I used to love holidays with my kids. I viewed them as these intangible, precious little jewels. Carefully capsulated moments when we could all just spend time together in the collective cocoon of family, quietly enjoying the little oddities that make all of us unique and special.
Now? Not so much. At least, not yet. There are a few dates on the calendar that I'm dreading this year (and the beginning of next): Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, my birthday. And Mother's Day. Mother's Day may well be the most emotionally taxing and challenging of them all.
Mother's Day, unlike those other special days, is expressly for celebrating the bond between a mother and her child. I'm intensely grateful for Abby and for Isaac and for Brady. It'd be an insult to suggest that I'm not, nor do I need reminders that 'hey, at least you have them'. I'm thankful that I'll be able to get up on Sunday morning and celebrate with them, to whatever degree my heart can take the revelry.
But I absolutely ache for the little lamb who's not here anymore. Mother's Day is, on many levels, just another reminder that he's gone. No class tea party, no special slideshow, no adorably sloppy handmade present woven together with equal parts love and good intentions and presented with equal parts glee and pride. Nothing. In a way, it feels like he's already been forgotten, although I know that's not really the case. Because if nothing else, his mommy won't forget him. How could I?
Logan left us three months ago today. I'm still waiting for the day that I'll 'feel' him with me for the first time; it hasn't yet happened. I saw him in a dream last week; he was several rows ahead of me in a dance class, standing on a chair and shaking his booty. But I didn't get to talk to him or touch him. I could only watch. And then I woke up and the disappointment was almost too much. I'd like to be able to touch him in a dream. But maybe I can't handle that yet. I don't know.
And there's certainly a lot that I don't know. One thing I DO know, however, is that it sucks that writing this made me cry. And that I should stop typing and let my poor sinuses recover.
I saw my son in a dream a few nights ago. It was the first time since he died that I had dreamed of him. It was so short. I looked around a corner and he was squatting down. He looked up at me and smiled. I quickly said "HI MY SWEET BOY." Then it was over. I keep waiting for him to come to me....To tell me that he is OK and that he isn't mad and me for "letting" him die. He doesn't come. I will keep waiting.
ReplyDeleteI'm so very sorry, Sherry. It's monumentally, tremendously unfair. I still hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day. I know Logan will be sending you flowers and rainbows and kisses from above.
ReplyDeleteCrying with you Sherry. As well as with/for Amber (above). I have not lost a child and I can't even imagine that pain. It's painful enough when I dream about my dad, now 6 years later, and feel the pain as fresh as the day he died when I awake and find he didn't really come back for me.
ReplyDeleteThe heartache can't go away. There's too much love and too much of a desire to see and touch them.
Even the promise of meeting again one day in Heaven is still seemingly unfair of a wait.