Looking for Stars.

I’ve been writing a lot in my journal this month as opposed to my blog.  It’s as though the thoughts that fill its pages are somehow too sacred to share.  The real grief that ever so often floods my space and takes over my heart.  As I inch closer to two years without Sam I realize that like life, in grief, I progress and I regress.

This afternoon I pulled into Sam’s cemetery to see a few handful of his friends swinging high on the swing set we donated to his day care on his first birthday.  The sun was shining on them just right and they were glowing.  I parked my car at the back of the cemetery as I always do and walked to Sam and just watched his grave.  I closed my eyes and listened to their playful voices and for a moment, imagined it to be Sam’s.

Most days as of late I find that I’m a bit beside myself that Ted and I are entering another holiday season with empty arms and an empty womb.  I would now be 17 weeks pregnant with Lion or have had 18 months experience of parenting Sam.  But each time I open my eyes I’m reminded that I’m not; or that I haven’t held Sam in almost a year and a half.

Recently our grief counselor recommended I call my psychiatrist.  I cried at his suggestion partly because I’d wondered the same and in part because it affirms the ebb of my grief.  I tried explaining it to someone once how hard I spent in year one doing real grief work and I was successful.  After losing Lion, the dedication to it all feels tiring more than anything.

I told our counselor it’s hard to mother dead children.  I was solely responsible for keeping Sam and Lion alive; and I still am.

If it weren’t for our annual friends Christmas party I’m not sure I’d decorate for Christmas this year.  Last year at my request during Thanksgiving, we hid deep in the woods of Indiana at a tiny cabin just Ted and I.  Every part of my heart wants to do the same now but we’re not.  We’re choosing to jump back in to our normal holiday routine and I’m scared.  Not much feels normal to me.

There’s an unexplained shift after one year has passed.  I’m not sure if the time was supposed to ‘heal me’ as people say; because it hasn’t.  It’s healed them.  Some mother’s have been fortunate enough to have their bellies and arms filled with rainbows this holiday season but as Max’s mama says it best; it’s dark and I’m looking for stars.