Bad Memories

What I would not give to be able to forget those horrible moments of that morning! Ironically another mom who's son passed away over a year ago, posted this morning that she has been having a hard time with the waves of panic and terrible memories that come with loosing your child in this manner. I remember an old friend of mine who had lost her son to Mito before George passed. She called me the morning he died and told me that some day I would be able to look at George's pictures and not cry. Somehow I find that hard to ever believe because of the manner in which he died and the trauma that came with it. All I can ever see is his lifeless body in my arms. Eventually it always moves to ones when he was happy and alive but they just make me sad because the night before he was fine and the next day he as gone.

I was pretty good most of the day...until tonight. Hugh and I have been working on getting the house ready for Joshua's 5th birthday party this coming weekend. Hugh happened to move a few storage containers we had in the hallway. Behind them was a huge reminder of that morning. Hugh was so distraught and lost he punched a hole in the wall. There as the hole behind the items there reminding me of that horrible day and then it was like one of those moments in a movie where all the memories come flooding back. It saddened me but the thing that made me loose it and just break down crying was looking at the empty stem painted on the wall.

I had done some painting on the walls in the hallway when I was pregnant with George. In the corner is a big tree, grass at the bottom, and stickers of butterflies, dragonflies, and ladybugs all over the walls. At the bottom I had painted flower stems with leaves and had traced each of the boys hands onto a sponge to use as a stencils. I used those to create flowers and the petals...it as just so adorable. When I did it, I left a spot for George's hand-prints when he got old enough to keep his little hands open enough for me to trace them. Seeing it empty just made my heart break all over again. The sadness just washed over me as I was reminded he died and that he would never fill that spot on my wall that I had left for him.

I told Hugh I am going to look for either a large dragonfly sticker or a large monkey sticker to add to the mural to cover up the hole! It is weird because part of me feels the need to leave it there and another part of me wants it gone. I cannot tell you the insane and odd feelings that come with this sort of loss. It definitely falls into the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder category and I can completely understand why and the reason it is hard for people to move forward with something tragic like this happening.

Yesterday Hugh and I got to go out for the first time in what has seemed like forever. We went to see Fiddler on the Roof in Philly at the Walnut Street Theater. It was good but best of all it was nice to just get out although it is hard to not find yourself talking about the kids or any of that stuff. We did however discuss a phone call I had gotten from the deacon at our church earlier in the morning.

She had expressed her concern for Hugh and his coping with George's loss. It has apparently been bothering her for some time no. She knows he has no one to really be there and with his low self esteem and many other issues from his past along with the unemployment issues she really worried for him and our family. Of course not knowing how he would take it she came to me and gave me the phone number of a counseling place that works on a sliding scale. With his family history of alcoholism on both sides of his family and all that has transpired with the loss of his dad and George, she was concerned for him. She knows that life herself since her husband had an alcohol addiction that rocked the core of her on family.

He of course has not been drinking nor has he contemplated it but understood her concern. The past few weeks have just been very hard across the board for many reasons, none we were ever prepared for. He has always been afraid of drinking since his father was an alcoholic and he watched it tear his family apart. I too understand since both of my grandparents were alcoholics too. It is something we have a higher chance of happening but are both so afraid of we just avoid the stuff all together. He agreed to try counseling out and we are hoping that in a few weeks we can go to a Compassionate Friends meeting. It is a group for parents/grandparents/siblings of children who have died. We have been meaning to go but it is only once a month and we always forget about it until after. I hope that he can find some sort of comfort in either group.

If there is anything that I would wish for, it would be for all of the bad memories to be gone. It of course is not going to happen in my lifetime so I am going to have to just live with it all unfortunately. Please keep us in your prayers but also all the other parents who are struggling right now in the same manner that we are.