Helpful, Not Helpful and a whole lot of Thanks

First I want to say thanks to everyone who has helped us out over the last few months.  From food (lots and lots of food. Seriously one night we got 2 hot dinners delivered to us), to cards, FB messages, emails, babysitting, books, laundry, prayers, kind words, visiting, phone calls, possibly the warmest blanket on earth, sewing stuff, flowers, gardening gloves, seeds.  I’m sure I’m forgetting something but I personally have read, and reread every message no matter where you left it.  On phone, computer or mail and I want you to know it makes a huge difference.  I know everyone of you that has taken the time to write and give me and my family support and love, you do not go unnoticed.    And I also want you to know that it has and does help, no matter how small you think your contribution might have been it makes a world of difference to an aching mommies heart. 

How am I?  I’ll tell you that I HATE it when people ask me how I am.  I’ll try to explain why.  First, I just don’t have an easy answer to that question, or I don’t know how I’m suppose to answer, what comes to mind is usually something that I don’t want to share.  I think it also has to do with the fact that I take that question very seriously.  One of my close friends who has also lost someone very close to her, once compared grief to bleeding.  I totally agree with that statement.  For me right now it’s like I’m bleeding and I have been bleeding since February 3rd.  When you’re bleeding you apply pressure to the wound to make it stop.  Most of the time I have pressure applied to my wound.  Losing a child is not an easy thing.  It’s kind of all consuming.  There isn’t a time that I’m not thinking or grieving Xander.  I feel like I’m breaking apart and being held together all at the same time.  But I function, mostly.  So when someone asks me how I’m doing, it’s like I stop and look at the bandage I have on my wound and then I peel it back to look at it and really see how I’m doing.  When I do that, the blood comes pouring out and will cause me to bleed on people, and most all people I don’t care to bleed on.  It’s a little to personal.  Maybe that’s it simply, it’s a little to personal of a question for me right now.   There are people who have been bled on a lot in the last few months and I feel comfortable talking to them, and they know who they are.  It’s not like I’m bottling up my feelings or not dealing with my grief, I just don’t want everyone to be involved.  I’m still feeling my way back to myself.   I haven’t found her yet, and I doubt when I do that she’ll be the same.  I hope she’s not.

Grief can be ugly, crushing, sometimes you can’t breath most of the time I feel numb but it’s very unpredictable.  You never know when it’s going to hit you in the face.  There have been some really tough things, I like to call it cruel and unusually punishment.  Some of the tough things I have described in the story of Xander’s birth which you can read here on the blog. The post is called Xander Cole Tender Mercies.  i.e.. The doctor telling us there was nothing they could do for him, or when they took him away, leaving the hospital without a baby, the funeral home, when my milk came in, seeing pregnant people, going to my doctor’s office for a follow up appointment, walking by the baby isle at the store, and every single Tuesday, to name a few.  But this whole time I really truly have never felt alone, I’ve never felt like I was being overcome with despair, because of a very loving Heavenly Father who gave His own Son, I have felt peace, loved and cherished.  Every time I feel my heart breaking, crumbling  it’s like he quickly steps in and holds it all together most of the time it feels like it’s being held together with tape, but still it’s together.  I don’t have to ever deal with any of this alone, I pray for help and I get it, I tell him “I can’t do this, I can’t do this”, and then I find I can.  For all of that I continue to be very grateful. 

Things that are helpful.  I really, really appreciate it when people recognize Xanders loss.  A simple “I’m sorry for your loss” is great.  I don’t want people to pretend he didn’t happen.  I know a lot of times people don’t know what to say, but for me an “I’m sorry” is truly enough.  Or a “do you need anything”  even if you truly never intend to do anything, I don’t mind people asking and not doing.  Most of the time there isn’t anything for you to do.

I have been going back and forth about publishing this or not, sometimes I think I should just spare people, but I don’t think many people read the blog and it helps to write about how I’m feeling.  Even about the bad stuff, like I told a friend today, it’s not like I’m sitting over here just being okay.  Most of the time I’m not okay, but I know I’ll be okay and I think that is the difference.  And if someday it can help someone else to read this and know that they will be okay too, then I think it’s worth it to put it on the blog.