I’m not the woman I thought I was.
For most of my life there wasn’t anything you could throw at me that I couldn’t handle.
It’s never been my personality to be the bubbly cheerleader, but I have always believed the cup to be half full and knew that anything could be the beginning of something good. Nothing scared me, and I could generally tackle anything someone put before me.
Years of my life have been spent advocating and educating for people with disabilities — both visible and hidden — even when I couldn’t relate myself.
Depression was one I never understood.
It’s a huge, beautiful, amazing world filled with opportunities to experience life at all levels.
Just get out of bed. Live.
Those are words I’ll never repeat.
I thought I was stronger than I am. I thought I would get through this differently than I have. I thought I would show the world how a faith in a loving God could guide you throw the sorrows of losing a precious child. I thought I could fake it until I made it. I thought as long as I put one foot in front of the other, took one breath and then another, that I would survive losing my baby.
But I no more want to survive him today than I did on April 11th when he passed.
Passed. I hate that word. It seems so trivial to the event it’s describing.
“Would you pass me the butter?”
“I passed him in the hall the other day.”
“I heard you passed your test?”
“My son passed away.”
I can’t say “since he left me.” Tanner didn’t leave me. He would never have left his mom.
Died is such an ugly word for such a beautiful child.
Sometimes I just say “since he’s been gone…” It’s my own way of pretending that he might still some day come back.
I still don’t know how to process the loss of my baby. Yes, I’m in counseling. It’s like scrubbing off the smallest semblance of scab that’s forming and pressing copious amounts of salt in a cavernous wound. I don’t know if I’m even ready. I don’t know if it’s doing more harm than good. I don’t know if I’ll continue or stop.
I just knew I couldn’t not do something.
But now, doing nothing seems best. I want to hide from a world without my baby. I want to hide from a child who still needs me that I’m failing. I want to hide from a world that can’t begin to comprehend what it’s like to lose a child like mine. I want to hide from a world that thinks three months is sufficient time to grieve and it’s time to move on.
I want to hide from this new version of me that doesn’t care what happens around her.
For someone who has spent her life wanting to make this world a better place, the scariest of all things to fight is apathy.
But I just don’t care.
I don’t want to get out of bed.
I don’t want to do pretend anything.
I don’t want to go through the motions.
I don’t want to be disingenuous.
The Fourth of July has been my favorite holiday since 1993. Learning Tanner was a Fourth of July baby was one of the first things I loved about him. For 13 years I celebrated my baby’s grand arrival to this world with parties, friends and fireworks.
Leading up to tomorrow, this last week has been crippling. There’s been no hiding from the day and reminders of his birth. It will be my first Fourth without my heart baby in 14 years. It’ll be my first time to celebrate a birthday for a baby who won’t ever get older. It’s my first time to take Travis shopping for a birthday present Tanner will never open.
I’ve changed.
Normal life events I could handle before now crush me. Too much stress (and by too much stress I mean simply deciding where we eat for dinner) causes my vision to blur. By 7pm I’m counting down the minutes until I can take something to help me sleep.
Just make the day stop.
Make the hurt stop.
I battle the darkest of thoughts and fears. I grapple with the irrationality of grief. I don’t know how to connect to a God of light when my life feels so black.
Tomorrow is Tanner’s birthday.
My baby should be turning 17, even though he would have told you he was 18.
During one of my many melt-downs yesterday I panicked — and panicked grandly.
Tanner’s not home.
I’ve been okay with it. He’s at the mortuary in caring hands. Dealing with the urn has been more than I could bring myself to do — so I didn’t. Knowing he was safe and secure a few miles down the road was comforting enough.
Then suddenly, yesterday, I realized that he wouldn’t be here for his birthday and I flipped. I didn’t think it would make a difference, but it suddenly did. I know he can’t really be here, but I suddenly couldn’t imagine his ashes at a mortuary miles away on his birthday.
He has to come home. He has to come now.
I just got off the phone with the mortuary. I don’t care if they pour him into a Nike shoebox or a Ralphs shopping bag — double bagged, of course — but he has to come home.
At 2pm today, my baby is making his journey home.
My baby is finally coming home.
There will be no hand to hold but my entire being yearns to clutch the box that holds his heart.
Mom-mom’s coming Tanner. I love you.
