The good thing about my sister coming to visit: I cleaned my house.
It was a three-hour power-clean, but it felt good not to walk on the floor in bare feet and stick to it.
Yeah, I know... ewwwww! But it had been a month. I hadn't done anything except laundry and dishes for a month. I didn't vacuum, sweep, mop. I didn't clean the tub. Or even the toilet. Yuk.
Problem is, it's getting dirty again. *sigh*
I wish I had a maid.
Okay, if we're wishing for things, I wish I had my dead son back to life, or I could turn the clock back and make him not die, or any various and sundry magical-thinking wishes.
But wishing for a maid seems more...reasonable. Just someone to take over all the mundane everyday stuff that needs to be done, so I can do the real work. The mourning.
And it is work. I had no idea. When you're up every night, replaying everything in your head, trying to swallow around the huge lump in your throat and crying, even screaming silently into your pillow so you don't wake your poor husband, who has to work in the morning... when everything you see, touch, taste, smell or feel reminds you of what you're missing... when nothing, not even sleep - where you dream him alive and dead all over again and again - brings relief... you become so tired. I thought labor was hard? Ha. Mourning is utterly exhausting. At least there's an end to labor!
I should be in some woman's hut somewhere, surrounded by other women, rocking and chanting. I should be rending my clothes, wailing at a wall. I should be focusing on nothing but this pain...but there's no time. There's just no time. I need to make dinner and clean the peanut butter off the counter and reply to emails and make sure the kids are doing their homework.
What I need, really, isn't a maid... it's another mommy. A doppelganger maybe. Someone who can take my place and go through the motions - because really, that's all I'm doing here, on the outside, anyway. I want to slip out of my skin, shed the weight of the world and all of its ties, and just give myself time to breathe, time to heal, time to unwrap his memory, to unfold it and explore every moment before I put it away again.
Somehow I have this belief that if I could do that... then I'd be done. If I could have that time, then this pain wouldn't be so constant. So what I really want isn't a maid, or a dopplerganger... what I really want is to be done with this already. I want to be past this part. I want to skip to the end. A happy-ever-after one, thankyouvermuch.
But I can't. I can't turn the clock back, and I can't turn the clock forward. I'm stuck in the middle, in this horrible place of darkness, pain, not knowing. I hate it here. I absolutely hate it.
And it's dirty, on top of everything else.
I guess I do still wish I had a maid.
But, as my mother always said, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride."
So I guess I have to live with it. I'm the mommy. This is my life, and it's gonna keep on going. There's no "other" mommy, no way to wrinkle my nose and make the house clean or the baby un-dead.
In the meantime, I'm dying inside and the dog has ketchup on her ears and the oven smells like burnt toast every time you turn it on and there's something unidentifiable growing in a container at the back of the refrigerator and I'm still dying inside...
12 comments:
Ya know.. I could have probably taken on a maid even BEFORE Dresden died!
I still go over all the events that led up to his birth/death in my head too.. almost 8 months later.. I wonder if I always will?
i know when its time to clean when on the same day, i see my two year old sit on the floor and brush off her feet, and my husband asks, "do you want to invite someone over?" cleaning is such a sisyphean task to begin with, and the grieving is so exhausting. i think you are right though, we should be in a hut surrounded by other women alternating between rocking and keening. abrazos.
I know that feeling of wishing it would all just end, that the hurt would somehow end. Sadly, it doesn't. You just get more used to its presence. xoxo
We moved into our house about 6-7 weeks before Zachary died, and two years later, there are still boxes in my garage and closet that I've yet to unpack. Mourning is hard, consuming work, and you must give yourself over to it, or it will remain unrelenting.
From a practical perspective, is it possible to get a maid? Financially, can that be worked into the budget? Even a once a month visit for a deep clean might help lighten some of your burden. Or do you have friends and family just looking for a way they can help? Many people are probably looking for a way they can help you in a necessary way -- particularly since they can't bring sweet William back to you -- and helping you with the housecleaning may ease some of the burden they bear.
If there is no one to help, do what you can, but only when you can, and in small increments of time.
When you find the hut with the rocking and chanting, will you take me with you? I could use some of that... And a maid, too.
Sign me up for the hut. Matter of fact, we could probably all just get together and forget about the hut. I'd advise to look into getting a maid. After re renovate the house, I'm determined. This grief is very hard work. *hugs* You always speak right down to the core of what you're feeling, and it's always right on with how I am feeling or have felt. *hugs*
Oh, I'll come to the hut too!
I guess this is as close as we get to a "real" women' hut... just a little virtual one. But I feel your collective presence anyway, and it's such a gift. Thank you.
Oh I remember those early days of darkness well. The when will this ever end feeling? You know, so many offer (and I'm sure you got this, too) "anything we can do to help just let us know". It should be times like these where you can call some of those people and say "you know what, my floors need cleaning!!" Its the ones who just come and do it who are worth their weight in gold. Thankfully, nine months on, my Mum still does that for me. And you are very right. Grief is hard work. Damn hard work. But no one will recognise that. You have to sadly fight this battle alone.
But we'll all be here for you. xo
You're so right, grief is all consuming. I find it hard to think about anything else at all. I have my mum staying with me for 6 weeks, and she's taking care of everything for me. Before she arrived, my husband and I had almost stopped eating, we weren't doing anything. It's so hard to go on and to keep living life. Don't worry about your house being dirty, I'm sure that nobody minds and perhaps if it's dirty enough your friends and family will just clean it for you! And I hope there's room for one more in the hut!
If you're wishing for a maid, I'm wishing for a chef. And we can trade off our maid and chef. Because, honestly, I have no time to clean or cook. From working eight hours at work, to trying to focus on the now, then trying to sort through my grief and accept that he's gone, and trying to stop blaming myself for the wreck that I am- it's all exhausting. I would much rather just dwell on how much I miss him and try to understand why he's gone.
If I find a light at the end of this tunnel, I'll let you know. So far, it's completely dark in this hole.
I went the other way... I spent hours, hours, hours doing the most boring monotonous tasks because I had no baby, I had no baby to hold and my arms were so empty, my life was so empty, I was cracking up.
To this day i associate cutting the grass with the anger and the sorrow of loosing Fionn, and I still cut the grass, it's like my grieving ritual and I'm shocked to realize it's become my friend...
and my babyloss mums have become my friends too.
xx Ines
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