Gaining control

A little. They say that having kids is like having your heart walk around outside your body. Losing a child is major surgery without anesthesia. When I was pregnant with Jesse, someone told me that you have to forget about the pain of childbirth or you'd never have another child. But I think you also have to forget how painful it is to lose anyone you love or you wouldn't make it to the next loss. This is like going through labor every day, with no new baby on the other side, just another morning of awful realization.

I can make it through most of the day with distractions, now. I save it all for the walk to work. Signs of spring physically hurt: flowering magnolias are sharper than knives. I walk every morning through a park Jesse and his brother played in when they were little. I'm used to it now, but the sight of new grass on the central lawn breaks my heart. I wonder how long it takes that deep, animal part of your brain to accept that your child is really gone. Because I understand it intellectually-- he's not coming back. He's not going to be mad that we moved his stuff out of his closet, or changed the room. I'd give anything for that fine indignation again.