Have You Ever....

"Have You Ever" - Author Unknown

Have you ever watched your child die?

Have you ever held his hand, feeling the life that grew within you slip away, breath by painful breath?

Have you ever kissed a cold gray cheek, knowing you will never kiss it again while helpless tears rolled down your own?

Have you ever left your child-the child you dreamed of, the child you love-knowing the next time you visit him, it will be at his grave?

Have you ever sat at your window at midnight waiting for sleep, waiting for any escape from a nightmare that won't go away, only to watch dawn bring nothing but reminders of what you will never have?

Have you ever watched the world forget the person you love the most saying "you'll have another one" or "move on" or "let go" as if he were a book or a pen, or a bad haircut that could be replaced or erased as if he didn't matter, as if he had never been?

Have you ever looked at your future knowing someone will always be missing? Have you ever looked at your past knowing some things can never be changed?  Have you ever looked at your present and felt nothing, saw nothing but guilt and anger and loss?

I read this tonight on another blog.  I changed the she's to he's and so on, to fit Parker and I, I doubt the author will mind.

I'm such an emotional wreck these days. Every little thing makes me bawl. I keep reading my post from a year ago Right Where I Am: 2011, over and over and over, and every time i get to "I have learned to accept that I will never see Parker walk, or talk or call me Mommy. And I have learned to accept that I will have no more pictures: That what I have is it, there’s no more coming!  I have learned to accept the fact that in my house, he will never grow old, and I will never know him as a young man learning about life. I will never watch him fall in love, or get his heart broken. I will never have to let him go as he walks down the aisle, And, I will never hold the hand of his children, my grandchildren. I will never look at him all grown-up and feel pride knowing I gave this world another shining star." I fucking lose it. Like cant breathe, falling apart mess lose it.

The feelings you cant explain to anyone who doesnt "get it", are starting to come out.

The feelings of your life standing still, while everyone around you moves on.  The feeling of having a giant gaping hole in your chest, that throbs and aches, but no remedy can heal.  The panic from having to go out in public where happy families with healthy living babies are.  The dense fog that lingers over your life.  Jealousy sets in when you read Facebook posts from new moms complaining about how tired they are from being up with a fussy baby all night; because you would give anything to have a fussy baby to be up all night with.  Anger comes when you start to ask why.  Why did my baby have to die?  You begin to have anxiety about holidays, birthdays, angelversaries.  Knowing that each one means its been even longer, but the pain, the hurt is still fresh, as if it was just yesterday.   You begin to realize that you're living in a nightmare, a nightmare no one in your real life can relate to.  You lose friends, because they don't know what to say, and they just stop coming around.  You start to feel more connected with people you've talked to online because they write such beautiful posts that you can relate to, because they are living the same nightmare.  You realize that you've cried more in the last (X amount of time) than you have smiled or laughed.
And eventually over time you begin to find peace within yourself.  You make peace with the fact that yes, my baby died and my friends abandoned me.  But, I've made many more wonderful friends, many whom i will never meet in real life, but know they are always there should i need an ear or a shoulder. You face daunting tasks, like shopping for a baby shower gift, head on, knowing you will make it your bitch!  Facebook just fades out of your life entirely, until you are ready to go back and make it your bitch too!

I keep going back to family pictures.  There should be 7 of us in those pictures, but there will only be 6.  I keep asking myself if its too dark to ask a photographer to come out to the cemetery where Parker is buried and having family pictures done there.  What do you think? Will that freak out a normal person?  I want pictures of all my kids.  I hate that there is no head stone on Parker's grave, that we lay flowers on his Aunts stone for him.  That just the few of us know he's there.  And if it weren't for his Aunt Melody, I would have no idea where my baby is buried.

I told someone not too long ago, that now that Im starting to feel all these feelings and I'm not suppressing them by keeping overly busy anymore, i really dont know how to handle them.  And its true, I was to busy to grieve for the last 3 years.  And now i feel crazier than i felt i was the short months following seeing Parkers 24 inch white casket on top of a table with roses and blue ribbon scattered around it, until i had to pull myself together to get through another pregnancy that i feared would end up just like the last.  

Is it too morbid to wish i had seen him one last time, in the outfit his Dad and I picked out?  Or that i wish we had been at the funeral home to dress him in that outfit, or stayed at the hospital to give him his first and only bath?  Is it too morbid that im considering calling the funeral home and asking if they have pictures of him in their records? That probably makes me sound like a psycho-lunatic.  Maybe i am.  Maybe I'm finally becoming the basket head case i was meant to be 3 fucking years ago.