"Do not stand at my grave and weap"

"I am not there, I do not sleep"

I sat there next to him breastfeeding her. 

Imagine that..........A new mother with her new baby girl sitting on the ground at the grave of her infant son. Imagine trying to tell her about him, and suddenly being hit with the raw emotion that never leaves. I haven't cried at his grave since his funeral. I've visited several times since and haven't shed a single tear. But this time it was different, she was there with me. "This is your brother" I explained.......

But what kind of explanation is it? What do you tell her, how do you tell her not just now, but when she's old enough to actually understand? It broke me, I felt it and I cried. As I tried to make myself stop crying I thought "Feel this, you need to feel this right now. Cry for fuck sakes, you haven't cried in so long". I don't know why I pull back the way that I do, it's probably an attempt at protecting myself from the obvious. But I knew that as I nursed the living baby next to his grave I had to feel that. It was so very surreal and I felt as if I was dreaming. The nightmare that I wish I would wake up from, but it never seems to happen. It doesn't matter how many times I shift position or turn over it's still happening and I'm still living it. 

She quietly nursed as the wind blew my hair across my face and I wiped the tears from my once dry eyes. "How fucked up is this" I thought......how sad a sight I must have been. I tried to see myself from the outside and I knew that if I had seen me I would have been very sad for the lady nursing her baby next to the grave of her dead one. All I kept saying was "this is your brother, this is Spencer". But then I thought "he's not actually here" it's just a spot.....a spot you were made to pick". And then I got mad and angry and recanted all the things that happened......My tears dried up she finished and I was ready to leave. 

I shouldn't have had to sit there attempting to tell my daughter about her big brother. That should have never happened to me, but it did and sometimes it doesn't feel like it did. To this day I still can't wrap my mind around this brutal truth that is my life as a mother. I feel like I grew him for 10 months for nothing. Like I made him live simply so he could die. What kind of life is that? How truly terrible that is......living simply to die. I'm so very sorry to him for that, and I wish there was something I could do, could have done to prevent and change that. 

I'm not sure what I thought it was going to be like. It was her first time there, just me and her....and him. The three of us sitting silently meeting for the first time. After being so upset, she was so calm and quiet. She let me feel it, I made myself feel it and we got through it the three of us. 

I'm scared to go back again, and I know it's going to be just as hard because it will be the 4 of us. Another first, another sad heart breaking meeting, one that never should have happened but does. Moments of torture and pain forever inflicting itself on us. 

Comments

[Kerry]

Jen, I closed my eyes and cried when I read this. You painted a very poignant picture just now. It's so hard not to be emotional and you have suffered more than most. Love and hugs to you.

[alicia]

so hard, i can't imagine. i think scarlette will be grateful for these times though, when you take here there and talk about her big brother. hugs and hugs