Grieving

I've made a lot of progress in my grief. I've started to confront a lot of my issues, I've been reading "Empty cradle, broken heart. Surviving the death of your baby" and it's helped me to confront those feelings. I have realized that I'm like a wounded animal I crawl off to a secluded place with no one around so that I can lick my wounds and heal before ever emerging back into the population, so that when I do I'm healed and not bleeding anymore, I can defend myself again. Going along with that I've also learned that if I'm forced back into the real world and I'm not healed I can't control myself or my emotions and have a tendency to lash out, it's honestly better to leave me alone and put myself back together and then come around when I'm ready, other wise I'm resentful and angry. I've also started to grasp my severe abandonment issues, I've realized that when I was young I attached myself to people and made myself dependant on them because maybe I never felt like I could depend on the people I should be dependant on. The people or things were always things or people that had no way of supporting me in the ways that I needed thus they would leave and I'd feel alone again playing into my feeling of abandonment. Eventually I built a defense mechanism that I'll leave before you ever get the chance to leave me.

In grieving for Aiden it's the first time in a long time that I've had to deal with these issues. They've come up in the past but it wasn't ever something I had to acknowledge and sort through before moving forward because it was always just me, no one else was involved. Now I have to acknowledge Shawn and his pain and style of grieving. It's been difficult, today was the first time we've argued since Aiden left us and it was all over the ways we each grieve being different. I guess we're learning something that we should have learned a long time ago, we're a team and we're together no matter what, so we'd better start learning to communicate and respect each others feelings or it'll never work. And simply the thought of that is terrifying.

As time goes on Aiden's life seems so marvelous the things we did while he was here the lessons we've learned, the lives that he's changed. He truly is God's gracious gift and God was truly glorified through him and all of the lessons that we all learned from him. I’m so incredibly grateful for everything that Aiden is, and everything that Aiden has taught us.  It’s easy to get distracted with all of our feelings of pain and sorrow, but we have to remind ourselves that as much as we miss him and wish that we could be with him, he is in a place where there is no pain or sorrow, all of the defects with his earthly body are healed and he is perfect in heaven,

We miss our baby boy more then anything in the world but we know that he is safe and healthy in heaven. All those nights that we prayed that God would heal him and make him healthy, he did, in heaven. I’m grateful that Aiden is healthy, I’m grateful that he doesn’t have to experience any of the pain and hurting that the rest of us do. I just miss him dearly and it’s hard for me to come up with a healthy balance of being grateful that he’s not here and being devastated that he‘s not.

I just keep reminding myself that someday I’m going to wake up and that feeling of emptiness and uselessness wont be there, and that just because it’s gone doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten, just that I’ve finally allowed myself to move on. I guess I’m having issues with figuring out who I am without Aiden, I made Aiden so much a part of my everyday life that it’s hard for me to move forward and do normal everyday things because my instinct is to talk to Aiden and ask him what he thinks, or explain to him what I’m doing, or tucking him in at night with his turtle and his bat. It’s like I have to re-learn who I am and what I’m doing with my life before I could ever move forward. I started seeing myself as Shawn’s wife and Aiden’s mommy, now I feel like I’ve lost that part of myself. I feel like I’m no longer a mommy, I don’t have a baby here on earth, and as much as I can understand that no one could ever take away the fact that I’m Aiden’s mommy and always will be, it’s hard to feel like a mommy without a baby.

While Aiden was here I was so invested in getting back to school and getting all of my pre-requisites to go to PA school, ever since he’s been gone I’ve had no motivation to move forward with it. I still want to go back, but I’m not sure that I’m ready to move forward with my life and create a new commitment. I guess a lot of that is my feeling of un-readiness to make any commitments to anything at this moment. Maybe in time I’ll be able to move forward and make commitments again, but I think it’s just going to take time. It’s all just going to take time…

Someday things will get easier, and our devastation and pain wont be as constant, we’re never going to forget, but I hope with time the pain will dull and we’ll only remember the happy memories with Aiden.

As always much love
-Jessie M. (Aiden’s Mommy)