I've been doing well today. We saw the Hastes, and your big sister and Martha were thick as thieves and tore up the house in typical fashion (she's now so exhausted I just found her snoring in bed). Of course if you were here and trying to sleep through it, it would have been impossible. You are sleeping soundly where you are though. I've started writing now because this thought occurred to me and then I felt desperately sad again. I really want to come to Sun Rising and sit with you, we could look for snakes and owls together and I could read you some Rabrindranath Tagore from the book that Aunty Ros sent me. Sadly I can't come and be with you because your Daddy just called and is stuck at the car wash and I can't drive yet - I won't be allowed for another week. When I can drive and when I have the car I'll be with you more - like it should have been. If only you knew how I miss you, and how the moments which are quiet, scream with the loss of you. Those moments were to be filled with our adventures, and now they are filled with shredded memories. Glorious pictures of you in my head are interspersed with pain, trauma and sadness. How can you not feel my love when it is so huge? I feel silly for worrying that I wouldn't know how to spread my love and affection across all three of you - you all fill my heart like a giant colourful hot air balloon! Endless love. But much of my head is full of only you, because it is all so cruel and unfair that you aren't with us, surrounded by your adoring family.
There is not much else to say today other than I miss you. I am going to survive and overcome this sadness but never think for a moment it lessens your place in my heart or in this family. Tilda will always be your big sister, and Sam your big brother. You will always be my precious youngest, my sweet sweet boy. The time we spent together was a lifetime crushed into days, hours even. But it was your lifetime nonetheless and I shared it with you feeling all the things that mothers do. Pride, awe, anger, worry, frustration, happiness, guilt and of course unconditional love - they all spilled out in a frantic wave as we struggled to grasp the briefness of our time with you. I adore you Freddie Bean, I can't believe you're not here.
Friday 30 January 2015
Witches (29/01/15)
Today I was listening to 6 music on the way back from my first counselling session and they played 'Blister in the Sun' followed by 'Don't Want To Know If You Are Lonely', do you remember that one from our youth? It's the first time I've heard it in like twenty years; I could've sworn it was by Mega City Four but it was Husker Du. I sang along to the Violent Femmes for a bit and remembered all the times we've bellowed our way through it but then me singing it on my own felt lonely and hollow. I felt really sad but I also knew, especially after the counselling session, that I'm not well enough to see you yet.
The counsellor said I have to rip up the timetable and succumb to grief. I've been fighting it because it's terrifying. I've been desperate to be ok and to project an image of coping. I don't want to be the one falling apart and I've been frantic for life to somehow go back to how it was (with Freddie miraculously back in it too) because the prospect of being broken forever has felt like a death sentence. Anyway, the counsellor said there's no blueprint for grief, to forget the future worries and just grieve - it's ok to let go and to not have a plan for now. I'm so used to being the one giving support, being vulnerable has been too scary. I've barely even spoken to the bereavement midwife, I kept asking her what her job motivations were and what her her background was (at the funeral - how appropriate), like she was a work colleague. I didn't feel like I was a grieving mother because I went into work mode as a defence mechanism. The swiftness of the fundraising page was part of that, as was my insistence that I could cope with everything baby related. I was determined to make sure everyone else was ok as an avoidance of having to deal with my own necessary grief.
Two days ago when Little Girl Iris was born I saw that Babes in Toyland have reformed and are touring - it made me want to pick up the phone to you and say 'oh hey lets get our dresses and dockers on'. Then I remembered that I'm grieving and you are celebrating, and the world is on it's head right now. I bought LGI a gift last night. Even though I can't see her it made me feel happy, like it was something at least. I hope she gets it soon.
