This is yet another post about coping with Aaron's death. As I said before, I am baring my heart in these. I know I am not the first person to suffer such a loss, nor will I be the last. My prayer is that by being honest in these posts that someone who is or will be going through the same valley will be encouraged that they aren't alone.
Today has been an unqualified emotional disaster for me. Dale went back into work this morning. I started crying the moment he left. This went on for a couple hours. I finally called him at work and we chatted for a bit. Finally we decided that he would come home. I should have been honest with him last night when we were talking. The thought of trying to handle everyone at home by myself, but add that into the mix that anyone might come to the door or call ... I was just overwhelmed. I'm not exactly good company these days. I don't feel like chatting with every Tom, Dick, and Harry that calls or stops by. I just didn't want to deal with it. Plus, I had been looking at some of the pics we have of Aaron to send to an artist who is doing his portrait. Oh, boy.. that brought it all back, and hard. I thought that sleeping on it overnight would lessen the hurt, but it made it worse. The dreams I had were vivid, and I remembered them when I woke up.
Add that to the deer-in-the-headlights feel with Dale going back to work and it yields a day that was a catastrophe before I had coffee.
Oh, something else that set me off that happened last night and was in my memory all night and this morning was something Jerusha did. At almost three years old, the whole situation we are in now kind of escapes her understanding. Last night she was in the bedroom with me and found one of those individually wrapped sample diapers you get in the mail. She asked me if I made it (lately, she thinks that Mama made everything.. ). My throat just constricted and my mind went back to the day after Aaron was born. She had come into my room in the morning to see me and looked at the spot on the bed where we had Aaron before we handed him over to the funeral director. Very innocently, with eyes full of question and concern, she asked, "Where's baby?". That happened many times over the first couple days that Aaron left us. How do you explain to a almost 3 year old that her baby brother is dead? That he will never live with us? That he will never occupy the crib she watched me set up and excitedly chatter on about the "new baby" Mama was going to have? How do you explain that the baby that was inside Mama's tummy that she felt moving just a few days ago is gone? How do you do that without traumatizing her? I remember I had just tried to simply explain that Aaron was with Jesus. I'm sure that didn't make much sense to her.
Anyway, I was afraid of hearing that sweet, innocent, "Where's baby?" again, her big blue eyes full of questions and concern. I was afraid that little diaper would jog the memory of the baby Mama was supposed to be taking care of, but wasn't. I just didn't think I could go through the whole routine again. So I told her she could have the diaper for her doll, and to go put it on her. That totally derailed Jerusha's line of thought.
But not mine. Over and and over I still now hear her question: "Where's baby?" And this morning I could hear it in my imaginations as sure as I heard her those few days after Aaron's birth. That, with the seeing the pictures again, and Dale being at work and me feeling totally unprepared to deal with life... let's just say it wasn't pretty.
Then after he came home I felt guilty for being the cause of him having to come home. I mean, I am an adult after all. Shouldn't I be handling this better? It is like taking one step forward and three backward. I am also feeling guilty about not being able to fully take care of the children. Elizabeth asked Dale today: "Will mama ever be able to take care of us by herself again?"
There are times when I just can't make a decision. When Dale asked if I wanted him to come home from work, I honestly didn't know what to tell him. Yes, I wanted him to come home, but was it the right thing to do? Should I just suck it up and just get through the day? Does he need to be at work, to get a break from being here? Then, this evening, I looked out the window to watch the older children playing outside. I saw they were running back and forth through a huge mud puddle that used to be the end of our driveway. They were covered, head to toe... black mud. Clothes, boots, coats... ruined.
I just stood there, numb. Not laughing, not crying, not yelling. I didn't know how to react. I called Dale to the window, and he didn't really react either. We finally decided to just have them come in for baths. I will soak their clothes and coats. Their boots... not sure what to do about them.
Normally this sort of thing doesn't faze me... its just part of being a mom, right? Kids like to run and play and get dirty. But today, it just made my brain freeze up and fuzz over.
I feel like a failure. I think I should be better than this. More able to cope than this. I think what I need is to be reminded that I can grieve at my own pace, and its OKAY. I have these expectations of myself, which are obviously unrealistic. This isn't something you "get over", like a sickness. You never get over it. But, you do learn to adapt. Reset your life with a new normal. But it is a process, a journey without end. I have to learn to adjust, accept, and live with it.
Tomorrow will be a long arduous day for me. Dale has an interview at work for a full time position there. I already told him that I would be fine if he wants to go in at his regular time. The interview is from 10am to noon. No way I want him to miss that interview. He said he would call me on lunch hour to see how I was doing and to let me know how the interview went. I pray tomorrow will be an easier day. It can't be easy for the children to see me crying like I did today. I never realized that your eye sockets can hurt from crying so much. However, I think that storm is over, and now I can regroup a bit. Something else I know now too. In the midst of that heart-rending, deep hurt crying, God was there. I can still say with my whole heart: He doeth all things well.
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