104 Weeks

Do you know where you were exactly 104 weeks ago?

I do. I was sitting in the PICU at CHO. I was 21 weeks pregnant with a baby I'd just learned was a little boy. And I'd also just learned, mere hours earlier, that my sunshine had a massive tumor growing in his brain.

I've felt like I've been in hell many times over the past two years. But 104 weeks ago marked the very first trip of them all.

It marked the beginning of what I prayed wouldn't be the end. But it was anyway. I know, I know: heaven.

But he's not here. Don't marginalize my feelings by bringing up heaven; it makes me feel like my feelings aren't valid or valuable or justified. But they are. I know they are. I know that if your child suffered and died that you'd feel the same way. I'm not you, no, but I know it. I know the sting of that kind of loss. I can promise you that despite what you may think, the promise of heaven doesn't make it all better. It's not me being negative; it's just the truth. The bitter, human truth.

I knew back on February 11 that six months out would bring with it a brutal set of anniversaries for us. Logan's birthday. Then a breath. The day that we knew something was wrong. And then a half-breath. Then our 10th anniversary. And another breath. And then the day that the pathology report came in and the feeble sticks we'd erected to keep the world from falling in on us snapped under the weight of the doctor's words.

I'm haunted by how the events of this week are mirroring what happened two years ago. Abby has a playdate with the daughter of the very friend who watched her and Isaac while we took Logan to the doctor the day that his eye turned in... 104 weeks ago today. She hasn't had a playdate with her since that day. Without thinking, I asked the same girl we'd asked to baby-sit for us on our anniversary two years ago to baby-sit for us later this week. It's almost like time is moving forward and certain events are repeating themselves, only this time, things will go as they should've gone the first time. A pleasant playdate for Abby. A nice dinner out for us, in place of what happened two years ago: the exhausted consumption of a pair of soggy sandwiches from a hospital cafeteria vending machine at 11 PM.

It feels almost like I'm drowning at times; each time a wave passes, another one is right there waiting to batter me and knock me off my feet once again.

But anyway.