Saturday, July 27, 2013

Flashbacks

The ways and the moments in which my grief is triggered often leaves me feeling disheveled and deprived of strength.

My heart has been really aching these last few weeks. It was Aiden's 9th birthday a couple weeks ago and next week it will be Jeremiah's 2nd birthday. My boys are always on my mind, but the time around their birthday's always heightens my sensitivity and my grief.

Today I experienced a beautifully painful flashback.

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Nine years ago, just a couple weeks after we buried our son, Aiden, I nervously went to the hospital to visit with a friend who had just given birth to her precious baby girl. I was excited and happy for my friend, but at the same time I remember being filled with so much fear and anxiety.  Anger and pain too.  How would I respond to seeing her sweet and full of life little baby when I had just days before had to say good-bye to my own???  As we walked into her hospital room, every fiber within me wanted to scream and run away. Life felt so unfair and cruel.

I had all but forgotten those feelings, until today.

Today, I drove to that same hospital. I entered the same parking lot and walked some of the same steps that I took on that very difficult day.  In an instant, all of those feelings came rushing back to me. The feelings filled my spirit and my body before my mind was able to process where they were coming from. A flood of emotion consumed me and I was almost breathless. PTSD? Maybe?

Immediately tears filled my eyes as I remembered that difficult journey years ago.

My husband and three of my amazing boys were with me today, but still, a part of me longed to be back to that day nine years ago - deep in my grief - just days away from having last held my little boy. 

As painful as that time was, I wished I could be back there.

It's hard to imagine wanting to be so close to the raw, debilitating grief that consumed me back then, but in that moment today- that's right where I wanted to be. There's a sacredness to my grief that I sometimes wish I could experience more frequently and be closer to. I wish I had the ability to close my eyes, be released of all responsibility and just be in that dark sacred place. Just be in my grief.

It's amazing how quickly and seemingly effortlessly I have gotten at grabbing my heart and bringing myself back to present time. When in flashes, I simply wish to run and hide in my pain.

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I have purposefully created joy and happiness around both Aiden and Jeremiah's lives, but instinctually and deep within me, it is in pain and sorrow that I often feel close to them.

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Can you imagine that?  Appreciating (and sometimes yearning for) unfathomable pain because it brings a sense of connectedness to your child? It's so hard to describe.

But for a moment today, that was me. I wished I could close my eyes and wrap my arms around my grief. So often I think we run from pain and sorrow. What an unnerving feeling to desire to be closer to it...