Sunday, September 2, 2012

Not Ready


I’m sure I’ve written before about wanting to stop the clock. That desire first struck shortly after A’s death. Within hours of leaving the hospital after A’s birth, I couldn’t comprehend how the earth kept rotating, time marched on and other people’s lives continued. Didn’t they know a monumental tragedy had just occurred? Stop the presses. Stop everything!

October, and with it A’s first birthday, is quickly approaching. Again, that familiar, futile desire to stop time hits each time I think of October. I am not ready.

I have an overwhelming urge to dig my heels in; try to buck and throw the forces of time. I want to turn and run the opposite way.

I am not ready for his first birthday. I am not ready for it to be an entire year since he was stillborn. Trying to get at the root of the dread and resistance, my counselor asked me what it signifies for me. I do not have an answer.

It means I’m that much further away from him. I don’t think my whole being has fully accepted that this happened; that this is my reality and already a year has passed. Perhaps the 1-year mark makes it more real, more permanent.

I am feeling good about our plans and ideas for how to spend A’s birthday, but that doesn’t lessen my desire to halt the world from spinning, to buy some more time. I am just not ready for it to be one year.  It is deeper than deciding what to do on the actual day. I wish I could articulate it better, but truthfully, I don’t entirely understand why I feel resistive. Whatever it is, it is a powerful force.

6 comments:

  1. I dont think we will ever be ready no matter how many years go by. I am thinking of you.xo

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  2. Well said Michelle.

    Counting down the days until Severus is safely in your arms. Hoping, hoping, hoping all goes well.

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  3. I'm just over 6 months out... And I still get struck with panic and anxiety thinking about the year mark. It's going to come so soon....I cannot believe I've lived through 6 months. With fall fast approaching, I have a wedding to attend....return to work date looming over my head....and the Christmas season will be upon us ... I cry thinking about Christmas in this new house without my boy... And before I can say "I still miss you" it will be Jan and Feb....and the brutal waiting game will face me once again...just like this past year, but I was waiting with so much joy...with so much future' ahead of us. I picture the beginning of 2013 to be a very difficult and emotional time.

    Thinking of you as October creeps towards us. I too am astonished at how time continued to march forward.

    Sending love to you

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  4. I feel like fall is a magical time for me right now. It is the time where I was happiest in my pregnancy with A last year - early fall until her death in January. So, I feel like I am walking through her season, her light, her deep blue sky. But, I am dreading, dreading, dreading the year mark, too. I don't know about stopping time, though, because where would I choose to stop it? Maybe last fall - with her inside me - happy, oblivious to the terrible future we faced. Love to you all this month and next...And then the next ones too.

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  5. Approaching one year seemed ominous to me, too. I wanted to get through that last first day on the calendar without him, but I didn't want to be further away from the moments I held him in my arms. The moments when we were outside, with him inside of me, moments when I was breathing and feeling him move and kick. Somehow time is so cruel, the way it keeps moving forward. The cruelty of gravity, and whatever pulls the earth around the sun. Breathe deeply if you can, and know that there are so many of us here missing your baby with you. <3

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  6. I'm thinking about you and A always. xx

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