Outside

I should have known I wasn't ready for the world yet, but it was an experiment. Easter is this weekend, and we were supposed to be bringing our brand new baby to both families so they could exclaim and fight over who was going to hold him next. Instead, I'm going empty-bellied and empty-handed. The thought of being in the midst of so many people, not strangers but family, people who are grieving, too, who might want to talk about him, hug me, comfort us... already I'm shrinking into myself just at the thought. 

So, tired of pulling frozen food out, we went out to a little local diner for dinner. That was a mistake. The first wave that hit me was, "The last time I was here, my baby was alive." I'd been doing that prodromal labor thing that day - it was the first day, actually, and I kept contracting, wondering if this was really "it." Our oldest son was with us, and we all squeezed into a booth. I remember M. moved the table so I could get my belly in.

But now I slid in without a problem, no longer worried about negotiating my bulk or protecting William from the table edge. He was gone. He should have been here beside me, either in his car seat, or tied to me in a sling. Was it going to be like this forever, I wondered, as I opened the menu to hide my tears. Every place we went, would I think, "The last time I was here, my baby was alive?" 

I stared at the menu and I couldn't think. My brain actually wouldn't work. I ordered something. I don't know what it was. M. later said, "I was surprised you ordered that - you had it the night before." I told him I forgot, which wasn't true. It was just the only thing I could think of, because I'd had it recently. The menu was a blur. 

When the protection of my menu disappeared, I blinked at the brightness, the sound of conversation, every voice too strident and painful to my ears. It was all too much, sensory overload. I could barely eat my food. I had to remind myself how. Chew and swallow. What was the last thing I'd eaten, I wondered, before William died? What had been his last meal? I hoped there was some sweetness in it.

On the way home, I stared at the cars going by, the strip malls, the gas stations. Life was going on out here, and it was so painful to me I could barely take a full breath. I wanted home, the smallness of my room, the comfort of my bed. I wanted to curl up and die, and if I couldn't die, then at least I could sleep, and if I couldn't sleep, I could cry myself hoarse in the darkness.

I was too exposed out here, too fragile, too vulnerable. I felt as if I had been turned inside out, and all my nerve endings were now on the outside, raw and rubbing up against everything. I didn't resent the world for going on. That was as it should be. But I wasn't part of it, not now, not yet. I was still wandering, lost in the darkness, and coming out into the world was just painful and disorienting. I didn't belong here.

I don't know how I'm going to handle Easter. I'm afraid I'm going to bolt from the room the minute my brother-in-law opens his mouth to pray before the meal. I'm afraid I'm going to burst into tears. Or finally turn to my sister, who keeps saying, "I know it must be easier for you, because you have a knowledge of the birth process..." and scream at her, "Do you think a firefighter mourns the family he lost in a house fire any less because he knows how a fire is started?" 

But I probably won't. I'll probably sit there, blinking at the brightness, the noise, just like I did in the restaurant, and wish I was somewhere else until I can crawl back into bed again and cry.