I hate that long after I have forgotten how it was to feel pregnant with him, I am left with the loss of him.
I hate that the memories are so few, gathered under such immense pressure, that I can barely hold them together. They are barely worth having. I hate that I cannot remember the size of him, or the feel of him or the sound of him, save two sounds I would choose to forget.
I hate that the sense of him is gone, that the surety of him is gone, the realness of him is gone.
Long after the precious little body is gone and lost to my memory, so that kissing and holding a blanket is nearly enough – is nearly more real -Â the awful, dreadful horror of having lost our child is still here.
My boy is dead. He is always, always going to be dead. I’m left picking up the pieces, witnessing the effects, of something which has exploded inside these four walls and cannot possibly have been worth it. No matter how hard I try, I can’t conjure enough substance to the experience to make any of this worth it. There just isn’t enough.
“Worth it” implies that you get something in return for a price. It doesn’t seem likely that it’s a useful thing to apply to this situation; there is no way to get something as valuable as that which you have lost. That whom you have lost.
Ailbhe,
In general I have a high opinion of the human ability to put themselves into the skin of another and try to extrapolate how they might feel in a similar situation.
Or at least know when to say something tactful – or not at all.
It doesn’t appear you are blessed with this skill…. so….
When you have held your sobbing children, night after night, grieving for a sibling they didn’t ask for, barely met, never held and have to live their entire life without, then feel free to tell me whether 11 days of a terrifying un-life that only existed because you wanted it when no one else did, was worth watching them in that amount of pain for.
Until then, I suggest you don’t presume to correct me on my feelings.
Hi
Have dipped in and out of your blog for a long time and was so really sorry to hear your familes tragic news, I have never commented before but wanted you to have more than the one above. Whatever I write will sound wrong but I think that you and your family are amazing and the way that you are willing to share your thoughts is humbling. I am sorry that you are going through such pain but you should (as i am sure you know) feel free to write whatever you wish/feel at any time. Unless anyone has walked in your shoes they should never judge (and I’m sure that those who have walked there would never judge anyway).
Hope that waffle sort of made sense
((((((Merry and family)))))) Love to you all. I really wish it could be better for you. xxxxx
I can’t presume to understand how you feel, but reading your posts about Freddie and the rest of your family helps with that so much… I also know that it is very much helping someone who needs to feel as though she is not alone with her own memories at this time. I hope that continuing to write whatever it is that you want and need to – without censorship – helps you too. You write so beautifully, Merry. XX
hugs. doesn’t seem anything else I can say.
I actually thought the first comment was nice! Shows how we can all read things differently!
Thought I’d come back and say why. C doesn’t make losing B and E “worth it”. Nothing ever could. Anyways, probably me misinterpreting.
By worth it, I mean I cannot come up with a way of feeling that I’m glad to have gone through this despite what it has cost us.
I don’t see, am unable to see, that having Freddie has been truly wonderful and meaningful for us. He was lovely, he was a little person, he was wanted and adored, but none of that, not even knowing him, makes up for the pain we are all in now.
Even if I could say, and I have in the past said, that I would not choose to “not know of this,” seeing my children suffering because of him, because of my choice to have him, makes this seem a painful and pointless affair.
We have not gained, we have lost. I’m struggling to see the thing in the future that will cause all this to have had some greater good. How good it would have to be to make having watched him die an okay thing?
Pointed and barbed reminders that I’m supposed to value him as a person, a “whom”, are not helpful or kind. I barely had time to get no know him as a person, none of us did. It doesn’t make the hurt much less bad, except for the bitter sweet reality that it *would* be worse if it were one of the girls who had died now rather than a baby we had only just got to meet. Not knowing him but for a moment makes for nothing more than having no good memories, only painful ones. Nothing, one might say, to smile about at the wake afterwards.
When I was in grief (when does it end?) someone once told me that I was ‘not alone’ that all over the world people were grieving for the loss of loved ones, connections and meaning. This didn’t make it any easier and i can remember thinking “Don’t you get it? I am shattered and will never be the same again, what’s that got to do with anyone else?” Grief is personal, we can’t correct how another person goes through it. That feeling of waking every day with a truck of realization hitting is hardcore. How we each get through that is our own detail.
I am really, really sorry about the pain your girls are going through, that they are sobbing, that you are holding them through this. I hope you have a lot of day to day support.
It was a couple of months after Emma died that the awful fact of her “goneness” began to sink in. “Always going to be dead” – Oh Merry. I am sorry that that is your reality – and the reality of your girls. It is so, so painful having to support our children grieving. It feels like the ultimate kick in what is an all around shitty situation. Just so much love and sadness for you.