Frozen

We had a frost last night.

The kids woke up and thought it snowed. :)

Luckily, I'd checked the weather last night and knew it was coming. I had M. run outside at midnight and cover all the tiny little shoots coming up in William's garden. They're growing like crazy, but they're still tiny, just babies really, and would have died overnight in the frost.

I went out this morning to uncover them and burst into tears.

It's been six weeks since he died and I haven't cried like that since the beginning - huge body-wracking sobs. I wanted to dig into the earth, crawl into a hole, bury myself under the weight of the world and die... oh blessed relief from this constant pain. 

I should be worrying about and covering my baby at night to keep him warm. I should be watching my baby growing, changing every day. 

Instead, I get to cover a garden at night to keep it warm. I get tend to a garden instead of my son, watch it grow and change instead of watching my son's day to day development.

The garden is growing and my son is dead, frozen in time, exactly the same, a baby in my memory forever. It's not what I wanted. This isn't what I wanted at all. My baby is gone, and I get to make a memorial garden. It's not much of a consolation. But what else can I do? I can't turn back the clock, I can't change anything, I can't undo his death. I want to. God knows I want to. My whole body has been screaming, "I want a do-over!" since the moment I found out he was gone.

But if I can't have my son, I guess I'm supposed to be content with growing flowers in the dirt in his memory.

Maybe I can keep them alive. 

That would be something.