grieving mom – Page 18 – Sunshine, Angels and Rainbows

Day 4 – Now

Continuing with my ‘Capture Your Grief’

Now, it’s hard to be honest with myself. Who have I become? Who is this person? I’m still out of work. I now have a 5 year old to juggle-Only a 5 year old. I only drive short distances. When I read, I usually cannot finish the book because I become distracted, or maybe I just don’t like endings. I don’t sleep at night, even though I’m exhausted. I’m terrified of meeting new people, scared of being asked how many children I have. I binge watch Netflix sometimes just to have something to do. People have disappeared, my social circle is small.

My life is small. I am small. I am broken. My after is filled with small family pictures and and an overwhelming feeling that I have make things ‘ok’ for everyone else.

My after is also filled with love and lot’s of it. Love and support that I never imagined possible. Complete strangers raised a lot of money for my family to make our lives easier. Friends reached out to everyone they knew and the community of Worcester surrounded us in their love. The Greg Hill Foundation raised money for us. We have become involved in their events. I have found so many grieving mothers that have opened their arms and hearts to me. I have learned that people are genuinely good. I saw the best side of humanity. I am able to make the best of any situation.

Day 3 – Before

One of the bloggers that I follow is participating in the ‘Capture Your Grief’ project. This seemed like a good challenge for me as October leads right up to what another blogger likes to call ‘Devastation Day’ (thank goodness for my fellow bloggers, giving me direction every day). I’m joining this 3 days in, so I’m a little behind.

Capture Your Grief

Today I’m supposed to capture my ‘before.’ I’ve often thought about how different I was before and how much I have changed. If I’m being honest, my life was crazy. Everyday I fought to spend enough time with my kiddos, get enough hours in at work, get enough hours of sleep and maybe see my husband somewhere in the middle of all that. There never seemed to be enough hours in my day, there was never ‘enough.’ I worked 30 hours, supported Parkers business, was a FT mom, fundraised for the 3 Day, loved reading, was a friend, a wife and sister. It was AMAZING!! I thrived on it! Yes, I did get burnt out, yes I did get overwhelmed, but it was me, it was how I thrived. I enjoyed a challenge and trying to juggle/problem solve is my forte. Chalk it up to my alcoholic parent upbringing, or perhaps losing my mom at a young age and having to fend for myself. For some reason, the more that I had on my plate, the more that I seemed to rise to the occasion.

I loved being a mom. I never anticipated how much it would change me and my priorities. I struggled so much with what was important-being home or going after what I wanted at work. I struggled with my identity. All of this aside, I loved being a mom. I loved the chaos of the kids, the constant noise and mess. The happiness, there was so much laughter. There was so much love.

A state of being, not a process

Couldn’t have said it better.

Zachary, Forever 21

Grief is not a process. It is a state of being. It is a permanent state of being. It is the new place I live day in and day out. I function as best as I can. Some days better than others. But I am continually in a state of grief. I can’t describe the pain of missing Zachary. I can’t make others feel how I feel. I can only express that I am trapped in this nightmare fighting through each and every moment, hoping for something better to come.

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Benny’s Bunch

Last year we participated in the ‘Jingle All the Way 5K’ for the Greg Hill Foundation. It was our way of giving back. We’re at it again this year, gearing up to walk/run in the sub zero temperatures to raise money for the foundation. If you want to join us, you can register at the link below.

http://www.thegreghillfoundation.org/events.htm

Kindness

I haven’t written a lot. I’ve been in a weird place. Things have happened that I’m not ready to talk about yet. Let’s just say that I’m done with the Universe…for the moment. We’re no longer friends.

But I digress, because today is a good day.

We have been blown away by the continued love and support of our friends and family. They have grieved alongside us and helped us to heal. They are missing Bennett as much as we are, yet they have continued to put us first. These people show up, hold our hands and hearts as we continue to muddle through this year. There has been so much love.

Today my heart is so filled with the love of people that were mere strangers before November 8th last year. These people stepped forward and made it their mission to put a smile back on our faces. They donated their time and resources to make our lives better in whatever way they could. We’re overwhelmed by their love.

Today is a good one, in a sea of loss. Today I am able to look at our lives and appreciate all that we have and smile. Thank you for that, all of you that made today possible.

Shattered

‘Give me a break let me make my own pattern
All that it takes is some time but I’m shattered
I always turn the car around

All that I feel is the realness I’m faking
Taking my time but it’s time that I’m wasting
Always turn the car around’

Simple Man

We went to our first wedding since the accident in August. Weddings in general make me emotional, I’m a happy cryer. You get to witness two people pledging their life and love for one another surrounded by the support of friends and family, it doesn’t get much better.

It was a close friend’s wedding, Parker was the best man and I was doing the reading during the ceremony, so unfortunately I had to hold it together. It had been so long since I had felt so much love and happiness that I had forgotten what it felt like. It seemed like the perfect day.

Then it happened. I didn’t see it coming and I was completely taken aback, I felt as if someone had slapped me in the face. They did the mother son dance to ‘Simple Man.’ I tried very hard to hold it together, but I had to walk out of the reception. I tried to go to the bathroom to breathe, but ended up outside on a park bench sobbing. I don’t think that I’ve heard that song since the accident. It was heartbreaking. Here I was facing everything that I lost. Thank goodness for good friends that come find you when you fall apart on park benches and cry with you.

