One Month Ago...

Ethan would have been a month old today and I still can’t believe he’s gone.

He should be snuggled beside me right now -- warm and cozy in my arms. I should be ranting about sleepless nights and the craziness of three kids, but...I’m not. It just wasn’t the plan for him or for me.

His birth and passing happened so quickly that sometimes I feel like it was all just a dream. If my body wasn’t still showing signs that I did indeed have a baby, I’d probably think I hallucinated all of this. If I didn’t have a memory, I’d think I was going crazy. My grief is still very much real and I keep praying for the sadness to subside.

My emotional wound is slowly healing, but the scab just keeps getting picked off. On occasion something will rip it off and my heart starts bleeding all over again. I feel completely helpless when sad memories of Ethan, the memories of him being sick, come flooding back.

Encounters with people who "heard what happened" or perhaps even hearing key words like brain, blood, or baby will start a slow bleed again. Seeing mothers with newborns Ethan’s age hurts even more;

I feel sad with envy.

If I’m going to remember my son, I want to remember him during healthier times. I don’t want to be sad when I think of him. I don’t want to envy moms with "living babies", but I can’t help it.

Every time my scab is ripped off and a bleed begins, it takes a long time for my heart to heal. I suppose I too am a hemophiliac in that retrospect. Ethan was Factor VII deficient and I’m deficient when it comes to emotional bleeds - we both have difficulty clotting.

We both need a little help to stop the bleeding.

The human mind is interesting. Sometimes I feel like my thoughts don’t make sense and I constantly find myself looking to John for validation. I am compelled to ask him if I’m going crazy.

I’m okay, but I’m not okay.

How can something so ridiculous make so much sense? Several of you have sent me messages and that has helped me more than you know. Writing has been therapeutic in itself, but I feel a little more sane when I know that my feelings are feasible and not just signs of me slowly losing my mind.

The upside to all of this "scab picking" is at least I can look forward to my wound getting a little smaller each time the scab is ripped off. Once I’ve gotten over the bleed, I know that the same scenario won’t trigger another one. I guess I just have to wait until all possible scenarios have presented themselves before I can say that I’m done bleeding. I’ll still have the scar, but the eventually the physical pain, the scab, will be gone.

With time, I’ll heal; I just have to find patience.