Productive member of society

Apparently I am one of those people.  Productive member of society. I dont want to be!  I still want to grieve and do nothing else.  My schooling is past the point last semester where I had to withdrawl.  I needed to actually spend time learning the new material instead of reviewing.  My grades subsequently have went up because of this.  I have found it easier to do work and not just walk through the aisles feeling sorry for myself.  I have started my garden that I always wanted to.  Sure its just potted plants but I spent two days on it and its nice.  I also fixed up the deck with another chair and a table.  I can now sit out here under the protective umbrella of citronella and watch the day go by.  The sound of the road is in the background and continuous but I hear nothing of the neighbors, nor can I see them.  I cut down four small pine trees that blocked the sun from coming through shining on the deck on the evening hours.  They also felt too intrusive as they hung over.  But I have no houses around me in the back and woods are all I see.  I actually have some privacy!  It is peaceful and I have sat out here many days this week just relaxing, listening to music, and thinking about my son.  I have been so busy lately that I have not even wanted to write.

I dont know why, I still think about him constantly.  I just have not felt the need to blog or journal.  Partly because there is not one singular thing weighing heavy on my mind.  I have been so scatterbrained and busy bodied that thoughts come and go.  Maybe my brain is processing my grief differently, or something is wrong and I have not figured it out yet.  Sure the big thing that is wrong is my son is dead and his six month birthday is coming up and all I can think about is how I should have a six month old at home but that cant warrant not wanting to write.

For now I will continue to do work on the house, work on the deck and garden, and work for school and see what will come of it.  I will be one of these fabled members of society everyone thinks I should be.  Too bad I only want to be Marcellus's daddy. 

Breakdown

So I am trying to decide if this was really a good thing.  I had a miserable night last night, I cried and cried because it hurt just as bad as after we lost him.  This gut wrenching pain twisting a knot in my chest cutting off air as streams of tears fell from my eyes and the inevitable stinging snot poured from my nose.  I missed him, I missed him so sharply that it consumed me.  The dog and the wife cuddled with me and we all cried (Perk misses him too.)  But why did I break down like that?

Yesterday I met up with a friend.  I had not seen him alone in a while, in fact the last time I saw him alone I brought him into the NICU and showed him Marcellus.  He gave the most awe inspiring reaction to him and he could not have been happier for me.  I felt so proud as a daddy to show off my son to one of my close friends.  You could tell he fell in love with him the moment he saw him, as most people did.  We talked for a little bit and then we left the NICU to go back to the hospital room.  He turned me around and gave me a big hug and told me how happy he was for me.  And I was happy, I was happy that I finally made it as a father and my life felt complete. That was the last time I had hung out with him alone.  So yesterday I brought him to the tree, I showed off his honor tree instead of him.  We walked around some parks and chatted for a couple hours.  We talked a lot about grief and Marcellus along with other non-dead baby things.  It was a really good time for me because I was able to get out and spend time alone with a friend in the outside world.  Just one more big step in grief that we are taking together. 

But after our support group meeting it hit me, I wish I could have had him over and showing him off again while my wife was on campus getting some work done.  As we get more and more able to step outside of these comforting walls I start to feel remorseful that I am able to do these things.  I should not be able to go for a walk with a friend in a park, I should be busy with a baby, a 5 month old! 

Last night we also wanted to see how long it took to get him out during the c-section so we tore apart my wifes records.  Well in doing that we inevitably moved on to his records and she kept asking me questions of 'what does this mean' etc. since I had the computer and some knowledge of medical terms.  She then asked me what does pneumatosis mean.  I did not know so I looked it up on wikipedia.   It means that there are bubbles of air trapped outside the intestine.  And it is specifically associated with NEC which happens only to preemies.  The wikipedia article also showed an x ray picture as a visual aid.  The same type of x ray that the doctor showed me the morning of his death.  He pointed out the bubbles and said that the black areas are free air, not good.  At that time the doctor knew he was a goner, and rationally I knew too.  He was not showing me the x rays because he wanted to inform me of the situation so I could make an educated decision, he was showing why he was going to die.  Mommy and Daddy held onto hope still at that time but we both knew in our minds he was leaving us that day, we just wanted more time.  Seeing that picture reminded me of that moment, and was the straw which caused this cascade of tears to flow. 

