is that it shows my extremes.
I reveal my wacky, weird humor in one post and my soft, vulernable underbelly the next. I would apologize for that, except that I'm okay with it. If it makes you uncomfortable, I guess you won't be reading me for long-- as you can expect it over the next month--the polar opposites, I mean.
I am just missing Sheldon and Thomas so much it hurts. I physically ache.
Something as simple as a primary song sends me over the edge at church. It's all very bitter-sweet on Sunday. I'm grateful for my faith--my knowledge that families are forever. Because that is what we are centered on (Christ and family), it just makes it feel very fresh and raw. I'm kind of uncomfortable being dubbed the "mourning mother",and that's what I become every week.
----
A lot trailing in and out of my brain, including...
A comment someone made to me a month after the boys' death.
"At least they weren't as old as Morris. That would be really hard".
As if losing a newborn is somehow easier? She didn't know what that might feel like to hear. That it somehow implied I love Morris more than I do them? Or that their death is easier because I hadn't bonded with them (or so she thought)? I guess some just can't understand. Maybe before I lost Thomas & Sheldon, I might have thought the same thing.
I felt better after talking with an older woman in my ward who had lost both a newborn and an older child. Her voice still broke over the loss of her 3 day old, 40+ years later. I had the gall to ask her if one loss was more difficult. I needed to know. She said,
"Honey, a child is a child. It doesn't matter how old they are".
Tears came and my heart screamed,
"Thank you- I needed validation!"
"Thank you- I needed validation!"
It's not that I think we will mourn the same. I can't know what the death of an older child feels like. But I agree--there is no "harder". It's pretty much an 11 for all of us--well past what we think our limit is.
We feel the loss in different ways. If you lose a 16 year old, you may miss the familiar memories--their shoes in the hallway or the sound of their voice. Losing a newborn is different. I miss never knowing those things. Never hearing their voices or learning their tastes. However, the not knowing doesn't make it easier. I am mourning what I never had, but I am still just as connected to their memory.
I want others to know that. I need others to know that.
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I saw this painting and caught my breath. I have found myself in this exact position numerous times since the funeral. Grasping at my gut and clutching my chest, feeling my heart pound. I'm not sure why. It's an instinct.
It's just what I do when I miss my boys.
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