The mourning process can be spectacularly cruel. Not just because you grieve loss of someone you love, but the sheer unexpectedness that it can slam you down with is just…cruel. One moment you can be fine, chipper and well and the next you feel like your heart is going to explode and you just want to run, run, RUN to escape it as hard and as fast as you can.

When Matthew died, there was a very strange period afterward of trying to pull myself out of funeral, burial, plans, flowers, and death, death, death consuming every single second and thought of my life. The transition was almost more jarring than when I went from an outgoing mother of three children to the mother of a dead infant in the flash of an eye on what began as a very mundane Tuesday and ended as the single worst day of my life.

I couldn’t watch TV for months. I could only listen to 2 CD’s. I felt like being around “Normal” people whose lives were focused on the trivial and mundane like laundry, dry cleaning, business meetings and if the Wendy’s line was taking too long was like taking a bath in acid.

I couldn’t cope.

Me, the outgoing person who needs people around her like people need air was a recluse: Barely able to speak to her own family. Even closest friends had to make an appointment. I feared I would never be normal again. Even worse, I feared I WOULD. To lose that feeling would be to be further away from my boy and his memory.

But.

Life goes on. As much as I hated the fact that it does and I wished I could just cease to exist, the human spirit cannot stay in such a state of grief for as long as your mind and heart would like. I went back to an existence that isn’t quite normal, but a life that a casual observer would mark as ‘Pretty good”.

This is where the cruelty of the whole process rears its ugly head. Because no matter how long it has been, how far I have come, how much I understand, accept and have healed, I can be transported back to the moment my son was laying on a gurney in a level I trauma bay, more still than any baby should EVER BE.

I had a great day, full of accomplishment, fun, love, and satisfaction. I was updating my IPOD and heard a song I listened to over and over during that horrible time. I thought I erased it because I wasn’t sure I could hear again.

It slammed me RIGHT back to the day I put Matthew in the earth.

So here I sit, alone with a lake of tears pouring onto my computer desk, and the only friend I have right now is this blog. Even if I had friends awake there isn’t anyone to bring this to. Right now I need empathy and there isn’t anyone who has that tonight.

I know I will be OK in the morning, but for tonight I have to wrestle with my memories.

(I’m closing comment for this post. Thanks)