happy, whole, healthy. Did that not count for me? What did I do to deserve this pain? Surrounded by things that represented my attempt to make sure he had the closest to a perfect life I could provide, I broke down. It has been quite a while since I had a real break down. Even the week before when there was a newborn in the office, I had held it together.

It becomes more real when you have to take a part what you built. Much like growing him, I had created this home too. It all washed over me, the grief that I keep forgetting will pounce on me in what feels like my weakest moments. 

Frank found me... weeping in my sorrow and longing for the child I can never hold again. He didn't say anything. He sat with me and held my hand as I cried both silently and noisily at once. He had just finished fixing the washer, that had been messing up and not draining properly. From his pocket he pulled a wet baby washcloth and laid it on the floor between us. It's when I started to laugh while crying. Here was another reminder, another sign that he had been here and now he was gone. Then I realized... these things aren't my son. I did everything I could, as did Frank, to give him the best we knew how... and in the short time he was here, we certainly did.

We both picked ourselves up, he went to finishing dinner, I finished packing up stuff. We decided on what to keep, what to let go of. What are clothes? Nothing. They don't represent our son. The crib we will put in storage for now. The boys will love having their extended space... it isn't a stab at the memory, it is just moving forward. And at some point, we have to move forward, at least a little. 

It is okay that I miss my son. It is okay to have moments that I feel the weight of that loss. This is a healthy grief. I let myself have it... I pull myself up. That's what this is all about, at least in my mind. We moved on with laughing boys, joking and working through the ache which never seems to go away, it is just duller sometimes. Like a toothache that you are putting off because maybe you don't really need the dentist. 

The nursery isn't my son... it's time to let it be. Time to embrace the living and by living, we honor Dominic.

My Relationship with God

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away." Revelation 21:4

I was born into a home with a mother who was Lutheran, a father who was slightly atheist, a grandfather who was Methodist. So to say I started my life out with a mixed bag of tricks would be fair. I remember my relationship with God being on of diversity, especially the first time I went to church with my grandmother in the U.P. That was an entirely different flavor, it is however when I fell in love with Latin.

I never identified as any particular religion, I just liked to listen to the theories that someone would tell me... then I would go on to the next. This relationship with God continued through college, when I learned to question the existence of God and what that existence meant to me.

It was in my Philosophy class when I looked up for the first time across the classroom and asked someone during a debate to prove to me that God existed. The debate took a turn I do not think the professor expected as I listed to people wage war against my questioning of their beliefs. He, however, gave me an A in the class when my response to them was this: "It does not matter to me if God exists or if He or She does not exist, I can never know the answer so therefore it does not matter." He had dubbed me Classroom Buddha, though he only called me it privately with a chuckle.

It was one of my customers at a local place I used to be a server at who got to learn of my darker side of religion. See, people feel so deeply that it becomes both a weapon and a tool. I was listening to a customer, who is a professed born again Christian who used to be a street walker (interesting phrasing there I remember quirking a brow at), who was telling another customer that Harry Potter was witchcraft and anyone who read it was going to Hell. I listened to her politely and continued to be neutral until she took my wrist. For those who didn't know me then or don't know me face to face now... I don't care to be touched by people I don't know or don't trust. So there this woman was, looking up at me and she asked a question which still echos in my brain today: "You are a good Christian Girl, aren't you?" Was I? Am I? It took me a moment of hesitation to finally respond: "It depends on your definition ma'am, I was raised Methodist, my father is Atheist, and my mother was Lutheran before we started going to a Methodist church. One of my closest friends is Jehovah Witness. I've studied a large amount of religions and decided I'm agnostic." She released me with a disgusted look on her face, saying in a tone: "Well I feel bad for your family, you're all going to Hell." I shrugged and while I was walking away added, "I read Harry Potter anyways, damned if you do and damned if you don't."  She never let me wait on her again.

It was a "man friend" of my mother's who I offended with my aloofness. He was what you would call a leader amongst his fellowship, he specifically was a Youth Leader for the teens amongst this group. Now, I'm an educated woman, I've read literature that others wouldn't bother with... I've read the bible... several different versions for curiosity, and while I can't spout out the passages and the paragraphs in context, I do understand the difference between our modern interpretations and King James Version.

Much like the woman I had offended before, he asked me: "Do you believe you are going to heaven?" I probably looked at him as if he had grown another head, but I answered still, "Yes. I believe I will go to heaven." I'm sure he thought he was doing some good thing by saying to me, "How do you know?"

I immediately felt my tension rise and considered his question. He didn't ask me what God meant to me, he didn't ask me my views, he was asking me what I thought my ticket to heaven was. So, I answered as truthfully as I could, "I wake up every day and try to be the best human being I can. I do no harm, I attempt not to judge, and I try to simply lead my life so if I were to have to answer for it, I can feel assured that I made the choices that were best for me."

