Unbalanced Life

Can't sleep lately at night. Although I can sleep all day, it seems. Strange unbalanced life.

M. and I stayed up (again) talking last night until almost dawn. He was fired on May 5 (don't panic... it's not a bad thing... his old job was horrible and only fired him because he'd already found something else...) and had last week off entirely. This week and next, he's working a short schedule at the new job, so we have more time together. It's been such a relief, and so very needed. I think he's recovering from the anxious atmosphere of his previous employer. He has so much more life and energy. I have my husband back.

Today was our final postpartum visit with our midwife, which was a much needed few hours of conversation about life and birth and death. Lots of laughter and tears and even a bit of closure, I think. She says she would be happy to do our next birth... assuming we have one. I have been thinking a lot about that possibility lately, impatiently waiting for my cycles to return. M. and I have talked about it, and we probably will try again. I said, before William was born, that it felt as if someone were missing from our family. Now, someone really is... 

Today was also my fifteen-year-old son's choir concert. B. had a solo, and it was the first one we've been able to make it to this year (M's schedule and the distance between our house and my ex's really precluded it.) He was amazing - I was impressed. And I found myself wiping away tears (again... I do that a lot lately) because seeing him doing something he loves moved me so much. I don't think there is anything quite as satisfying as watching your child doing something they truly love and are passionate about. Made me happy for him, and sad for William, who will won't be here to find that thing, whatever it might have been, that made him light up that way.

I suppose everything will be measured this way now. Graduations, new jobs, marriages... lost teeth, school plays, puberty... I will celebrate with my living children and still be thinking about my dead one.

The older kids' stepmom stopped me and expressed her condolences about William. It's funny, but sometimes in these situations, I feel like I'm comforting them, not the other way around. 

I'm so tired. Maybe I can sleep tonight. I can understand the inclination to start taking medication - Ambien, valium, whatever works - just to sleep, to ease the anxiety, to numb the pain.

Sometimes I read over these posts and think I sound so melodramatic. God, I even get sick of hearing myself go on about it. I would give anything to feel something else besides sad, angry or depressed.

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.

Wee Hours

M. and I met online back when AOL charged by the hour. Luckily for our bank accounts, we were local to each other, and quickly switched to phone conversations. And those often lasted long into the wee hours of the morning in those falling-in-love days. 

Last night was reminiscent of one of those, a sweet surprise.

M. and I started talking when we got into bed and didn't stop until the birds were starting to sing outside our window. It's been over ten years now since those first phone conversations, and I love the man I married more now than I ever thought possible.

But those ten years have been filled with a lot of ups and downs - especially the last six or so. We've had a great deal of trials thrown our way in those years, and William is the last (but certainly not the least) in a long line of tragedies and calamities that have come along in the past decade.

I've had people comment on how strong our marriage is, how amazing that we're still together. I know couples who would have fallen apart or turned on each other instead of to each other in our circumstances.  I'm grateful for what we have, believe me. We each have plenty of faults, but somehow we manage, even in the midst of pain, to keep loving each other.

But there are times I forget how blessed I am. There have been times when I was ready to give up. There have been times when M. was, too. There have been times we've been mean, or distant, or indifferent to each other. There are times, sometimes long stretches of time, when we take each other for granted.

Last night wasn't any of those.

Last night we connected, spooned in the darkness and talking into the first light of morning, in a way we haven't in a long, long time. We reminisced, we waxed nostalgic, we laughed. For the most part, our conversation wasn't about William...but it was because of him.

What a gift, in the midst of the pain of our baby's death, to be open to such love. 

Thank you, William. 
I love you.