I had one of those weekends where I cried constantly. It didn't matter if we were at the house, walking around Depoe Bay, playing on the beach, or driving to dinner. I cried and cried and cried and then I cried some more. That old refrain that runs through my mind constantly (this is not how it was supposed to be!) was particularly loud this weekend. We laughed some. We danced some. But mostly I cried.
The skin on my face is peeling off. At first I thought it was a stress reaction, or maybe a result of all the hormone changes, but now I think it's from the crying. I fear I am literally crying my face off.
Isabel was absolutely overwhelmed by the size of the house. She spent the first night running around frantically. The house is three stories with many, many bedrooms and she ran around and around and around in confusion. Eventually she found a quiet corner in the TV/game room and collapsed from sheer exhaustion. Since Charlotte died I've felt like Isabel was acting. I am absolutely overwhelmed by Charlotte's death, I'm in a strange new place, and I spend a lot of my time frantically searching for ever elusive peace.
There were some bright moments this weekend. I thought the weather was going to be horrible, but on Saturday the sun came out and we sat outside in t-shirts. How often does that happen at the coast? Last summer we went to the beach in August and I had to wear a light sweatshirt under a down vest. We read and played with Isabel in the sunshine and it was nice to spend time together.
We wandered in and out of the shops in Depoe Bay Saturday afternoon. When a shop owner asked Jonathan if we had any kids he said, "No, well um kind-of." I nearly accosted a pregnant woman on the street. She looked so happy and I wanted to grab her by the shoulders, look her in the eye and say, "Your baby might die. Just so you are prepared, because I certainly wasn't, your baby might die."
We venture into the world, get tossed around for a while, and then retreat. Whenever I step outside my front door I feel like screaming, "Fall back! Fall back! It is not safe out here!" It's just so hard to face the world with this grief, this knowledge that the universe is going backwards and we have somehow outlived our child.
So here I am, back on my couch, curled up in the corner, exhausted from the crying and the weekend away. It's nice to be back here, looking at Charlotte's things. I latched on to a little bird in a store this weekend.
I walked back and forth, back and forth, touched it, walked away, circled back to it until Jonathan offered to buy it for me. I find little things that remind me of Charlotte and I obsessively gather these trinkets, put them in my pocket, and carry them home to the coffee table where everything that is Charlotte lives now. And I sit in front of her things day after day, missing her, loving her, wishing I had a baby in my arms instead of a handful of memories strewn across a coffee table. Pin It
3 comments:
I'm so sorry you had to field the question and see that woman to boot. You know, yesterday my husband was hauling furniture from our old house to our new one, and I was driving behind him. He had the crib and bassinet in the back of the truck. We were sitting at a light and I suddenly thought, "If I didn't know him and I saw him right now, I would be crying because I would think he was a happy father going home to a baby or building a new nursery." Instead of him being a grieving father moving his dead baby's furniture.
I guess what I'm saying is you can never know someone's story. I am so not saying your feelings were wrong- I have them too, every day, all day long. But I hope to some day be a happy, smiling (cautiously happy... cautiously smiling) pregnant woman. Strangers won't know my story... but there is one.
There is a lady at my church whom I really admire. She lost her daughter and for years didn't know how to answer people who asked if she had children. Finally she came up with this answer:
She would tell them yes, and she would tell them how many she had, their ages (or when they were grown where they lived) and that one lived in Heaven. And leave it at that.
I think it is a nice way of letting people know you have a child, but also doesn't make them feel bad for asking.
There is a lady at my church whom I really admire. She lost her daughter and for years didn't know how to answer people who asked if she had children. Finally she came up with this answer:
She would tell them yes, and she would tell them how many she had, their ages (or when they were grown where they lived) and that one lived in Heaven. And leave it at that.
I think it is a nice way of letting people know you have a child, but also doesn't make them feel bad for asking.
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