Happy Birthday, My Precious Child

It was eighteen minutes past six when you arrived. A crisp morning at the end of winter.
You didn't arrive kicking and screaming. It was quiet chaos. In hushed urgency the doctors and nurses resuscitated you. You made it. Then. In the end there was no chaos, just a quiet ending.

I miss you everyday, but especially today. I have to try not to think too much about the 'ifs and buts'. Lord knows I've fought hard to hang onto the last few shreds of sanity I still have, but sometimes, like unpleasant, unexpected guests, they do arrive and then I wonder - what if you were still alive? Where would you be in your life? And I wonder, what if you were here now....  I have to stop myself.

I talk to you. All the time. I remind you that you're still the eldest and need to keep an eye out for your brothers. I know you hear me.

I love you.
Mom.

Complicated Emotions

Sometimes I can't say what my emotions are, because I don't know the names by which they are called. On a superficial level they can be: anger, resentment, guilt, remorse, misery, sadness... But they are more than that. And when you mix them all together... I really don't know what you call it. I think of those toys we got as kids. Usually animals that stood on a small round platform. You could hold it in your hand and when you pushed the indent under the platform, the little animal would collapse. That's how I feel a lot of the time. Straight and tall one minute and crumpled the next.

I Feel Angry Today...

I feel angry today.
I went to see Zane yesterday. Of course he's not there. Not really, anyway. His grave looks terrible. Firstly it looks terrible because it has his name on it, but it also looks terrible because the loose stones have become less and the grass forcing it's way onto the grave, more. I apologised to him and promised to sort it out. To be honest I don't think he really cares. But I do.

I feel angry because people tell me 'You have three other children to think about. You need to move on.' Some of the people that say this don't have any children. Not even a dead one.

I feel angry because at times the grief still overwhelms me and comes on suddenly and unexpectedly and I burst into tears sometimes at the most inopportune moments.

But then, I think this: Growth does not always come without pain, but always with reward.
And so - each day I learn and grow, and know that the reward will be for me to be a stronger, more insightful, sensitive person and to enjoy the greatness that life still has to offer.

A Good Week

It has been a good week. A whole week! I feel so grateful and blessed. This is the first week in 5 months that I have spent more time in proper clothes than in my dressing gown. I am making progress. Okay - I know I must be careful not to get ahead of myself. My therapist says I might have a few more setbacks before I manage to start 'walking' (I mean this emotionally) again, but I am so pleased with this progress and I believe, truly believe, that any setback I suffer will not be the same as the gaping, dark hole I have come from.

I miss Zane. I miss him so much. I am sad that I don't have the opportunity to see him as an adult and have that kind of adult relationship with him. I am sorry that he isn't here to see his brothers. But, I know that I can find peace and I am on the path going in the right direction.

Infinite Realms of Darkness

Where have I been?
I wish I could say 'between the devil and the deep blue sea' or 'between a rock and a hard place.' Those would be easier places to be. Where have I been? Between an abyss and the infinite realms of darkness.

Of course, there is no preparation for this place - the Infinite Realms of Darkness. No. You think about it, you hear about it, but there is simply no way you can imagine it.

The 5 Stages of Grief. Ha. That's like implying they're stages to be set and performed on with an audience and applause.
The only sound I hear on this stage is the deafening silence of a voice with no sound. A voice I will never hear again. The lights went out. There was no applause.

And let me tell you - if one more person tells me 'He's in a better place', I will assault them. Do people really think I give a flying f**k where he is? No, I don't. All I care about right now is that he isn't here. And when I have woken up in the middle of the night, with the icy hands of grief tightening around my neck, gasping for breath, with images of my beautiful son wandering bewildered around a heartless cemetery, believe you me, I cannot possibly believe that there can be a better place for him to be, than in the arms of his mother.

Selfish grief

I've heard it said - 'You just have to trust that wherever you are, is where you are meant to be.'
I really hope that is true; that my obsessive watching of crime television, mindless games of mahjong on the laptop, ceiling staring and living in my dressing gown, is where I am meant to be.


I can't help but feel that I am being selfish in my grief, that I am allowing myself an indulgence of wound-licking when there are others who have suffered more, are suffering more and will suffer more, than me.
But this is my grief and it's relevant to me and my life, so I need to experience it.
Along with my grief, I feel for mothers who have lost their children, parents whose children have gone too soon, or brutally.


My heart goes out to them and when I say a prayer for me, I say a prayer for them too.

When The World Is Quiet

At night

When the world is quiet,

I sit alone

With my grief.

There is no mirror,

But we reflect each other.

My grief and me.

I sit alone

At night

When the world is quiet,

With my broken heart

And it’s missing pieces.

My chiselled soul

And my dead eyes stare

Back at me.

I sit alone

But I know out there somewhere

He’s watching me.