I keep thinking of you all smiling and cuddling her and I wish I wasn't the outsider. But I am. Freddie isn't being loved and admired too, he's at the burial ground with snow and flowers on him and he's cold and can't be cuddled and held and that makes me angry. His death has caused an earthquake and tsunami across my family and I am in the middle of it feeling as though I am suffering and losing the most. I know I shouldn't be angry with anyone; if there is blame to be apportioned anywhere the only person it can be directed at is me. However in grief we are far from rational and I realise that I need to be stronger, peaceful and more positive in order to nurture good relationships. It's so cruel that things ended up as they did, if the dates were different none of this would be so hard, I would have your support, or at least I would be able to accept your support rather than being traumatised by speaking to you. I worry that by the time I've achieved any kind of acceptance and zen (is this wishful thinking?), you might have all moved on and LGI will be big and I'll have missed so much. However then I'm scared that one day I'll think I'm ready to see her and I'll only see what should've been for Freddie. I know you can't ever truly feel or understand this and I wouldn't want you to. I wouldn't wish the feelings of loss and sorrow on my worst enemy, let alone you. To understand it means you have experienced my journey and therefore felt it too. One and the same. Sadly though it means we are worlds apart and might always be, and because of fates unfortunate hand I don't know if I can ever face LGI without looking at the empty space next to her. That space is where Freddie exists in another life, laughing and giggling with her. It's so early in my journey so who knows what may be. I'm doing that thing where I try and predict the future and let it make me doubly upset and anxious.
The counsellor said I have to rip up the timetable and succumb to grief. I've been fighting it because it's terrifying. I've been desperate to be ok and to project an image of coping. I don't want to be the one falling apart and I've been frantic for life to somehow go back to how it was (with Freddie miraculously back in it too) because the prospect of being broken forever has felt like a death sentence. Anyway, the counsellor said there's no blueprint for grief, to forget the future worries and just grieve - it's ok to let go and to not have a plan for now. I'm so used to being the one giving support, being vulnerable has been too scary. I've barely even spoken to the bereavement midwife, I kept asking her what her job motivations were and what her her background was (at the funeral - how appropriate), like she was a work colleague. I didn't feel like I was a grieving mother because I went into work mode as a defence mechanism. The swiftness of the fundraising page was part of that, as was my insistence that I could cope with everything baby related. I was determined to make sure everyone else was ok as an avoidance of having to deal with my own necessary grief.
Two days ago when Little Girl Iris was born I saw that Babes in Toyland have reformed and are touring - it made me want to pick up the phone to you and say 'oh hey lets get our dresses and dockers on'. Then I remembered that I'm grieving and you are celebrating, and the world is on it's head right now. I bought LGI a gift last night. Even though I can't see her it made me feel happy, like it was something at least. I hope she gets it soon.
I keep thinking of you all smiling and cuddling her and I wish I wasn't the outsider. But I am. Freddie isn't being loved and admired too, he's at the burial ground with snow and flowers on him and he's cold and can't be cuddled and held and that makes me angry. His death has caused an earthquake and tsunami across my family and I am in the middle of it feeling as though I am suffering and losing the most. I know I shouldn't be angry with anyone; if there is blame to be apportioned anywhere the only person it can be directed at is me. However in grief we are far from rational and I realise that I need to be stronger, peaceful and more positive in order to nurture good relationships. It's so cruel that things ended up as they did, if the dates were different none of this would be so hard, I would have your support, or at least I would be able to accept your support rather than being traumatised by speaking to you. I worry that by the time I've achieved any kind of acceptance and zen (is this wishful thinking?), you might have all moved on and LGI will be big and I'll have missed so much. However then I'm scared that one day I'll think I'm ready to see her and I'll only see what should've been for Freddie. I know you can't ever truly feel or understand this and I wouldn't want you to. I wouldn't wish the feelings of loss and sorrow on my worst enemy, let alone you. To understand it means you have experienced my journey and therefore felt it too. One and the same. Sadly though it means we are worlds apart and might always be, and because of fates unfortunate hand I don't know if I can ever face LGI without looking at the empty space next to her. That space is where Freddie exists in another life, laughing and giggling with her. It's so early in my journey so who knows what may be. I'm doing that thing where I try and predict the future and let it make me doubly upset and anxious.
I'm writing in a really stupid, strange way like a really pretentious but crap novel. It's cathartic so I'm not too sorry. Perhaps I'll write differently tomorrow. I think I'll try and write every day, it seems to help. Perhaps months from now I'll read it back and it'll sound reassuringly ridiculous. Here's hoping.
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