But I needed it, I had not been crying over him the last couple days and feeling oddly normal and adventurous.  These events happened today to bring me back to my real world, the world where he is 1200 miles away in a white box signed by friends and family.  And I am here wading through a sea of sadness and grief just trying to find any sort of ladder to pull me out.  I miss my son, I miss him more than I could ever describe.  I will never be done grieving him. 

These walls

Im safe here, protected by some invisible barrier against the world.  Inside these walls my son lives on through memory.  His pictures hang off the walls and litters the tables.  We mention his name as casually as we mention what we should have for supper.  Anyone who enters here knows that Marcellus is discussed openly, freely, almost as easily as if he was here, pooping in his diaper as we swoon over him.  We do not hide him, we talk about him constantly.  We talk to him constantly, keeping our conversations in polite language just in case he is listening for fear of him learning a dirty word up in Heaven.  We also have an unspoken rule of crying wherever, whenever, and for whatever reason we choose to cry over.  Tissue boxes run a plenty here, and when one is out of reach our shirts, blankets, or even the dog make an acceptable substitute.  Marcellus is here, inside these walls, forever. 

Outside however he becomes much more abstract.  He is a memory, an event to people.  A definition of suffering for some, a point of strength for others.  He is mentioned a lot less when we are outside these walls.  People will come up to us and ask how we are doing but they will not mention his name because of some sort of cultural code that we do not talk casually of the dead.  I do not know how to breach these walls with him, to carry his memory with me so openly and freely as I do inside this house.  I cannot start a conversation as "my son is Marcellus, he died almost 5 months ago, now what do you want me to help you find?"  No one is going to come up to me and say "I see you are in grief, tell me something about your son."  Even my Mom has trouble mentioning him directly to me.  I can hear she is uncomfortable talking about him but she will listen to me, not that I think she does not care for him.  It hurts her too to hear me in pain, and for her to lose her grandson, she just deals with things differently than I do. 

I wish I could bring his memory outside these walls as easily as bringing a baby in a car seat would be.  Maybe thats why I find it troubling to leave them, why this house comforts me so.  I miss him, I am still very much in a lot of pain over him.  I do not expect this pain to leave anytime soon.

Wheelbarrow

My take on grief is like this.  When you find out your child has died you pick up a wheelbarrow holding a pile of small rocks.  At first this is so overwhelming because you realize you have to push this wheelbarrow for the rest of your life.  Then day by day for the first month or so the wheelbarrow gets lighter and lighter because you get used to it.  And then you start to think that 'this isnt so bad, I can do this for the rest of my life.'  Little do you know that you have just been carrying your shock around because in the span of a short time your grief dumps an almost immovable pile of baseball sized stones in your wheelbarrow.  Every bit of your body strains against this load and you start to realize how incredibly difficult this is going to be.  A little bit each day if you work at your grief you take one or two rocks off your pile, some days you put some back on.  If you stop grieving you set your wheelbarrow down but it will be waiting for you to pick it back up, there is no walking away from it. Some day years from now your wheelbarrow will be empty, you have wiped it clean of even rock dust accumulated from years of hauling these rocks around.  You have reached a sort of peace with grief, but even then you still have to push the empty wheelbarrow around for the rest of your life.

Right now the wheelbarrow is chock full of rocks and sometimes it feels like people are throwing them at me just in spite.

5 Month Birthday

Its the 28th again, and that means a monthly birthday for my boy.  We are still very much in that age where birthdays go by month until some point in time when we start counting by years.  5 months today, just think of how much he would have grown.  How big he would be, the facial expressions, the coo's, laughs, giggles, little things I miss and I never even heard or seen them.  But these are not the things we are focused with on his birthday.

We are focused on things to remember him by.  In the next few months we have a lot of things coming together that will show the world that my wife and I love our son more than we love ourselves.  That we miss him so terribly much that it is impossible to describe.  We are putting in his headstone in the end of May, a beautiful dark blue stone without too much flashiness yet so much personalization.  As much as I will hate to see his name carved into eternity I want him to be justifiably marked the same as any other person in that cemetery.  A month from today we are marching for him at March of Babies in Durham.  We have raised way more money than I could have thought of and it is truly humbling to know that so many people have come forward in support and share how he has touched their lives as well.   And in less than two hours we are driving to a neighborhood park where we are getting a tree planted in his honor!  It is a maple tree with a plaque and its being put in by the parks system here.   He will have a space in Raleigh were we can go to honor him! 

