It’s been a month. A month since I held our baby boy in my arms and watched him breathe slower and slower until he stopped. A month since I watched his little fingers turn the wrong colour, covered them with a blanket as if to stop him being cold and didn’t call for help. A month since I asked for water so I could wash his cheeks so he died with a clean face. A month since we decided to let him show us if he wanted to be alive. I know I’m all for following the lead of a child, but my god that was a big lead to follow.
A month since I saw the bridge of his nose turn dusky and then more so and then white. A month since we became people who had watched a child die, let a child die, held a dead child, kissed a dead child. A month since I put him down on the bed, said I was sorry to him and let someone take him away. A month since I did all those things and never once thought to ask Max if he wanted to hold him too. A month since I realised I had to let him go because when I moved him slightly there was a noise from his lungs that I didn’t want to hear. A month since I put my fingers on his wrist, on my child’s wrist who I had watched like a hawk and prayed would be a miracle, and didn’t feel a pulse. A month since I watched a doctor listen for his heartbeat and hoped, bizarrely, that i wasn’t wrong and he wasn’t somehow holding on in there.
None of those things seem to fit with my idea of who I am. I keep reminding myself that I’ve done those things, that we’ve done those things and I can’t work out why I haven’t changed more. I feel I should have changed more. I feel I should have rent my clothes and poured ash on my head and hurled myself into a state of not eating or drinking or sleeping. I feel I should have my hand on my brow and be wailing and raging and crashing.
It’s more akin to… “Oh. Well. Gosh. Oh.”
Not an offhand “oh” – more a slightly stunned ‘what the hell has happened, how can everything still be the same and be so utterly and completely different?’ Sort of “oh” in the kind of voice you might use if someone had told you that you didn’t get the job you wanted but never mind, it just wasn’t meant to be and you were under qualified anyway. But actually, since you asked, we’re making you redundant.
“Oh. Right. What now then?”
A month since we came home and told our children he had died. A month since we went, without ever really saying it aloud that we had become so, from 5 children to 4.
And here I am, still really quite the same. Not particularly altered. Not particularly more or less compassionate, not more alive, not less alive, not a better or worse mother. Perhaps it hasn’t sunk in yet. Perhaps it sunk in months ago and that’s why it isn’t a shock.
The thing I mind most is that I knitted him a blanket and it will never be the loved blanket of a little boy who sleeps under it night after night. I feel almost cross about that.
Perhaps that’s because it was the only thing I had done to get ready for him.
I don’t really know what to say Merry just that the way you feel is the way you feel and that’s OK and we are still thinking of you.
Although people publish loads of stuff about grief patterns Ive never seen any two people respond in the same way. Still thinking of you all, lots. Huge hugs.
Jenny
Still weeping for you all here. 🙁
Have been thinking of you today. Doesnt seem quite right that time carries on. Love to you all.
I got modded?
I’ve signed in to make a comment, but god, what to say…
Just know that you have friends willing you all the strength you need, for now and for always XXXXX
Sorry about that. It has a real thing about that particular email address – Nigel and T-bird always end up in spam, Carol and Caroline always get modded and i can’t persuade it i like them at all!
I can’t quite believe it’s been a month. Been thinking of you all lots today. Hugs.
Hugs
Dont have the words, still thinking of you……
Rachel
Dearest Merry
Everytime you write something I sob, and I wish so much that life was as easy as putting heart shaped nighty cases on our heads and pretending to be fairies. I know now that my life is still so much easier than yours and I wish so much I could make it better.
All my Love
Judyx
*hugs*
Its still such early days, so raw and sad and unfair that of course you feel like that. Time has that habit of moving forward when we just wish it wouldnt. Thinking of you. (((hugs)))
hugs and prayers
We’ve been thinking of Freddie ever so much today. We had bought something we would make for him, with love (and I even waited until after he was born to buy so as not to jinx things – goes to show that didn’t work). In the end, after considerable discussion, we’ve ended up making them for another babe, only using the pink ribbon, not the blue. We made them today.
I so, so wish I could’ve used the blue ribbon.
Much love, as always, to you and yours, including that little boy we would have loved to have had the chance to love too. xxxxxx x
No right or wrong path, just ‘your path’
Thinking of you all
thinking of you. xx
lots of love to you all as always xxx
Sending you love Merry. I still look in the mirror each day and wonder how I could do some those things too.I still wonder how the world keeps on spinning.
I’m not sure loss changes you, just brings out what is already there. You had already shown the world that you are a survivor so many times. And, as has already been said, there is no right or wrong way to think or feel or act or be, there is just how you need to be. Hugs
Oh, you just really made me cry, and I thought I was absolutely done crying over dead baby stuff, I’ve read so much of it. And written so much of it. But, just, yes … (and I don’t mind crying, so don’t feel guilty!!). That was just so evocative… Big hugs and love to you xxxx
I Will Carry You: The Sacred Dance of Grief and Joy [Paperback]
Angie Smith (Author)
It might help in your grief.
Love,
Sara
It should stop spinning, at least for a while.
Everyone reacts differently and a baby loss is definitely a sad category all to itself. However I wonder whether your family heard the Radio 4 Go4it bereavement special a couple of years ago? It’s still on-line at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/gfi/bestbits/bereavement.shtml
(The producer was 100% home-educated if that’s a helpful thought.)