Just shy of two months after the death of our son, we are still adjusting to our lives without him.
Living without Oliver is strange and hard and depressing. There is so much that you feel at once that you truly can't adequately prepare for.
I held him inside my body two weeks shy of 40 weeks and we held you until you were 6 weeks and 6 days old. Its strange being home without a baby here. We had you here and now there is what feels like a ghost shadow of the things that used to be around that were yours. I'm thankful that my best friend Claire put away most of the baby things that were really hard to see right as we came home. But there were still things that lingered around that we had to get rid of and store away ourselves. Pacifiers on the mantel, outfits in the laundry, you name it. I've strangely become more thankful for the time that we did have together because I know someone in my life that wasn't able to even know their child and another who lost a son just before he was 10.
Life is always presenting challenges that we have to learn to conquer. Conquering those challenges doesn't always mean that it's going to be easy. Things are going to be jagged and rough at first but eventually it all smooths out. It takes time and feeling your emotions through in order to truly grieve and push forward.
Losing my dad prepared me for the rest of my life to lose anyone close to me again, but nothing prepared me for the mom postpartum depression and losing your child psychosis. It's hard to balance a positive or even healthy mental state when you barely know how to work through it. I really had to come to terms that my life was now going back to what it was prior to being pregnant with Oliver. It was just me, Ryan, Piper and the dogs without a baby item in site that wasn't Pipers. Now I had the opportunity to pursue school and work towards a career again.
The truth is that as much as I enjoy being a mother and a stay at home mother, I miss working. I love being a photographer and an artist and making money from my projects, but I miss contributing in a major way and having something to do. I won't go into detail of my plans just yet but I found that making goals for myself and the household is good to keep my mind from being well derailed.
I had the pleasure of meeting up with Ann, my nurse from Northside. She has been in contact with me since I had the pleasure of being her patient. She has a child with Down syndrome about Ryans age and she also lost a child prior to having her daughter. So emotionally she can resonate with what I am feeling and can offer advice as to how I can move forward.
Even though I had planned to cry and have to talk to her about Ollie, we really just chatted with whatever came up naturally. I did however explain to her the circumstances around Oliver passing and that I think never will be easy. Sure I can get through it without crying, but inside and silently I feel like I'm being ripped apart slowly.. I only bring myself to mention it to those who may not know yet because it's something that we have to go through.
Losing my dad, as I said before, has taught me a lot. And riding through my emotions when I have them and then composing myself is how I really only got through it. The image of my dad and my son together makes me happy yet so so sad, but its something that I wouldn't change.
I know I don't believe in god or heaven but I do believe that somehow my dad and Oliver and united and are taking care of each other. Outside of grieving, Piper is making everything better. She's learning to talk and just in time too. She's saying I love you and much more, and often repeating what we say ( here we come swear jar). I think in some what she knew we needed to hear her sweet voice to comfort us in times that we may not even know we need comfort.