But I would trade all this in for the chance of spending his 5 month birthday playing with him on the mat, taking a picture of him and posting it on the fb for our friends to see how well he is doing, maybe even catching a birthday nap.  Hearing him laugh, coo, giggle.... Thats what I want for his 5 month birthday.

I want a baby

I want a baby, bad.  Not just any baby, my baby.  Do not expect me to be running around Babies R Us like its Black Friday and every baby is up for grabs, I want to put in my time and do it right.  But I want it now, I hate this waiting game life plays with us and says 9 months till its ready!  (Or 7 months if you're Marcellus.)  But I guess it is necessary and adds to the old excitement of having one. Everyone sees a baby bump and goes bonkers, "oooh is this your first one?"  "do you know the sex yet?"  "can I touch it?"  Questions we got with Marcellus and questions we will get again, and since we will be walking around without him, people will naturally assume that it is our first.  It isn't.  I have a son, a beautiful, wonderful, perfect little angel who watches over me every day.  How do we tell people that?  Do we lie and say 'yes' and beat ourselves up later?  Or do we figure out an answer that honors him and satisfies the question without the awkward 'I'm sorry' bullshit we put up with.  I guess we have to figure that out if we are lucky enough to get pregnant.  I say lucky enough because we know now how much this baby things is up for chance. 

We are not guaranteed a baby, pregnancy after the first trimester does not mean that no matter what we are bringing a bundle of joy home.  Pregnancy now means 9, or 8, or hope not 7 months of worrying, wondering, high-risk doctor visits, cervical ultrasounds, progesterone, prostaglandin, and on and on. Pregnancy no longer means 'I cant wait to meet him/her', baby showers, the carefree attitude we had last time.  But even though pregnancy has changed, and it will be hard, I want to do it.  I want to support my wife no matter what throughout it.  I will not complain like I did last time when she was laying on the couch and I had to fetch her water or food.  I will gladly help her in any way I can. 

I will wait for my rainbow baby, and when I get him or her I will love them the way Marcellus showed me!

Pain, pain, and more pain

I was laying in bed and thinking about my family last night.  How each member of my immediate family has some sort of pain inflicting them.  My wife and I of course have the debilitating acute pain of Marcellus leaving us, My brother and his wife just lost their first child to a missed miscarriage, and my Mom just had major surgery and will be recovering for six weeks.  I think about all of them a lot and their pain while not trying to put mine of the pedestal.  Sure I would take major surgery for the rest of my life to keep Marcellus around, and we can empathize with my brother and sister in law a little bit on loss and grief, I just do not know if they understand the complete magnitude of pain we have suffered.  In fact, most days I cannot believe it myself.  I sit wondering a lot how I even managed to survive such an event.  I understand now why my brain put me in shock for a month, if it had not I would have lost it.  Watching Marcellus die was literally more pain than one body can handle at one given time.  His departure meant that every aspect of our lives are going to be tinged with this knowledge, this underlying factor that he left us and we are grieving parents.  Any pain we hear about from here on in we will unknowingly compare to our pain and therefore our reaction will be based on that. 

My pain has been different lately, in the last week or so it has manifested itself quietly inside me.  I carry my pain now as a tumor, a silent rogue ready to spread at a moments notice.  I go to group but I feel less like talking, I cry a lot less now.  Maybe I am just taking a break or maybe my body is resting me for the coming months when some people say it gets worse.  Ick, get worse?  How can this get worse, how can I stand to look at his mommy fall apart and my heart absolutely break for her.  How can I look at other babies and other pregnant people and not want to throw things at them.  How long can I keep this pain inside myself and not let it affect me negatively. 

The short answer of course is "get it out,"  let the pain flow out of you through constructive and healthy ways.  Be more mindful of it.  But its so tiring, the pain is so draining that I want to do other things with my life than just sit and be in pain!  Let me be numb for a while so I can rest my body and accomplish some other things in life and have a reason for all this damn pain!  I will come back to it, this pain is cyclical.  My family will experience even more pain and that will open these wounds like a scab being ripped off.  I am not done, far from it. 

But through all this pain, numbness, and grief I have seen some sheds of hope.  Sheds that our live together and as a family will become a new whole.  Marcellus left, died, croaked, kicked the bucket, cashed in his chips, passed on, passed away, went to be with the lord, etc.  Those are all euphemisms for him dying but not leaving.  Our new whole will be with him as it should have been 4 months ago.  He is the only family member not feeling pain, he is helping us through ours and will continue to do so for the future as an integral part of this family, he is still with us.