Of course... this answer is wrong. And he vividly told me so, followed by a lot of reasons (I wasn't really listening) that unless I went to church and prayed for forgiveness, I was going to Hell. Frankly, my answer to him was colorful... I will not repeat it for the sake of my mother, but needless to say, he never talked to me or saw me again. I'm glad she's found someone else anyways... I didn't like him much.

And so my relationship to God comes full circle to my current situation. The Pastor who lead the memorial for Dominic was a comfort in his new age way of leading... he understood that what Frank and I are going through, a mother and a father losing their child so young or at all, is painful. He prayed to God with us to help people find the words to say to us or not at all... that we would be spared the difficult conversations.

The truth is... I don't believe God cares, per say, for our loss. I think two people in a world of sorrow and hate is too drowned out by the sounds. But today on a friend's Facebook, said the following status:

"If you need a prayer today. This very moment. Step out on Faith. Message me and I will pray with you today. If you NEED God's ear, for Him to listen and to MOVE in your life today. Message me. Today a window is open, there is no coincidence, stand under it before it closes."

Something about that status moved me... in both anger and relief. To the status I messaged him this:

"In this moment, I pray that God help me find the path to heal with the least amount of pain through it. That He hold my son as his own and keep him close as I cannot. Let my struggle be temporary and grant me forgiveness for my anger... I cannot understand, but I strive to move forward still. Amen."

I believe there is a higher power, by whatever name you choose to call It, that is there... that there is a heaven and there is a hell. I choose to believe that we might have multiple lives, depending on the circumstances before, that we get a chance as souls to try again. I believe that we all serve a purpose, though few will ever come to truly know what it is.

I do not believe my son's death was an act of God. I do not believe the things people say: "Everything happens for a reason"; "Heaven needed him more than we did."; "God has a plan."; "Perhaps something good will happen, God knows what he does." If you are one of the million people to say this to me, take no offense when I say... You need to stop. Please, do not put this tragedy in God's hands. If God took my son because he felt he was needed more than I did than I hate God like one could not fathom at the moment.

I am angry with God... especially when I see the careless tossing of life all over. Refugees fleeing countries, their children dead before their eyes. The crack-head mother who takes her children to a crack-house but CPS tells the concerned father "but at least she admitted it happened to us.... at least she can get help." My son his gone... other's spit on life while I would do anything for my son back in my arms. I am angry with God.

I think God understands. I think God is large enough that He can hold that weight upon his shoulders, where humanity cannot. I think God takes comfort in my mourning, it means the gift of Dominic he gave me was worth something, it mattered. There was a song that Frank picked out at the memorial I think was perfect, it spoke of he hope a mother had to see her child again. To hold him again. That there was a place God had made for them to be together again.

I still wake up every day and try to do right by humanity. I wake up every day a little stronger or a little weaker depending on what had happened in that day. I mourn loudly... I mourn quietly. I remember my son as I sing in the car, as I walk into my day to day, I remember everything.

I think back to that moment when they took him from my body. They had told me that I shouldn't be afraid... that he might not cry right away. My son, my beautiful son, he screamed before they even had him out. The sound was so beautiful to a mother... they laid him beside me while they worked to make sure I was okay. It was the only time he got quiet. I felt my soul move... to change so that my world tilted on axis and now, this little baby was mine, and I his.

My soul is missing a piece of it. I will never get it back. It isn't some kind of dream I can shake off. It's not something you can fix. It's not something you can see or touch. Everything seems a little duller now, and sharper other places. A piece of my soul has left, and I miss it so, I'm angry with God. I'm angry with people. I'm angry with myself. I'm angry with the silence in the room. I'm angry with the noise that won't go away. I'm angry. I'm entitled to it.

My relationship with God has always been an odd one. I hope He knows when he created me, he truly did create me in his image. This too I can endure, I know I can. I am thankful that God has given me the grace to stand tall even though I feel weak, to speak though I wish to whisper, to live even if I wish to stop, to reflect though I have lost.

Thinking in Circles

"If a mother is mourning not for what she has lost but for what her dead child has lost, it is a comfort to believe that the child has not lost the end for which it was created." ~ C.S. Lewis

 
There have been things that have occurred to me in the last couple days that I found odd at first. But as the time goes on, I have discovered that there is a lot to be learned in the battle with loss and with the life that goes on after.

