Heartbroken All Over Again

Another baby died of their CHD today. I only learned of her last night and spent about an hour reading her family's blog getting to know her and praying for her. She was 10 months old. Another family gets to plan a funeral. Decide what they want to dress their child in for the very last time. Figure out what to do with her things when they are ready. And grieve. Forever and ever and ever.

I can't get away from the pain. I mean, it's not on the surface anymore. It's no longer a fresh wound, but one that is so deep that just because it looks healed from the outside doesn't mean it ever will be.

Losing a child is like having your heart shattered and no matter how many times you put it back together, you're missing a piece and the sharp pieces prick at the inside of your chest if you move the wrong way that day. Some days, you can walk just the right way and feel no pain, but then you let your guard down and WHAM! There it is. As time goes by, scar tissue keeps your heart mostly intact and keeps you from getting stabbed over and over again, but it's always there. There's always that chance you'll wake up that day and feel yourself hurting all over again.

Its waking up feeling like today is going to be wonderful, but then you hear the rain on the roof, smell something in the breeze, hear a sound and you're pulled back to the memory of the day your world stopped.

Its not wanting to get out of bed some days, but life for everyone else goes on. It's not wanting to celebrate for another person's child when yours has nothing to celebrate ever again. It's anger, resentment and feeling bitter for no reason sometimes. It's nightmares when you only want to dream of holding them again. It's feeling like everyone wants you to get over it and wanting to tell them to take a flying leap. It's passing the cemetery and not wanting to go in, and longing to find some peace all at the same time.

It's looking for signs from above, wondering if the song you hear on the radio was meant JUST for you from your child. It's marking the calendar with how long they've been gone, not how many birthdays they've celebrated. It's seeing kids around your child's age and wondering what your child's life would have been like had he lived.

Tommy has been gone for almost 2 years now. It feels like yesterday. I used to reach out to parents that had lost a child, but now it makes me feel so depressed. Misery loves company, but this misery isn't like losing a ball game or divorce or any other loss, no matter how big or small. It's a black hole of despair that never, ever, ever goes away. I've tried to ignore it, but it's always there. I guess "pain" isn't the right word to describe what I feel. It's more like being covered with a thick fog of sadness. The saddest feeling you've ever had could never touch the sadness a parent that has lost a child feels.

I don't need pity, understanding, a shoulder to cry on, for you to look the other way, or any other way you think you should feel about my sadness. It is what it is. My burden to bear. There is no right way to grieve. I blog. That's me. Another parent might never speak of their child again. That's not wrong either. The only thing I need, what any parent that has lost a child needs is for the floor to stop falling out from under us for no reason.