Luck

Father's Day was almost as bad as Mother's Day. Before I won the unlucky lottery, I was very, very lucky in finding a wonderful guy. Brendan is all that I could ever want in a husband plus some. He is funny, sweet, smart, attractive, and easy to be around. He is, to be totally cliche, my best friend, the person I most want to spend time with on any given day. I could go on and on about what makes him such a wonderful partner, but I think you get my point.

I was so looking forward to seeing him as a dad. He doesn't have much experience with babies so he is a bit timid around them, but I know he would have been amazing with Colden had he gotten the chance. It is awful to see him hurting instead of seeing him bonding with his son. He works so hard to take care of me that sometimes he doesn't show his own feelings, but losing Colden has broken his heart too.

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We're going on vacation to Yellowstone National Park tomorrow. I am looking forward to it, mostly because I am so looking forward to being away from work for almost two weeks. And it will certainly be beautiful as well. But I tired quickly of hearing people tell us we're "lucky" to get to get away like that. Um, no. Not so much. I would rather be home with my baby in my arms, thank you very much.

But anyway... Colden is coming with us in spirit at least. I sewed a patch on my backpack with the name and picture of his mountain, and we're bringing his national park book. Did you ever have one as a kid? I didn't because there weren't a whole lot of big parks on the east coast, but Brendan lived in Washington so his slightly hippy parents got him one. You take it with you to every national park and get a stamp as a record of where you've been. We bought one for Colden last year when we went to Zion in Utah. I was 5 months pregnant and filled with the glow of certainty that he'd be here in my arms, safe and happy in another few months. I was just giggly and silly and laughing about how this was his first trip with us and his book would have ever park he ever visited, even in the womb.

I never even considered that it'd become a memorial book, but so much has changed. What's one more crappy thing in the scheme of things? No, I think it's good to make rituals and personify our grief in some way, and bringing his book on our trip lets me do that. I am reminded of my babylost friend Laura. She took a trip to Mexico a few months after losing her son and got a sombrero for her grief. She even fed it a chip one night. That made me laugh and yet it also made sense to me. I am just hoping to be able to get a stamp for Colden's book without bursting into tears. Wish me luck...

Missing Colden

I haven't been writing, haven't known what to say or how to say it. Time just passes by so quickly. I heard a quote on the radio the other day that was attributed to Woody Allen, "Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon. "

A few weeks after Colden died my mom said something to me that I didn't really understand and yet hurt my feelings. She said something that indicated that she thought I would process this grief faster than other people do. I think she was clumsily trying to say that she thinks I'm a strong person, but it still stung. Does she think I'm not a feeling, loving person? That I will just get over Colden? How can this being saying something even remotely positive about me?

So now here I am 6 impossible months later, 6 months that I am still stunned I have survived, and I am better and yet not. Not better in the sense that other people might assume, that they in fact seem to crave. That better would mean moving on. It would mean living, loving, laughing the way I had before. That better would mean that my smile was fully real or that I didn't cringe still every time someone asks casually how I'm doing. But I am better in the sense of coping, going to work and even being successful in that crazy, meaningless corporate environment, being a friend, a sister, a partner. I am social, mostly. I am still the same bossy, decisive, driven person that I have been. I am down to crying once a week or so rather than every day or hour.

Sometimes I wonder what it says about me that I am as functional as I am. I mean, I fake it a lot, and faking being okay seems to directly help me be more functional. But I don't know if that's a good thing. Was my mom right? Even if she was, I don't know why or what it says about me as a person. Do people believe that I have just moved on? I still miss him with all that I am, still long for the family life we could have had together and the chance to see him grow up. But life just keeps going on. I am aparently not inclined to just hole up at home so I keep on going with it. Also, I feel more distant for him. The life I imagined for us seems hazy, like a dream I was silly enough to conjure up.

But today the events of Wednesday, December 17th weigh heavily on me. It is even the same day of the week. I think about how exhausted I was that morning and yet still happy, blissfully ignorant that he was already dead inside me. I know that if he had not died, I would likely have not gone into labor, so tomorrow would not be his 6 month birthday. And yet I cannot help play an endless loop of what ifs and should have beens in my mind. What would he look like? What would he be doing? What would like be like if I were actually okay rather than just pretending, even to myself.