Changes

Tim's birthday is coming up on July 25th. So many memories trying to crowd each other out. They laid this little tiny bundle in my arms and again my life changed. I had a 5 year old daughter waiting for us at home and she had already changed my life. Both of my babies changed my life for the better. I had two little ones who loved me unconditionally, and I loved them the same. They were my world and all that I was circled their orbits every second of every day. Then they grew up and went away and that love never changed but I did.

We go through so many changes when we have new jobs, move to different towns, start new lives. We change when our babies grow up. But nothing, nothing in this world causes change as much as when our flesh, our babies die. I cannot say if we change for the better or worse or laterally. When we say we died the day our child died, it is not a euphemism, it is a fact. The person we were before they died, died with them. The change is abrupt and complete. It is also a shock to us, but we are already in the deepest shock of our lives so it goes unnoticed.

The shock eventually eases a little, but the world around us no longer makes any sense. The people we knew are different in our eyes. We see more than we want to because we have become hyper-sensitive to everything. We have to start building new 'us,' while others are waiting for us to go back to who we were. That person is dead and few understand that. Our grief is now a permanent part of our lives. No matter what we do, how we are, what we say, the sorrow of lose will never go away. We learn to hide it, because it becomes private, ours alone. There will be good days and bad days and maybe the time will come that you have more good than bad. But even on a good day, the grief is there, in the background, always a reminder.

In the long run, we rebuild ourselves. We can learn to live quality lives, good lives for the sake of our loss and those still with us, as long as they accept that we are not who we once were. Change is hard. Violent change is horrible., but we can survive. In the beginning, survival is not what we want, and some days, the bad days, we could just as easy go as it is to stay. It takes a strong will to survive those days. We have to learn to accept the changes in ourselves. We have to learn to live with our loss. We have to rebuild our live even as we don't want to. So much, so very much to deal with. If I could, I would take your pain and put it in a jar that could never be opened. I will cry on his birthday. I will remember his birth to his death and I will want to be alone and not alone. It's so hard to accept this life and changes, but I will work at it, day after day. With deep love and compassion, 'Forever Mom.'