Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Frozen

Calvin's birthday and angel day are coming fast. I don't know how to feel about these days, other than the looming sense of dread that's been creeping over me this past month. Part of me is incredulous that I have survived the death of my child for OH MY GOD, a year already. How does that happen? It's almost a sense of shame that my life continued when his did not. These past eleven months have been at the least, defining. At the apex of my grief, and in the aftermath of my son's death, I would say things have become catastrophic. Our lives have fallen completely apart. Neither Shane nor I know where to begin in assembling our new lives since losing Calvin. Any last vestige of normal has fallen away and the new uncomfortable is the coat I now wear. I don't know how to do it. I don't think we've been coping well. I'm still breathing and I'm still able to love and look after the girls but so much has changed that I don't know myself or Shane these days.

I used to be one of those passionate movie watchers that would get so into the movie I was watching that I would holler at the screen. I could see ahead to where the plot was taking us and I often felt a sense of dread knowing the main character was doing something or not doing something that was going to keep him out of danger. It's almost as if I have stepped outside myself and am watching my life play out in front of me. I can see the catastrophe looming all around us, evidence of that is everywhere but it's like my feet are frozen in a pond of ankle deep water. I feel helpless to move, to change, to step out from beneath the darkness. Why? Because I don't know this life. Because I don't know how to cope, to get on with things, to step out of my feelings and this new sense of "normal" to live despite of the fact that my son has died. My life is being created all over again and I don't like it. I don't like the feeling of sadness in my heart all the time. I don't like knowing that I held my son and watched him die and was helpless to do anything about it. I don't like knowing that our family is forever incomplete now that he is gone. I don't like the things that have happened to us while we are trying to work through this mess of feelings and this new horrible beginning to our lives. My marriage has suffered terribly. My children have suffered from having a mother who isn't one hundred percent with them anymore. My husband has suffered, lashing out in unhealthy ways, angry at what has happened to us. We have slowly watched things around us fall apart. I don't know if it's the way it's supposed to be or not. My life stopped being the same the moment Calvin took his last breath, so maybe all the things that have happened is part of some sort of shedding, layer by layer I watch as everything in my life falls apart. I just don't know what to do about it. Do I pick up the pieces and try and patch them together and try to repair all that's been damaged in the last eleven months? Or do I accept that it's futile to want any semblance of the life I had before my son back? Is this where we start over again, building hope, building relationships with our children, building our marriage and family relationships over? I'm so tired of feeling suspended in my own life, watching everything around me fall apart. I hate to think this is where my life has come to and that I have to accept it. I want more and better and happier out of my life than I've had in this shitty eleven months. There's got to be more than this feeling of helpless empty....

9 comments:

  1. Wow. I can relate to a lot of your feelings, and expecially these words. "I'm so tired of feeling suspended in my own life, watching everything around me fall apart. I hate to think this is where my life has come to and that I have to accept it."

    I don't think life will ever get back to where it was before Calvin, or in my case, before Peyton. It just wont so I think that if we wait for that, we will wait forever. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to be dealing with marital problems on top of grieving, I guess I have been lucky in that my husband has pretty much respected my need to totally fall apart.

    I think this is the time, the time to try and work things out with Shane, the time to try and find beauty in your life together, as impossible as it seems without your sweet Calvin. But I think, in doing so, you also need to find beauty in eachother, in the new Margaret and the new Shane, neither of you are the way you were before this loss, how could you be? It is impossible.

    At the end of the day, eleven months later, you are still together and that says something. Maybe not together in the way you used to be, not even in the way you would have hoped you would be in this situation, but together nonetheless. To me, that alone brings great promise.

    Sending you prayers for peace in your home and in your heart.

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  2. I can relate to your feeling of watching your life fall apart in front of your eyes. The worst part is not knowing how to stop it and also not being able to stop it. I guess we have to accept our new "normal" and find a way to cope with it. It is not easy but I find other moms help me trememdously! I was just thiking the other day about how it just isnt right. Life is not supposed to go on without our precious babies! How unfair. Why them? I suppose there are no answers and all we can really do is trust in God, even when that is hard to do.
    Love, Hugs, and Prayers coming your way!

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  3. I will be praying for you as Calvin's angel day approaches. May God bless you and keep you and your family during this difficult time.

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  4. I second what Once a Mother said. Life will never be what we once knew it to be. That would be impossible. I hope you can embrace this new normal that has been forced into your life and find beauty. I hope and pray that your marriage becomes even closer than it has ever been. I too have had a wonderful husband who doesn't always get me, actually probably never gets me but gives me space to grieve. One of my dear friends, Rachel from Waiting for Morning has been a life saver to me. Her marriage has been restored after the loss of their twins. I hope you can read through her blog and rebuild that hope because there really are others who have done it. Like Mary said, it helps me to read about other Moms like me.

    Here is her blog if you wish to visit:

    www.aubreyandellie.blogspot.com

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  5. I have already lived through Akul's first birthday so many times...and yes, my world is completely destroyed. I understand what you say...totally.

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  6. These days will be hard. I'm sorry you're hurting and that Calvin will not be there with you on his special day.
    I am thinking about you.
    I certainly thought of you yesterday when I opened my mailbox pulled out a package of candy from one of the sweetest girls I've never met.
    You put a smile on my face and I intend to return the favor.

    I understand where you are with this post. It's so sad and I've been there. Would it make you feel any better to know that next year will be different. It will be painful yes, but a little more dull, not quite so fresh and it will have a different vibe. Does that make any sense?

    Thank you so much for your thoughtful gift.
    Thinking of you xoxox

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  7. I have been through one birthday so far, and still have another to get through. The days are long and hard. Its really hard to accept that this is what reality is. That instead of celebrating with cake, candles and presents we are visiting a cemetery. Its not normal. We did make sure to celebrate E's birthday though, and not just grieve. We did go and visit him, bring him some 1st birthday boy stuff and balloons, and we released some balloons in the sky for him. We did cupcakes and candles for him, and even sang. We also went out to dinner, to celebrate him, his life - even though it was too short, and what he still is in our life. Its not the birthdays I ever imagined, but its how we will always celebrate. We will always mark those days as their special days, just like if they were here with us. They will be different, but still a day of celebration...and of course some tears.

    *hugs*

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  8. Life will never be the way it was before Calvin but it CAN be beautiful and it CAN be good and it CAN be filled with hope again. It's just so hard to see it through the pain. There is no timetable for healing, it is ongoing, fluid and oh so bumpy.But you WILL find your own peace.

    Margaret I am SO pleased to tell you that you have won a page with Calvin's name on it in my giveaway!

    Drop me a line with your address so I can get it to you as soon as I can.

    xxx

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  9. I just want you to know how much I am thinking of you and your sweet Calvin as these difficult dates approach.

    Many, many hugs

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