Loner

Bosty, 

I cannot describe how it feels to know you would now be 11 months old... I should be sad because you're getting so big, not because I never get to see you get big. It's just so unfair. I don't know where exactly I thought I would be at this point, but not here. Probably because at first I just thought that you would come back and I wouldn't have to figure it out, but you're still not back...and I'm so far from figuring it out. 

I could say it a million times, in a million ways, every single day for the rest of my life but it wouldn't matter... No one will ever fully understand how much my heart aches for you. Every loss is different. You were mine and there was never and never will be another you. People like you only happen one time, Bosty. Why you couldn't have graced this earth for at least 68 years instead of only 68 days is something I'll never find peace with...

I am stuck in a world infested with a society that doesn't recognize grieving in it's many forms, and though people typically mean well, when it comes down to it they are not accepting of my struggles. Far and few between even ask how I am doing these days, and when they do they're gone before I can even answer. I've come to find it's because they really just don't want to actually know. The answers are too painful to understand. They want to do what's socially acceptable and morally correct by asking, but they don't want to sit here and witness my pain first hand. No one wants to see the anger, sadness, tragedy, or the shockingly ugly depths I travel through each day. If they ask, it's because they feel obligated, but their responses can be summed up as "I feel sorry for you, but you're on your own."

Please send me a sign, fatboy. I would give anything to go back to the picture below... You and your brother completed me, now half of that is gone forever. I have days that I can't open my mouth without choking on tears and feeling like someone kicked me in the stomach... Today is one if those days. I pray that "woman" knows it's so very far from over. 

"There is, I am convinced, no picture that conveys in all it's dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, remediless, supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would show only a woman looking down at her empty arms."

Instead

Every time I look outside I want to cry. Winter, the snow, the holidays...All any of it represents to me is that the anniversary's of your life and death are coming. When I first lost you I thought about them often and how I couldn't imagine really making it to the day that should be your wonderful first birthday party with presents and cake and what I imagine would be a very chubby, smiling you. Instead I will probably lay in bed with your urn and beg you for a sign you're out there so I can blow you a kiss and have faith you get to catch it. 

I've realized I grew up with this image in my head that things would someday just work out. Like all of the sudden I would wake up in a happy home with the person I love and my children and things would be how they're suppose to be, just like that.

That's really a terrible way to think because life has definitely proven me wrong in the most awful of ways, but my mind still always ends on the thought that there has to be a rewind button. Somewhere, somehow, there just has to be, because every single part of me aches to go back to that day. To wake up and feed my little fatboy, but go back to bed afterwards instead. Instead of getting ready for work. Instead of changing their clothes. Instead of putting Bosty in his car seat. Instead of unknowingly driving my son to his death. I would truly give literally anything to go back to that moment squished in between the two halves that made me whole, close my eyes and go back to sleep. 

I miss you so much, Boston. It is excruciating. I spent a lot of time trying to tell myself that one of these days I will wake up to something besides feeling my heartbreak. Thinking somehow, maybe, I could convince myself it's not really this bad, but it is. I think I am learning though. Learning that my "it will just go away" life style isn't a life style and doesn't exist. It's absolutely something I would give anything not to know about, but that's the thing...I do. Trying to ignore that is more torture to my already ripped apart soul. I have to miss you. I have to wonder. I have to cry. I have to let myself be completely horribly broken, because you can't fix anything that you won't acknowledge is broken in the first place. Not to mention you were perfect, and when you fall in love with perfect, anything less is so terribly tragic to have to live with. 

I love you, I love you, I love you, 

and someday I won't have to miss you. That is what I hold onto...

A letter to my mother

Mom,

Thank you. For a million reasons really, but here are a few. Thank you for all the love you give my children. For all the times you'd sit next to me with your hand on my belly waiting to feel them kick. For all the times you'd say "Okay, I'm ready for that baby to come!" For all the times I'd walk through your door and you'd say "Well, I did get this for the baby..." and then come out of your room with something truly adorable for one of them. For all the times you helped me with Q when I was sick while pregnant with Bosty. Thank you for watching survivor with me and the bachelor, I looked forward to those nights and skinny pop popcorn. Thank you for being genuinely delighted when my water broke and bringing me to the hospital. Thank you for staring for hours at Boston with me. For the mornings you would come grab him out of my room so I could sleep a little bit longer. For rocking him while I got us all ready for bed. For the last Saturday he was with us and we had to go get Stacy and you made him smile from ear to ear after I put him in his car seat. I will remember it forever. Thank you for being the one to pick him up that day. I'm so sorry you hold that nightmare with you, but I don't think I could have taken that pain. Thank you for making all the phone calls I couldn't have made myself. For greeting everyone at his visitation because all I could do is stand by his casket and sing to him. For being the one to play with Q because I didn't have it in me to get out of bed for months after Bosty left, even though I know you didn't want to either. Thank you for knowing how much I miss my baby. For knowing how wonderful he was. For loving us, and I hope you know how much we love you too.

My babies are so truly lucky to have you as their grandma.

The truth hurts

I cringe every time I look at a photo of myself. Whoever said that when you lose a child there's only one way you categorize things from that point on: before the death and after, was absolutely correct. I despise that difference. By no means was everything perfect in my life before Boston passed, but it didn't matter because I had him and Quinton. For once in my life I was content. I look at the few pictures I've been in since his death and it's like there is nothing behind my eyes. Eyes tell stories, but mine are empty. I can't help but wonder if the glint in them will ever return, but I don't really think it will. 

