Grieving for a child involves unprecedented levels of guilt. Primarily because being a parent means you protect your children..and infants don't die. So that assumes you did something wrong and because of this you then spend an inordinate amount of time self flagellating over what that may have been. When you have finished (if in fact you ever do) feeling guilty over the actual events leading up to and during the passing of your child you then move onto the next batch of tortuous thoughts and feelings. I found those early days agonising and I would liken them to waking up in a horror show again and again. The moment just after your eyes have opened, before you remember. The moment you go to look for your infant either with hands on stomach or eyes to crib. The guilt and sadness of those early days and weeks overpowered me, I was wrestled to the ground by it daily and I spent most of my time wishing I could go back to him, wishing I could die, and most of all wishing the pain would stop. I lived in fear of eternal pain, not knowing how to fit its enormity into my sad little frame forever. Grief at first is a death sentence. Grief must be negotiated, learnt and branded. I am personalising grief with my continuing relationship with Freddie.
Learning to cope with losing him and with how to grieve has now brought me to a startling revelation. I have discovered the unthinkable. I CAN COPE (mostly). I can find ways to love my child, I will always be taught important lessons through the rest of my life by my child, and he is always with me. And repeat. This doesn't mean I have tucked a chapter under my belt in cavalier fashion and am striding forth with purpose, quite the opposite. Our old friend guilt would never allow it even if it were something I chose to do. Guilt likes to encroach whenever more positive or strong behaviours emerge. Guilt likes to remind you that you shouldn't smile, or laugh or feel that life is once again worth living. I find that a few hours of watching a film, or finding some giggles and love again with my husband, or getting lost in a furniture project are wonderful but shortlived, because guilt tells me I am dishonouring my son. If I don't think of him, guilt tells me I am a terrible mother. But we can park guilt to one side when we consider this; we are multifaceted creatures. Mothers, lovers, wives, sisters, aunties, best friends, counsellors. If Freddie were here I would still seek out that time for myself, but the stakes are higher now because he isn't. His absence means I have to try harder to keep him alive in my thoughts, because if I don't think about him then he isn't anywhere.
So with guilt at arms length, I've recently realised that there is comfort in all that pain. I've realised that when I cry, something different happens - I no longer fight it and I no longer have the awful fear that life is forever ruined. I feel soothed by the sadness, for when I cry he is with me. I see that life can't be ruined because Freddie has left behind a subtle legacy. I quietly write, I think, I garden, I watch, I drive in the sunshine to see him and sometimes I laugh and smile. All of these things I do are because Freddie was born, and the poignancy and sharp focus of every emotion and act is an honorable tribute to his being. So when the pain and suffering come along, triggered by anything from finding his little baby bath in the cupboard to watching something on telly or just simply waking up and feeling despair at his absence, I embrace it. I cry willingly and wholeheartedly and indulge in it. This is the closest I can be to him. The comfort of crying for something precious beyond measure. The sadness that makes my son the most important thing in my day. I no longer mind feeling that pain because it is as real as he is.
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