The flies left. Maggots fed their way into the crevices of my life as a slimy reminder of the decay, and the rot. Everything hurt. My mind became a constant battle between reality and my imagination. I longed for simplicity and quiet. I longed for my son.
The home I raised my children in had a large bay window in the dining room. It let in the morning light as if it were casting a golden sheen into the room. I stood in that window, a million times, holding my babies, and watching the sun bathe us in gold. I held them to my chest, with my hand gently over their necks, supporting their heads, and one below them to pull them tightly to me. And I rocked, back and forth, rhythmically to the sound of my own humming that commenced the morning. We were a production, the sun and I. Welcoming the day, and casting pure love on these babies. These were sweet moments, that I have only recently begun to recount.
All of that was part of my past life. Something I couldn't hold onto, and couldn't let go. I found myself rocking constantly. With my hands in the position to pull something into me, and damaged every time they cut the air, and landed on my own solitude. But I stand, and I rock. Still to this day I look out a window and find myself aching to hold my child. It's an ache I can't explain, only a mother would know.
It's the feeling in your stomach the first time you leave your new baby with a babysitter. It's the feeling you get when they are just out of site over the next ridge, and when you crest the same ridge, you can't see them. It's the feeling the first time they fall, or when they get their shots, or when someone breaks their heart. It's having the wind knocked out of you, and then being plummeted into a pool of thick black oil, all the while the universe screaming at you "I dare you to breathe." It's terror, and hurt, and an endless search. I rock all of the time. I ache, all of the time.
Time alone was my worst enemy. No one had dared leave me alone, and I was resentful and eternally grateful all at the same time. Alone meant quiet, quiet meant thoughts, thoughts meant sheer terror. Absolutely not. No. With every rewind and push play, I would calibrate my level of shock.....my level of fear, and hurt. It never got easier. I had seen it a million times, and it managed to get harder.
Mornings are the hardest, still. Those first few moments where you blink yourself to awareness and recount where you are, who you are, and what you are doing.
Where am I...........this dark room, the walls are closing in.
Who am I............God, I wish I knew......
What am I doing...........Suffocating under this pain. My babies, where are they.......My son.....my son is gone...........total collapse.
The pain. The pain is always there. It became my lifeblood. The pain will be there in the morning, along with the evaluation I ran myself through. The pain is there.....shot of oxygen. Inhale, open your eyes.
People who are under the impression that time heals all wounds have not lost a child. It's not about healing, it's about finding a way to survive it. And once you find a path, that doesn't sting quite as much as the other one, you take a step. More often than not, you find yourself standing on a land mine, getting your legs ripped off and watching the fragments of your footing fly into the abyss. Slop them back together in a tangled mess of bailing twine and duct tape, and take another step.
You don't have a choice.
You just do it.
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