We made it past the night he died. We made it past the viewing, funeral, and burial. We made it through the holidays. (Dark though they were....) We made it through the new year. We made it past the first birthday which was Todd's. We had our normal Pickett/Hansen/Krause/Troxell Clan Family birthday gathering for Todd's 46th. Most of the thank you notes have gone out although there are still some in the stack that need to be finished.
For me, it's been a quest to bury myself under every project I can find. Leave no minute of the day available. Go all day until I crash. It's the evenings that I'm afraid of. When the day is winding down and I'd like to relax and watch a show or read a book, well, that's when my mind starts doing the sad things. I know this isn't healthy and I have been trying (with some success) to slow down. I joined a grief group that starts in a couple weeks. I've said no to a few projects. I realize I can't heal if I'm buried under projects. The grief will wait for me and come at me with a vengeance if I try to push it back.
I've also been trying to spend more time with Grant and Gabby. They missed out on so much over the years. Grant and I had a mom/son date night a few weeks ago which I blogged about. Ted took Grant out for a special dinner because he ended his semester with such good grades. I took Gabby to the beauty supply store and we played with the samples. I moved all of Willy's things out of Grant's bedroom and am starting to turn it into "Grant's" room now.
Yesterday Grant had an eye appointment and it was weirdly scheduled in the middle of his day so I let him skip the whole day. I decided heck with it and let Gabby skip too. The three of us went out to breakfast, then to Grant's appointment, and then to the TeaHaus for afternoon tea and crumpets. Gabby has a friend at school who told her the tea there was delicious and she had been asking to go. We had a great time. We each had our own pot of tea and sat there just being together and not being rushed.
http://teahaus.com/
After tea, we went and did a little shopping in Kerrytown. It was nice just walking around downtown and not being in a hurry. I took them home and had to go back to work but we had a great morning and afternoon together.
I still don't quite know how our life without Willy looks. Right now it's still too raw to get a good picture. I think the kids are doing well. They take comfort in knowing he is not battling lissencephaly anymore. And while I take comfort in that as well, I'm still the mother of a child who died in her arms too quickly before even a goodbye could be said.
Thanks to fantastic friends, family, co-workers, and the most awesome husband a woman could ask for, I feel well supported and well loved. I have a lot of happy moments and have begun to laugh a bit again. Sometimes I fake it because I don't want to be the downer. Sometimes I let it all out in bed or in the shower. But sometimes I really do laugh, and mean it.
But I do feel like I've aged 30 years in 3 months. And the further in the past that Willy's death gets, the more anxious I am that I'm going to forget his smell and how he felt in my arms, the softness of his hair and skin.
The one thing I can say for sure is all the nausea I had the first couple months seems to have subsided. The first real piece of empirical evidence that I am, in fact, healing.
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