Dreams

Sometimes I fear I have made this all up.  It doesn't seem as though it is real.  How could it be - how could something this horrific be real.  I fear I dreamed Xavier. Or that this is still a dream nightmare and maybe someday I will wake up and find my baby sleeping in his bassinet and everything will go back to normal.  The pain will be gone, my arms won't ache, my family won't be broken.

I know this isn't the case.  This can't happen. My Xavier flies high with the angels now. He was real. I remember his skin, his smell, his birth.  His pictures validate my thoughts, he did exist.

How horrible a mother I am to even think for a moment he wasn't real. The cycle of guilt starts all over again. My brain struggles to wrap around everything.  The morning of his death, his funeral, my husband and children's pain.

I realize now, humans - mother's - were not designed for this, we were not meant to feel this pain.  Our bodies and minds can handle pregnancy and childbirth and all the discomforts associated, but we were not designed to handle the deaths of our children.  You whole body and mind revolts against you.  The grief saddles you and you drag it around all day like a huge weighted bag.  It never seems to lighten, only grow heavier and becomes more noticeable as the day wears on to the point your mind begs for sleep just to get away from the burden. You wake up from your dreams only to find yourself doubting reality and longing for the day the grief lets up just a little so everything, something, isn't a struggle.  When your smiles aren't fake. When your happiness isn't forced.  When you can enjoy something again without feeling guilty.  When your thoughts aren't all consumed by your child that isn't there anymore.

My Xavier wasn't a dream.  He is a beautiful memory.  And I will hold him in my heart forever and dream of him until we meet again.

Honor

"This little light of mine"

Grieving a child is not unlike mothering one.  It is an all consuming, never ending process.  However, rather than get to watch our child grow and make memories, we now must do that for them.

"I'm gonna let it shine"

The reality of their memory fading away is real and terrifying. The fact that they did live, that they did exist, that they mattered, is now your burden to carry forward.  It is a fight and for me almost an obsession.

"This little light of mine"

You find ways to honor them, to make the memory go forward, anyway you can.  You will touch the lives that they never got a chance to do, you say their name so it doesn't become a whisper on the sands of time. You write their story anywhere you can, because by writing it, it becomes real, they become real again.  You do acts of kindness in their name. Make donations.  Share their pictures. Release lanterns. Make crafts.  Anything ANYTHING to honor them, anything so their name doesn't die.  Because that is all you have left - their name.

"I'm gonna let it shine"

You have no baby to hold and watch grow. The pictures will forever stay the same.  So you carry the name forward, it becomes a part of you.  You live to see their name, hear people speak it, not only because you want the memory to live on, but because you want some validation that this horrible thing that happened wasn't just a dream nightmare you can't wake up from.

"Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine"

So you march forward. Carrying that baby in your heart.  The name on your lips, the memory never out of your thoughts, and carry their candle forward.  With the hope, the dream, and the NEED that it's light will never burn out.