Only the strong survive.

Throughout this journey I cannot tell you how many times I have heard the statement, "Your a strong woman/mom/person/girl, etc." It's a statement I have grown to hate.

Before loosing Sam I took that as the greatest compliment. After all, that's how I was raised. Strong, independent woman. I still am, just in a different sense. I know I am a mom that knows what she wants for her children. Does that really make me strong?

What does "strong" mean?

Who determines the perimeters of "strong"?

I hate this phrase more now after loosing Sam than anything. I take it as a threat to my grief and where I stand in my grieving journey. I know people don't intend it to be that way, but, that's what it feels like every time someone says it to me.

I may appear to be strong because I have to lie. I have to lie to make people think I'm not about to crumble.

You see if I let people in to what is really going on then they hop on the concern train and pester out of good love and heart. I don't like to be pestered, I need to figure things out for myself. Hardheaded, stubborn they call it.

Sometimes I just want to be weak and ball up into the fetal position and cry for days on end. But I can't I have to be a mom and wife.

Now that my second son is in the NICU, I have heard this phrase resurface again and again. I hate it, I really do. I'm not "strong", I'm a mother. You have no clue how I am behind this facade. I plow through what I have to to make it and crumble when it's least expected. Being here I am inundate with emotions that have to be kept in a tight-lid jar. If I let them go, I could risk being separated from my only living son. People here "worry" about me and my well being because they know my fragile past, I've only mentioned it a thousand times. We are the only parents here that are ALWAYS here.

We're here because of Sam. We're here because of our experience with the unthinkable.
We live the unthinkable.
Don't tell me it's impossible.
Don't tell me "he'll be fine".

You don't know that. Who made you fucking God?

We live too far to miss a possible goodbye if it came to that. I never got a hello with Sam. How could I risk a missed goodbye with my second son. Sam died alone. If it came to that with Angelo, I don't want him to take his last breath without one of us being here. Sam has taught me every second of life is precious. If I can witness and behold every second of it before it's swept from my feet, you'd better be damned that I'm not going to miss that.

I want to turn to faith. In this hard time.

But I have none. I obviously want something to hang on to because I'm mentioning it, but I hold it at arms length. I feel like I've been shit on so many times, someones got to be to blame for it. I haven't been able to figure out all the horrible things I've done that could have brought this punishment on. Why me?
Why us?
Don't start reciting the bullshit line,
"Everything happens for a reason" or "God only gives you what you can handle."
Bullshit!
And this is your God? The one who says my son is in Heaven. Why would I trust a creator that has only shit on me when I needed "Him" most?

It's for the strong folk. The ones that are able to release their worries and pain to the higher. It's the weak that are too stubborn to release from the white-knuckled grip.

It's all a game. This talk about strength. It's what people tell you when they have nothing else to say to someone that's in a shady place too murky to travel themselves.

It's a game for the grieving and bleeding. It's not strength you see before you, it's a mom just trying to hold it together long enough to cry alone and release the pain when permissible.

It's just a battle of wits for me. Don't tell me I'm strong, it's only hurtful to my grief.

Through the wringer

Wow! A lot has happened since I last posted. I will give a quick update and move forward with my post.

1. Had another baby boy on June 18th
2. Been in the NICU since his birth because of complications and he was 6 weeks early.

Now, where do I begin...

We must have told Sam's story, our story about a thousand times since his brothers birth. Having another boy was enough of a stressor, now having my little boy in the NICU is beyond stressful. I feel like I have to validate my fears and anxiety. I have to let nurses and doctors know that we have a legitimate reason to be fucking crazy!

"If I walk out of here without my son, I have to know I left no stone unturned. I have to make sure I do everything in my power to protect him." This is what I tell the doctors. They usually nod and do as I ask.

We've been treated so nicely while here. I just hate being here. Counting down the days, counting the days that have past. Being torn between my children again. My girls have done a great job going with the flow but I know they are shaken by all of this, I know they want things to be different.

Then there's Michalina. She has had her moments were I can see the joy in her eyes that she can embrace the fact that she has a brother here on earth. Then I can see the fear and hurt she has for seeing him through the glass when she comes to visit, wanting him to desperately come home. She gets scared that the outcome may be the same as Sam's, she doesn't tell me that but I can sense it. How do I comfort that when I have the same fears?

My emotions have been on a downward spiral. I look around our room and know that my boy could be worse, but that doesn't make it better or any less painful. I am grateful we are not in other possible situations, but I live in anger and fear that he is even here. I am terrified that if I walk out of the doors without my husband at his bedside, he's going to die alone or that I won't have the time to say good-bye.

My grief has taken a turn, a downward spiral type of turn. I'm not sure when I will be able to get a handle on it again.

Maybe I never will.

I'm still here….

It's true. I'm still here. Still here in the grieving. Trying to deal with what life brings and walking a life with a piece of my heart missing.
I've wanted to write, just haven't had the words to express where I'm at. Which I'm not entirely sure where that is either.
I'm stuck. Those are the only words I can think of that can explain where I stand.

I have dreams.
Don't know how to get there. Or maybe I'm just too chicken shit to take the steps. I want to be bold yet fear takes over and squeezes with great force.

I envision the mom I want to be. Yet I still yell at the girls for the stupidest things, then feel horrible.

I want to grieve.
Yet I feel I'm in a choke hold and feel I can't breath long enough to let it go.

When I can grieve, it's never enough. Never satisfying. An addiction I guess. I cry. feel better for a bit then look to cry again just to lift the weight a pinch.

Life gets in the way of grieving. Hard to find the balance between reality and a fantasy.

...a never ending balancing act between my child who isn't here and my family who is.

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.