Losing a child robs you of a million moments, a million memories, a million feelings. It leaves you terrified, heartbroken, and the light I use to have in me is no longer there. It's off searching through the darkness trying to find my baby... I really just want my son. 

Life and people have been terribly hard to deal with lately because losing a child also results in being labeled as the person who must just be crazy because they lost a child... And so many people "can't imagine" what we're going through. I honestly think what I've been through (in some ways) makes me more sane than most, and before you think "Okay, she's really lost it" please hear me out. I don't live in ignorance. There is a black hole of truth you get thrown into when you experience such a traumatic loss. 

You don't get to go home and pretend that everything's okay and I've learned that people really don't like it when you're real. It makes them uncomfortable. 

They'd rather go home and pretend that pain like this doesn't exist because they don't have to deal with it. I don't get to do that. There's truly no pretending here. The face I literally ache to see each day is only in pictures on my wall. The sleeper I woke up and put on my unbelievably adorable son on his last day lays on my pillow along with the blanket he had with him. There is little bits of the clay that they used to make the mold of his hand stuck to it's sleeves. In my closet there is a huge chest where I keep things of his that I will cherish forever. His car seat is sitting by the door of my bed. I don't get to pretend because no matter where I am or where I go, my baby boy isn't there. 

Just try to imagine that... but you can't right? Well, I don't have to imagine. This is my life. My baby. My broken heart. My broken family.

I will spend the rest of my life trying to find ways to make Boston's name live on in a positive light, but I will never speak anything less than the reality of how truly awful losing him has been. 

To the sweetest boy I've ever known...I miss you with every breath that I take. 

Thinking of you

There's a heart breaking form of nostalgia setting in. The 7 month mark of your passing hit me hard, and each day since it's felt like a ton of bricks have been placed on my chest. You're really not coming back... 

I guess this is far from the first time I've sat here trying to get that through my head, but it's a little different now because I no longer have to try to make myself believe it. The little glimmer of disbelief and shock that stuck with me is now gone, but I still believe in you Bosty. Actually, I think you're the only thing I believe in. I believe in the love your presence made me feel. I believe in the joy you brought. I believe in the light that shined in everyone's eyes that ever met you. I believe you are the best thing that ever graced our families life. I believe you are the most beautiful, yet terribly tragic lesson I've ever learned. You changed me forever, and in ways that means you get to live on forever, just not how I would have ever thought.

I don't know how I'll wake up feeling 1 year from now or 20, but my heart beats different now and always will. Half of the reason being because it's broken, and half of the reason being because it's beating for you. 

You're special, my fat little love... It might hurt like hell having to do it for you, but best believe I'll take that pain making sure you're remembered. 

I love you. Forever and every day after that... 

It's been a long day without you my friend, 

and I'll tell you all about it when I see you again..

7 months

My darling little fatboy, 

In two days it will have been 7 months since you left me. I really don't know where the time has gone. 7 months. I really don't like that. I miss you so much that sometimes I literally physically feel ill. I hate to even say it but looking through your pictures and videos rips me apart. I use to do so constantly, but there is an intense pain that goes along with it now. I'm so sorry, Bosty. So terribly, completely, and utterly sorry. I'd give the world to go back in time because I'd never leave you or your brother to go back to work. I think of the first day I went back quite often. I had gotten both of you dropped off and stopped at the gas station a block away and realized I had a completely flat tire. I remember thinking that it was a sign that I just shouldn't be leaving you yet. There was no part of me that wanted to in the first place. You and your brother were perfect together and there is nothing I could ever cherish more in my entire life than the 68 days I had with you. 

I promised you that I will get you justice... This is just the start but it's coming, Bosty, even if takes the rest of my life, I promise.
I love you so very much. 

http://www.keloland.com/newsdetail.cfm/parent-concerns-raise-questions-about-day-care-regulations/?id=186128

Damaged goods

I am so sick of this. Sick of being heart broken, sick of being worried, sick of living without my baby, sick of wondering which little flecks of dust in the urn that holds my son were his eyes, his heart, his nose, his hair...

The counselor I saw for a few months after Boston passed told me that around the 6 month mark of a loved ones death is when it gets truly hard, and is also unfortunately around the time when even the closet people to you seem to scatter back into their own lives and are far from being there when you need it. I had no clue how right she was at the time. I feel like I am constantly screaming "Please help me!" but not a single sound comes out. I am damaged, and that is far from a good feeling.

Damaged as in I am a broken soul, damaged as in nothing is easy, damaged as in how could anyone ever love me knowing the surplus of how broken I already am. I am the broken lamp in the corner who's plug in doesn't work, the one that no one wants to deal with. Why would they? I don't even work. There is no light here...

I love my son. So much so that I'm not even sure how I made it to 22 without him. Which makes living the next however many years a "journey" I am very reluctant to take, but I really have no choice. Quite a few people have said to me "Oh you're so young. You'll figure it out." All I can think in my head the whole time is that yes, I am young. Which to me only means having to live even longer without my baby. 

I don't want to be the woman who can hardly leave her home because of the anxiety that now haunts me. I don't want to be the woman who's heart breaks anytime someone asks me how many children I have. I don't want to be the woman that's hard to love. I don't want to be the woman who's baby died, but I am. 

"One day you will see me again

Once more within your sight

I'll be right there to walk you in

I'm waiting in the light"