I try very hard not to dwell on what never will be. I’m afraid that if I do it will destroy me. I already feel that I’ve been robbed of my graduation, wedding, birth of my children without my mom. Rationally I know that Bennett will never grow up, but until that moment I hadn’t thought about the fact that he will never get married, he’ll never know that happiness. I’ll never get that mother son dance. Pieces of a life never lived.

10 Months ‘AA’

I don’t really know what to say. I cannot believe that it’s been 10 months. 10 months since I held him. 10 months since I kissed him. 10 months since I breathed in his little boy smell. 10 months since I’ve seen his smile. 10 months since I laughed at his antics. 10 months since I shook my head and secretly smiled when he was misbehaving. 10 months.

I have a lot of anger. I’m not really sure what or who I’m angry at, but I’m angry all the same. I’m angry that we have to live in a world without my son. I’m angry that Darcy doesn’t have a sibling. I’m angry that people have disappointed me. I’m angry that time keeps marching by, yet I’m still stuck here. I’m not sure where ‘here’ is though, some place between the past and the future. I couldn’t really call it the ‘present’ because I don’t always feel like I’m here. I just exist.

My therapist thinks I’m using my anger so that I don’t have to deal. I would agree. Being angry is so much easier though! It’s easier to write people off rather than deal with the fact that they have disappointed you. I enjoy how freeing it feels to have a good rant and let it all out. It keeps people away and leaves me less vulnerable. They can’t hurt me as much from farther away. I want to go back to my bubble, where there was never any judgment, just acceptance and support.

I don’t know where to go from here. The common theme seems to be that this is about everyone else and at some point it has to be about me. I have to own my emotions, no matter how awful they feel. I have to stop turning away from the hurt. I have to try to be me, but not the old me, that person no longer exists.

I think back to where we were a year ago and I have no idea how we got here. Sometimes it feels like I’m living someone else’s life. This wasn’t supposed to happen! We’re not supposed to be here! I want to yell this, but there’s no one to yell at. My wise friend Sue said it best the other day when she said that it’s amazing at how little control we have. Just one little thing can set something in motion that you can’t undo.

So here I am, scared to move forward and scared not to. Terrified of feeling empty. I miss my son.

The ‘Club’

I’m a member of the club that no parent wants to be a part of. I have a tattoo of hurt branded on my heart. I have experienced a loss that no one can understand, unless they have lived it.

This club unfortunately has several members, too many. So many of them have become a part of our lives. They have reached out to us and showed us more kindness and love, and they were mere strangers 10 months before. Thank you all for welcoming us with open arms. Thank you for standing by us when others could not. Thank you for always being there.

During the worst time in our lives, we’re lucky. Lucky to have these amazing people to stand beside us. I wish that none of us had to be in the club. I wish that we didn’t have to meet each other this way. I wish a lot of things.

Waiting

Today we saw Darcy’s therapist for the first time in over a month. She has been doing so well, so we had agreed on spacing out her appointments a bit. There is a great deal of solace in the fact that we found ‘the one,’ this perfect woman who has spent so many hours with Darcy and I bonding over our shared loss. She has saved me in so many ways and truly helped me to become a more patient mother.

We often color, or play with legos, cars or a dollhouse. In the beginning, Darcy would play act with cars and create accidents, police, ambulances, everything that her little mind witnessed the day of the accident. Darcy wasn’t there when it happened, a reason for which I am eternally grateful. She came home to the aftermath, the helicopters, police tape and onlookers, she saw my car across the street and she knew that something really bad had happened.

We’ve worked hard with Darcy to help her identify her emotions instead of acting out and she has made incredible strides in opening up to her therapist and my husband and I. It’s hard to watch your child go through the loss of a sibling at any age, but at 5, death is still a foreign concept. She acts so mature sometimes, that I forget that she really still doesn’t understand.

Her therapist asked her today if she was scared that something would happen to me or Parker. Unsurprisingly, her answer was yes. She knows that I lost my mom to breast cancer and often asks me when I’m going to die, or if I’m going to get sick. She doesn’t get it and I’m mad that she has to.

Her therapist asked her tonight if she wonders if Parker and I will have more children. At first I was a little taken aback by this question because I really didn’t want to discuss my family plans with my 5 year old. What she said, shocked me. She wanted to know if I was going to have another little boy. She said we would call him Benny, Captain Crazy. She thought that we could make another Bennett. It broke my heart to explain to her that there was only 1 Benny. I told her that there was only 1 Darcy too, but she had just met a woman named Darcy on the walk, so naturally she corrected me. I tried to explain that every child is different, they look different and have different personalities. I reminded her of how different she and Benny were. I think she got it, but I don’t know. The fact that she thought that we could have ‘another Benny’ surprised me.

I love that she believes in magic and fairies and santa clause. I love her innocence. I wish we could all hold on to those beliefs as adults. At the same time, I wish she were older, it’s such a fine line to walk. I wish I could talk to her like an adult and know that she understands what I’m saying. I wish she were old enough to read this blog, I honestly cannot wait until she is. I want her to understand so badly. She’s my best friend, now I just have to wait for her to grow up.

I’ll be here future Darcy, waiting…