Something in Me Has Died

Last night, my husband and I were talking as we were laying in bed. Lights out, house quiet, time for bed. As we talked, I didn't know it, wasn't aware, I was falling asleep. Looking back, I really don't remember the point when I started falling asleep. I was talking about something, the Oldest I think, and then, I'm sure time passed and then I woke myself up to the sound of my voice still talking but scarily enough, I was saying something totally different, talking about a man or something. I can't remember what I was starting to dream about but do remember we were talking about our son and then we weren't (or I wasn't). So I shot up in bed and said, "honey, was I just talking out loud?" (totally scared s***less because was I talking about someone I admire like Matthew McConahey (sp)???--- he slightly became more awake and laughed saying 'yes you were' and I just started laughing hysterically. This all has a point; I promise. Laughing so hard that I had tears. Laughing so hard I sounded like a maniac. Laughing in my pillow so not to wake the boys. With him egging me on, poking fun at me, but making me laugh more by immitating the manner in which I sat up asking if I was talking, there I was laughing in a dark room, like I had no sense. Out of control laughing. I'd stop, then start again. Stop, quiet down, calm myself, then laugh again... then he said something. I don't know what it was, but it struck me so hard, I forced myself to stop. I totally felt out of control. I got up, went to the bathroom and could feel that I wanted to laugh again-could feel it welling up inside me but suddenly, I started crying. Silent crying. Lip quivering, nose running, just crying my eyes out. Held my mouth into a face towel so he could not hear me (I KNOW he would have thought I truly lost it then, and was ashamed, what was wrong with me anyway?) and I just sat in the dark bathroom crying till my throat hurt. I cried till I was too tired to cry anymore. I cleaned my face, still in the dark, wondering how horrible I probably looked at that moment but not really wanting to know, so never turning on the light, I just quietly got back in bed. And it was over.

So many things. I literally think I'm fine. I think I am. I am. I'm fine. But yet, I'm not. I mean I am. I so am. But then what was wrong with me? I'll tell you, I have found a way to deal with drama. I just don't. I think when you lose a child, nothing else can ever be 'bad' or even come close so you just don't let the small stuff get you. Or even the medium stuff. And the big stuff? You laugh in it's face, you just don't let it get you. The price of that is so expensive though. The cost is high because as you see above, it all comes out and if ladies and gentlemen just if I had that moment in front of others, or in front of someone I was upset with for any small thing, the end result would have been something over the top. Sure sure sure, I am good at (and my almost favorite phrase at work) 'faking the funk' in my life, I've gotten really good at it. You know what I re live over and over again; probably every day to every other day this memory flies through my mind:

The Oldest is in the Resource Room on the 7th floor at CHOP and my husband is down with Lucas, it's early morning and I am with the Oldest, trying for all the world to find for the hundreth time something to occupy him, to distract him, to entertain him, (and probably myself too) so he would not want to be in his brothers room. The social worker comes down to the room and says, this nurse will stay with the Oldest, and you can go to his room. I make like it's a wonderful thing to the Oldest...stay with her, she is fun, you all will color, play with PlayDoh, I'll be back. I slowly walk down the long hall, across the corridor and into the CICU, down to the end, into his room and look as was my habit every time I entered his room at all the monitors. His heart rate was at 60 and slowly going down. From that moment on till the second of his death, it's all in slow motion. The people in the room, the doctor, the nurses, and us. The letting go. The letting go of your son after all those months, well it's still with me now. It's still affecting me now. I think that a part of me even in my happiest moments with the boys now, and there are many many many of those happy moments, but even in them, a part of me is gone. Numb. Or just gone. Irretrievable. Can someone erase that memory? I don't know. And that walk back to the Resource Room to get the Oldest was the longest walk of my life. Of our lives. We decided to take him to the Chapel and tell him his brother was gone to Heaven. When we got on that elevator, filled with other people that I wanted to chop all their heads off for even existing, I wanted to SCREEEAM at all of them, though they had not one thing to do with his dying, when we got on that elevator, I just stood there, forcing myself to not hear the chatter, dreading what I knew we had to do, figuring out what to say, wanting to run back to his room and breathe life back into him, I just stood there. Staring at the cold stainless steel double doors, waiting for them to open. And open they did. To a whole new life, a new beginning, a new tomorrow and moving on. And in that chapel, when we told him, in hearing his repsonse which still makes me chuckle, even now.....I knew, I knew our lives were irrevocably changed. I knew our son whose body was laying upstairs but whose soul was now flying to Heaven, had changed our lives and marked them with a indelible ink of love. And so it was. And that memory, that very memory from start to finish, goes through my brain almost every single day. It just does. It's the 'I must punish myself' syndrome. I've got it down pat.

On a brighter side, (and there really is one, there so is) from that whole laughing/crying episode last night, we have talked extensively, mostly this morning when we woke up and a good little surprise to me is that we talked about things we never had before. In general we had, but details; no. And it was awesome to have a normal conversation about why I think I'm the way I am with no sarcasm, no negativity, no judgments. He doesn't normally do that in our day to day BUT when we discuss Lucas, those are hard conversations and we are both always on edge so I definitely dread them and sometimes even avoid them. It's kind of like, if something hurts and you know it's gonna hurt, you just avoid it. Like a shot. A big fat shot in the butt. Now you know that's gonna hurt. I'd be cancelling that appointment every single time. You'd have to drag me there kicking and screaming. Sometimes, sadly, that's me, going into a conversation about Lucas with him.

The whole laughing/crying thing got me to thinking. I have been looking at things from other angles and my conclusion is that I can't fix it. All the things that cause angst and stir the pot for others, I have decided I cannot let affect me in the way it affects them. My pot of trouble and worry is already far too full, ready to boil over most of the time to add any other stuff to it. What's big for one person is not for another. If you add one more carrot to a boiling pot of stew thats full to the brim, it's going to boil over and get all over everything. Its best to avoid all that and just handle what's on your plate. At least I think so.

--J