Smell

I know they say that smell has a very powerful affect on people. This is so true and I found this out yet again today. I had gotten the kids off to school and it was just Gabrielle and I since Hugh had started his new job and is training. Gabrielle was sound asleep in her little rocking bed out in the living room. The opportunity to clean and enjoy the quiet does not come along often in our house so I as determined to take advantage of the little bit of time I knew I would have until the baby woke up.

The kids had left their shoes on the floor and I was putting them in the shoe rack we have near the front door when this smell took over me. It was so distinct and one I have not smelled in a long time. It was the smell of George's room. His room had a very distinct smell when he was alive. There is no way to explain it but I knew it when I smelled it. All of a sudden I was overwhelmed with emotions and sat on the one step between my front room and living room where our mantle is that holds his ashes and just cried.

George's things stopped smelling like him a while ago. I remember coming home the day he died and taking his blanket and just holding it to my face since his essence was so pronounced then. As time went on, that smell faded from his blanket and the clothes he wore. The last place to loose the smell was his room. Joshua and Michael have moved in there and it smelled like him at first but no longer does. It was so heart breaking to when it left because it was as if the last part that I had of him had left too.

Never had our front room smelled like him since he never really lived in that part of the house. His urn is now on the mantle there with his memorabilia but other than that there is nothing that would make that room smell like that. I have never smelled this smell other than when he was alive. It is not a particular lotion or perfume that you could say caused it since I did not put that on him and the lotion we used was always lavender. Lavender has its own smell and this was not that at all. I'd like to think he came to visit me for a while or wanted me to remember him.

I've been taking the medication that the doctor gave me for anxiety and it seems to be helping at least a little bit. The stress of life has just been nonstop and the anxiety added to it was just way too much for me and this actually takes the edge off. I've just been exhausted with all the challenges that we have been handed one after another over the past few years. Everything in me has just had enough and I am physically and emotionally maxed out but still owe my husband and kids the best wife and mom I can be. The past few months I have just been surviving and that is ok but I want to live life to the fullest and have had a hard time finding it in myself to do such.

Loosing a child changes so much and it changes the person that you were. Grief work is just that...WORK! It is like running a marathon not a short distance race. Somehow you need to pace yourself and if you don't you feel it. If you add in the other struggles we have had than you can imagine how difficult it has really been. I'm still trying to figure out how to live without my son every single day and I know it will be life long but I want to be in a better place than I have been lately, even if it is only one thing a day or every few days that I do to make things better. If I don't work on myself, I can't help the rest of my family and can't be here for them in the capacity they need me to be.

I feel so often that we are swimming up stream against the current. We always try to make things better for our family only to be faced with more and more challenges and not little ones. It has been this way for me since I left college and has only been one thing after another with no real break in between. In all instances I have tried to be positive and make myself better with each one but sometimes it just seems like you want to just stay in bed for a week with no phone calls or anyone around to just try and catch up on the amount of energy it requires to get up and live just one day.

Days like today where I am taken by surprise are good and bad. It is a blessing to have had those moments and yet sad at the same time. It is only 7pm and I am ready for bed yet have another few hours ahead of me with the baby and to do laundry and other household chores. These moments add to the exhaustion and makes me wonder if God ever gets tired like this and these happen to be the moments I wonder what he is thinking up there! I often times wonder what he sees in me that I don't see in myself and how in the world does he feel that I can handle these situations. In the end I know he is walking me through this stuff and I do find comfort in that. No one could imagine half the things I have been through in my life and often times it has lead me to feel extremely alone however in the moments that I sit alone and cry it is as if my head is in his lap and he is stroking my hair comforting me.

Today as I sat there in disbelief and cried I know he was there with me. I cried because I miss my son but was grateful for such a gift and then sad again when it went away as I felt like I was loosing my son again. I wonder if we move will that smell ever come again? This is the only place he knew as his home and the only place I have memories of him in. It is amazing how one simple smell can evoke so many emotions in an instant.

Thank you God for giving me time with my son one more time!