A New Type of Grief

Grief is weird these days. We are coming into the dreaded holiday season and our trip to Faith's Lodge is just around the corner.

After our weekly trip to Sam's Park this morning I came to a realization. I hate leaving there.
I hate that feeling like I am leaving him behind for the wolves to raise.
I leave him every week.
I leave his body behind and hope that I'll make it the next week.
I leave his "things" behind and hope the animals or bitter bystanders or groundskeepers don't mess with it.

I leave with the feeling that I've left my son with a stranger.

I leave feeling like I have to choose between my children.
Between the living and the dead.

A mom should never have to choose one child/children over another. But that is what I'm asked to do every single day of my life.

I have to choose my living children or my dead child.

And every day I breathe.
I'm not sure why. I don't know if I am actually making that decision or not. I don't know what would happen if I did make that decision.
Would I see my son?
Would I be damned to hell for all eternity?
Would I or my family be punished by some higher being?
Would nothing happen? Would I placed in my wall next to my son's body for my living children to visit  and life moves on?

I don't know. And that scares me. I don't know where my son is and I don't know why I continue to breathe.

I'm caught in a realm that demands both the living and the dead.

I need Faith's Lodge more now than I think the last time we were there. I need it's comforts, warmth, community, peace, and hope. We are going as a family this time and I think that will be a different experience than when we went just the two of us. My oldest is looking forward to it most; she's counting down the days.

Feelings of the unknown have cradled my grief and made it hard to handle. I've never been in this place before, the unknown. I have been given the reality check again. Control is not in my favor. Control has always been in my favor. I've always gotten a way around things and made them compromise with my demands. Grief has a handle on these and is holding tight.

After all of this, I'm left with guilt.
Guilt that I have chosen my living children over my dead. Guilt that I missed something in this calculated plan and somehow let grief slip in. Guilt that I am absent from reality because I'm trying to figure out how to navigate through this realm.