The first is that it seems like the needless loss of life lately has really gotten under my skin. You hear about tragic events which are going on currently, things like school shootings and people running from their counties seeking help. Right after Dominic died was when the first photo was published of the children who's family had put them on a boat to get as far away from their country as they could. So much loss of life... it hit me square in the chest, like a hammer which had come down. Why do we hate? To what extent of fear would these parents have to be under in order to put their children through an experience they may not live through? My son was ripped from my arms through happenstance, through no act of neglect or for any reason which would justify it in some strange way. These parents are braving putting their children through endless trials... some did not make it. Do they regret or stand by their choice? A parent, a true parent (not the ones who pretend like having a child makes you one, just like not having a child doesn't mean you aren't, though that's another topic for another day) would do anything for the health and well-being of their children. I can stand here today and tell you that I or Frank would be willing to sacrifice ourselves for our son to live again. So much needless death... it hurts the soul.

The second thing that came to me was that people grieve in different ways, but people react to grief in different ways. Anyone who knows me knows I am not really a touchie feelie type of person. Granted, with the children I'm extremely affectionate, but after you hit about 15 that affection changes to a degree. While at work, my first day back fulltime mind you, a co-worker who had not seen me since stopped me as I was walking out of her office. She's a mother of little boys too... this hit home for her more than another might feel it. She broke down as she asked me how I was handling everything. It was interesting, she felt guilty for the fact she was crying and I was not. How do you tell person you have no more tears to cry at the moment? That two days before you had been weeping at your desk because you forgot about a date that had passed by which had been significant to you? How do you tell that person their tears helped just a little bit, that you aren't alone and so you feel a little better? I hugged her instead. Because the truth is, at times... I don't have the words for you just like you don't have the words for me.

There are no words in the English language that can accurately describe to you the chilling feeling I have. I go from fine one moment to not the next. Work is both a thrill and a horror at once. Will someone mention him? Will they not? At times the fact someone hasn't said anything is almost bothersome more than those who do. I grieve... actively... and so sometimes I scare people around me. Let's share a secret... I am a stoic member of society. To see me cry, to see me joyfully laughing, all fo these things are oddities moreso than another might be. I feel things either extremely hot and extremely cold.... there's nothing inbetween anymore. But, the point is that you get people who run from you, avoid you, weep for you, stumble over their words, or simply those who just look and smile sad.

The person who said it best this week was my Physician's Assistant who was checking out my shoulder. The nurs asked me how physical therapy was going. Very stoically (which is resting b*tchface for those who are not aware), I told her simply I had stopped going. She gave me a tsk and asked me why. I looked at her... considered for a moment if I should be kind or be harsh, I decided on neutrality: "My son died. I don't have the energy." She stopped in her tracks... she couldn't get out of the room fast enough, you should have thought I had had contracted the plague. As she left, barely even saying goodbye, mind you, I considered her reaction. It was a few minutes later the PA come into the room, she sat down and discussed my shoulder with me, had me do some resistance tests with her and she told me I was doing great! (yay!) And then she looked at me, I have started to recognize this look and both dread and anticpate it.

"How are you holding up since Dominic passed?" She asked with a slightly sad tone, her head tilting to the side as I paid attention to her.

I felt myself square my shoulders, answering back simply, "I'm okay, it's not easy."

She leaned forward, taking my hand and scooting so that she was in my space. Quietly she said to me, "Honey, it's hell... it's head and it's okay to own it. There is no one in this room you have to be strong for."

How this woman, this complete stranger, knew in that moment that was exactly what I was doing is beyond me. Because that's what I tell everyone. What else are you supposed to answer with when someone asks? The truth? Hardly... here's a list of truths I cannot say:

• Every day is a different nightmare... because every day I have to wake up to the sound of silence in my son's nursery.
• Every day is a battle against myself, in controlling myself.
• Work is a blessing and a curse, it's full of memories but it is a distraction. It hurts to walk in... it hurts to not.I'm not okay sometimes, I'm great others.
• I cry for no reason at all now, because this hurts too deep to find the words.
• I look onto joy for your happiness of a new child, but I wonder why God took mine from me.
• I want to sleep...
• I don't want to sleep....
• I want the thoughts to stop spinning around in my head...
• I want to be able to remember a single thing today.
• I want to forget I exist.
• I want to remember everything.
• I want to celebrate life, but I feel guilty doing so... how can you live for someone who is gone?

I could go on for eternity on the things that go on in my head and for a moment, with that woman who had only met me one other time, I quieted. It's okay to be a mess. I often tell mothers who have just had a baby to "be kind to yourself." But here I am, weeks out from my baby being taken from me, and I'm expecting myself to be together for someone else.


I need to be kind to myself. I need to be kind to myself first... others second. But any mother will tell you that is an impossible task. I turn my mind to attempt to improve my life... one moment, one breath, one step at a time. I will live for my son... who is gone but still lives in my heart. 

Tonight, of all nights, I miss my baby... but I take comfort in the fact I got moments with him. Though brief, they and him were real....

Until next time.