We have a ghost in the house.
No, my dishes aren't flying around the kitchen by themselves, and I'm not feeling cold spots or seeing my breath in the hallway and I can't see dead people.
Well...unless you count my dead son.
Him, I see. Everywhere. I'll wake up in the morning and look for him sleeping in the cosleeper, but he's not there. The cosleeper hasn't been next to my bed since the day after he died. I'll be driving and look in the rearview mirror, expecting to see him in his car seat, but he isn't there. The car seat was never installed. He would be nearly two months old now, bright eyed, smiling, holding his head up. He would be here, if he wasn't dead, and my mind still... STILL... can't wrap itself around that fact.
I never had the experience of him alive outside of me, in the world. He never slept in his co-sleeper or sat in his carseat, so how is it that I'm seeing him there? In my mind, he will always be a baby, a tiny, lifeless infant. Yet I'm getting flashes, images, of what could have been, like I'm seeing pieces of an alternate universe or reality where William didn't die, where he is right now a bright and happy almost-two-month-old.
I'm seeing ghosts.
10 comments:
It doesn't happen to me often now but just occasionally, when I'm out with my other two, I feel the weight of Emma in her sling against my body. I like it - I'm always sad when the sensation goes. I like feeling my little. ghost
i see the babies in the crib they never came to... the backseat of the volvo wagon that we bought with them in mind... all over the house... in church... i think i'd miss them more if i didnt.
I'm always looking in the rearview mirror, too. We did have the carseat installed. As proud and excited new parents, we drove around with it for three weeks (she was a week late). We had it taken out the day I birthed her. It now sits in the back of a cupboard, waiting to be used again, hopefully later this year. But I still look for her. I have never even had any other children, so it is not something I have previously been used to doing. But I'm always looking for her. Always.
I remember one day early on, I went out to the store, and when I came back home, I fully expected to see Shaun, Gwen and Dresden.. it was such a strange feeling.. he just should have been there too.
4 months...I still see ghosts too!
I picture my son as a toddler. Maybe because my daughter is and I always thought they would be so alike. I see my son everywhere. I see him in statues at the store. I see him in the little boy outfits I would be buying. I see him in the carriers of other mommy's. I see him in my daughters face, and I see him in my husband. I see him in every weeping willow tree I drive by. I see him in the swings at the park. I see him in his horrific box on top of my armoir. And I barely remeber what he looked like.
It's funny that you would write this today. Just yesterday I was thinking that if I ever write a memoir or book about losing Soren and what that means now and what it will mean for the rest of my life, I would call it something like "Living with a Ghost" or "How to Live with a Ghost."
I see the same thing; I hear cries that were never cried, I imagine smiles that I never got to see. Those ghosts will haunt me, forever.
He's not a ghost. He's your son. You'll probably see him everywhere for a long long time. I see my children everywhere too. In every child on the street, in the shop, at the airport, in my nieces and nephews. In every pram that comes past. I don't know that it will ever change.
Every once in a while, I hear that ghost of a cry. I imagine him places, but never see him. What I do get is phantom kicks from my belly. It's not intestinal - I know the difference. It feels just like Gideon's little rolls (he liked rolling so much more than kicking).
It will be a year next Thursday for me and i still see my daughter everywhere. I see her in the face of my niece and when I look in the mirror. I imagine that I see her in her room, in the backseat, in my arms. She will always be with me, even though she's not here physically.
Post a Comment