Sunday, May 3, 2009

How You Remind Me

Everything reminds me of Calvin, of what we've lost. We watched the movie Seven Pounds with Will Smith on Friday night. Neither Shane or I knew what it was about and the movie cover gave no clue as to the storyline. The movie was recommended by the friendly folks at Blockbuster so, Shane grabbed it having enjoyed just about everything Will Smith has been in before. As the movie ended, we were both crying, my crying turned into sobbing and I couldn't stop. My heart broke all over again. I am having a hard time accepting that I will never be normal again, that my life will never be as carefree as it used to be. I wonder if I will ever be able to watch the news, or a movie, or read a book without feeling the heartbreak of losing Calvin over and over again. Life has taken on a new meaning for us, our pain seems to have stripped off the layers of apathy we've accumulated over the years having been exposed to the everyday horrors of life. My soul is raw. Shane can no longer watch the news, television in general is bothering him. The only thing on our set these days is Treehouse and sports. How did we as a society become so desensitized to death? While I was pregnant with the twins, Caylee Anthony was big news and I remember watching CNN clucking to myself, what a shame...Now, any story of that nature has me convulsing with heaving sobs and huge tears. It leaves me wondering if everything in life will remind me in some way of our boy, and whether or not I'll be able to cope. I can't fathom walking through my days having everything make me cry. On one hand, I'm glad that I'm no longer numb to the horrors, for too long now I've quietly accepted the darker side of humanity, on the other hand, I feel like the world could slowly drive me insane. Am I ever going to be okay about not feeling normal again???

3 comments:

  1. We watched Seven Pounds on Friday, too (eerie). I was left gasping for breath. I keep thinking about it--and all of the sad, hard, painful things that happen in life--and what you do when you feel responsible for some of them.

    I don't watch the national news for the same reason. It's too sad--I don't need all of the pain from all over the country coming into my house.

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  2. I've also started avoiding the news. I don't think I will be rushing off to Blockbuster to rent Seven Pounds! I used to think of myself, perhaps a little smugly, as a fairly compassionate person. But my compassion consisted of tsking and thinking how awful for that poor person.

    I feel as though the death of my daughter ripped me open. All my nerve endings are now completely exposed and subjected to random proddings from the TV, from films, from magazines, from my endless internet trawling. I can do nothing but howl, all that pain. I thought I understood pain and sadness, that life wasn't fair, but I didn't have a clue.

    I wouldn't want to go back to the person that I was before but losing my baby does seem a particularly cruel way to have my eyes opened. Even now I have to acknowledge that my tears, even when they are for the stories of strangers on the news, are mainly for me and my sweet girl, who I will never hold again. Maybe I haven't become more compassionate, just even more selfish. But anything would be better than apathy.

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  3. Amen sister! You put so much of what I feel into this post. That is exactly how I feel, like I will never be normal again.

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