The Darkness

It is very important to me to provide information about SIDS, what I have discovered and share current research.  My hope is that other loss moms have found my blog and are gaining some comfort or insights from my posts. I was reading through my blog posts and started to get worried that I wasn’t expressing how I really feel on my day-to-day. Being a mom who has lost her child is on my mind everyday from the second I wake-up until I lay my head to sleep at night and sometimes into my dreams. Focusing on hope, love and community helps me get through each day. I feel like it is important for me to share some of the real darkness I have felt. I’m sharing this because I get comfort knowing that other moms experience similar pain, grief is so lonely and not easy to talk about.  Yes– I get up and take care of myself, go to work, make dinner, care for my home, spend time with friends, smile and laugh. My inner struggle, my darkness, I keep secret– scared of sharing my true feelings and emotions with others.

Several months after the shock of losing Grey settled in I put a lot of thought into taking my own life. How could I go on? My pain was immense. I had a few freeway road rage incidents where I didn’t care if the end result was me driving into a wall. I researched how to take my own life, what pills could I take, could I poison myself? Can I sit in my car in the garage? Would someone do it for me when I was out walking the dog? I got my husband’s gun and held it in my hands and wondered where I would pull the trigger. I thought I was being slick and hiding these thoughts until my husband asked me if I was going to hurt myself. I reassured him that I wouldn’t but, honestly, I was scared that I might.

I haven’t touched Grey’s room. His dirty clothes are still in the hamper – his 6 and 12 month outfits hanging in the closet. His room still smells like a baby and I feel his presence when I go in there. Sometimes, I go in and rock in the chair and smell his clothes and think of him in my arms. I sleep with his favorite baby blanket and look for it in the night to make sure that it is covering me or that I am touching it in some way.

Grey’s urn is on my nightstand.

I imagine sometimes that he is with us. When I am relaxing outside I imagine him playing near me. When we go places or do fun things I always wish he was with us. I cried for 4 hours on a road trip awhile back – used to crying in private, I couldn’t hide my tears and pain from Stacy. Why did this happen?? My Dad had been battling cancer for a few years and passed away just 5 months after Grey.  Still deeply mourning my son, I could’t separate my grief, I imagined him with me at the hospital. I envisioned him sitting on the hospital bed with his grandpa, bringing us light at a dark time.

When I am working and I start to cry at my desk I try to make my way to the bathroom unnoticed. I cry in the stall and learned to lean my head over my knees and let my tears drop down to the floor. I often cry in my car, it is the only place that I am really alone with my thoughts. I have screamed at the top of my lungs driving down the street because sometimes crying isn’t enough.

I see other moms who have had babies since losing Grey and I can barely contain my tears– oftentimes avoiding an interaction at all costs. It takes a lot of effort and planning to be around babies and kids that are the same age as Grey. I could not attend my nieces 5th birthday this year – I sat in the parking lot of the pizza parlor sobbing uncontrollably and trying to convince myself I was strong enough to go inside.

I feel sorry for myself, a lot.

I had to stop social media for a significant amount of time. I currently use it–cautiously.  I had to unfollow some friends and even block a few. I have had pregnancy and birth announcements put me out for an entire day. I also had to quit HGTV (and a few other shows I used to watch) – one family had a particularly cute pregnancy announcement at the end of their segment and I ended up having to take the next day off of work. Media is extremely triggering.

I am truly happy for you –just so very sad for myself. 

Today marks one week from Grey’s second angelversary, I can’t believe it has been two years. It feels like yesterday and also like a thousand years ago….a happy dream or another life. I will say that each day has gotten better but the emptiness I feel without him will always be heavy on my heart.

I want to end today’s post with a quote I found in the Guardian:

“Compassion literally means to suffer alongside. The greatest gift we can give the bereaved, with the loneliness that accompanies loss, is to not run away”