Still Standing, Standing is Hard

Dance Festival 2022

Dear Aaron,

I think I've been numb, probably for several days.  

"Gray day ... Everything is gray. I watch, but nothing moves today." (Dr. Seuss, My Many Colored Days)

Nothing moving, at least not inside. 

Oh, on the outside I'm "just fine." I go to work, to meetings, to church and work in the yard at home. I talk, laugh, sometimes sing, occasionally write. 

But I feel detached, static, and unresponsive. Just going through the motions.

Then a series of events caught up with me. Facing some things at work, good things, but hard things. Holding space for people, grateful to be able to do that, and also leaning in and feeling their pain with them.

And then at church (another place I've felt somewhat anesthetized) during Sunday School, Lesa Mecham made a comment. She mentioned how during the many times she was in our home while you were here, she could feel the love and peace your beautiful spirit brought to our home. 

And the tears came. Oh, Aaron, I miss that!! I miss you, and I miss how I felt when you were here. 

I played the piano and sang tonight for the first time in longer than I can remember. It was rusty, and my voice was creaky, but it softened me a little, I think.

Dad and I just finished watching the Harry Potter series again, and a scene at the end hit me in a way it hasn't before. But then, I don't think I've watched it since you died. Harry sees his parents, Remus and Lupin and asks why they are there. His mom replies, "We never left..." He asks, "Does it hurt? Dying?" Remus assures him, "Quicker than falling asleep." 

Are you still here? Did it hurt? It didn't seem to. And you appeared to already be asleep. 

And then you were gone.

Dance Festival 2023, your last one

Oh, baby...

125 weeks. Will I always know? 

Will there always be times when it feels like a knife in my heart? 

Will I always be pulled in two directions? One part of me, a part I think that died and went with you back in December of 2023, and the other part trying to live in the present?

I'm trying. I really am.

It's just that sometimes I wonder if I prefer the numbness. It doesn't hurt so much. It doesn't feel. 

In all your frailty, you were stronger than I am.

I miss you so much....

Love,
Mama.

"In the grief of losing someone,

Why do I feel like the lost one?"

~Terri Guillemets

Rough Couple of Weeks

Dear Aaron,

Rough week, rough two weeks.

And today is Bereaved Mother's Day.

I know why this week hurts; I'm less sure about why the previous one did. But I've cried more the last two weeks than I have in a long time. 

And it seems to have gotten to me physically as well. 

So a week ago was the annual Primary's Memorial Service. I got to see an old friend there. Somehow I hadn't put together Dr. Chief Medical Officer with Dr. Friend from the PICU until she walked in. I miss those relationships!! Losing you didn't just mean losing you. It meant losing people I'd grown to know and value and even cherish. To hear her talk about you, to say that you still are frequently referred to in the PICU, that when she sees a green Posey bed her first thought is that you're back, and the second is that no you're not....

Well, that hit deep in my Mama heart. To know that you made such an impact on the people there means so much, and I treasure that.  

Then Tuesday I learned that Leila is playing with you and all the rest of your friends in heaven. I remember when she was born, when her NICU told her mom that it was futile and it was time to turn off the ventilator and let her go at 35 weeks gestational age! Mom asked me what I thought and I told her to go back and tell them that as long as she was a preemie, to treat her like a preemie. And when she wasn't anymore, then other discussions could be had, but not until then. 

I used the poem Aunt Chelle wrote for your homecoming and made a poster for her when she came home. She was feisty and fiery, and her parents were no less amazing. We got to meet at the SOFT Conference in 2015. And at 14 years and 4 months, she danced through heaven's gates. 

On Friday, Daddy and I went to Westlake's ballroom concert. One of the final numbers was the "How to Train Your Dragon" medley. In the middle, one of the dancers falls slowly and the company gathers around mourning. There is a single loud beat, which symbolizes his heartbeat stopping. Your Jonny choreographed that part in memory of you.  After the first time they danced that number at a competition last year, he told the dancers the meaning of that part. Friday was the last time that will be danced. My video isn't the best, but I keep watching it over and over. 

And my own heart... (or body or something) well, it's not too happy right now. Things definitely pointed to it being my heart, which earned me a golden chariot ride from the AF hospital to the Utah Valley Hospital where you were born in the wee hours of the morning almost 16 years ago. All the tests have come back good now, so I get to go home. But I have once again gained more appreciation for all you went through. I don't like being a patient. I'm not particularly good at it. I mean, when I'm refreshing MyChart every few minutes for a report I've been told will take a few hours to compile...  Well, there might be a patience thing that this patient is struggling with. 

Don't get me wrong. They've taken amazing care of me here, really. But oh... 

I'm glad to be heading home.

I just wish you were there.

I was looking at the mold of our hands while dusting last week, and I couldn't quite feel yours in mine as clearly. That hurt. But I know you're still with me.

I miss you.

Love,
Mama

Grief is reading —

over and over again —

the goodbye poem

Death wrote to you.

~Terri Guillemets