“these wounds wont seem to heal, this pain is just too real, theres just no much that time can not erase…when you cried i wiped away all of your tears, when you’d scream i’d fight away all of your fears. and i held your hand thru all of these years, but you still have……all of me…”
i can’t get that song out of my head. my immortal by evenesence.
as a mom i feel these words to my core.
as a mom i carry the 5inch long scar across my pelvis that shows the world that infact i am a mother. i live for another. i breathe, and fight and care more for others than i do of myself. my scar proves it. i remember the pain of that scar. i remember how i used to look at it embarrassed. i remember thinking how horrible it looked and how much the pregnancy part of becoming a mother changed my body. in ways that i hated. all that beloved left over weight i blamed on eating for two. the gorgeaus baby belly that is never ending. i remember how much that incision hurt for weeks. i remember it well.
but now…i look at that incision scar and my heart breaks. its my proof that Conner was here…he was mine, if even for a little while. Its the only physical proof on my body. the pain that it insists just by seeing it…and now the pain i feel is inside. and is far more damaging, far worse. the scar would be from the top of my head to the tippiest of my toes. and it would be still wide open. no stitches. it has to heal from the inside out. but i’m the only one who can see it. i’m the only one who can feel it. that tiny little c-section scar was such a small price to pay for such a wonderful life. for such a wonderful son. it’s my only physical proof of the fight it reflects. he really was here. he really was mine. this pain i feel is legitimate and intense. there was such great medication to heal from that phsical scar. that incision. but the scar im trying to heal from now, no medication could ever touch it. it could never penetrate deep enough. never. and nobody knows that scars there unless they know me….i look like any other mom walking around the grocery store with a long list of to-dos and little patience some days for my kiddos every need. but there in my heart i wonder if people can see the pain in my eyes, the way i feel it. i wonder if they know the way i do, that i really am a mother to 3 sons, not just the 2 represented.
i wonder if they can feel my stares when they have a child around Conners age. I have this need to see just what he’d be doing. I need to grieve the loss of the next milestones. Too many to even name. but so necessary for my grieving. i wonder if they can feel me watching them complain or yell at their kids over the littlest of infractions. i wonder if they realize how lucky they are to have their loved one there to yell at. i wonder when i pass along friendly smiles to each person i pass whether i know them or not, i wonder if they can feel the desperation in my heart, the pain on my lips?
i’m part of the walking wounded.
a group smaller yet larger than even i know of. i feel like my wounds are on the very outside of my flesh, fully exposed to each person who walks near me. my smile, my eyes, my face say it all. but i’ve yet to see someone look the same way i feel i do. maybe their wounds are now covered with a scab. i don’t know.
but i feel alive yet dead.
i feel so thankful yet so forgotten.
i feel so put together, yet so torn apart.
i feel so strong, but so much more vulnerable.
i feel sturdy yet unsure.
i feel hesitant and so afraid.
grief is a very sticky, tangled up web of feelings and emotions. it’s a maze. one i cannot find myself in, at any given moment of the day.
one moment i feel sure, the next i take a turn and am lost in the corridor of pain. this is why it is so hard to explain. its the best and worst of life.
it teaches me to be so, so thankful for what i have and what i have lost…
yet in the same breath it teaches me to be cautious and apprehensive about the next battle.
there will always be a next battle.
as much as this lesson and this pain and experience hurts, i know its not the last one we’ll be faced with.
while i pray that this is the hardest one we will have to face…in the back of my mind i know there is no guarantee.
there is always something worse.
always someone going thru more than even i can imagine.
always.
life is circumstantial.
and the devil likes to play it that way.
he likes to keep you thinking that you have been forgotten and abandoned. that you are unloved, that you are the only one going thru your situation and that god himself did it to you.
that devil…is pure evil.
truth is…i know with all my heart god did not do this to us. but i know he allowed it to happen. i know that he caught each one of my tears and even cried them of his own with me. he is for us, not against us. but the truth is, this suffering, this misery comes at a very high price. and what i chose to do with it will either be used to glorify him or deny him.
i try desperately to do the first…
it doesn’t mean one bit that i’m not mad at him, because truth be told i am. i’m very mad at him. and thats ok.
he’s a big enough god to take my anger.
but i can’t and won’t let that anger define my relationship with him. because i need him. i cannot imagine going thru this w/o him. and honestly i feel i’m in the greatest of company because he himself had to watch his son die…so he knows my pain intimately. and i know he feels it with me.
i hate that today is thursday.
i hate that it’s been 9 weeks already.
how can that be?
i feel so alone today. i feel the loss so desperately.
i went to see him today. its getting increasingly difficult to do that.
because being there reminds me that hes gone and never coming back.
he will never, never come back.
i have to live in a way to get to him…that is my only hope to see him again.
i stand ontop of his angel body. the grass still reflects that of new sod placed and not yet taking root. its ugly. and horrible. i picture him. i remember the way he looked at his viewing…how it appeared to be my son, but all traces of the real soul of conner was gone. it didnt really look like him. i can’t shake that image.
how i wish i could kiss him.
hug him.
punish him.
clean him.
anything.
once a mother, always a mother. i am a living nurturer with an expired job…for him.
nothing but what ifs and wish i coulda’s….
and a broken heart, a huge incision with no sign of it scabbing anytime soon…
empty promises.
empty eyes.
loving thoughts.
hopeful prayers.
this all seems just so strange…and so untrue.
i try to force my mind to tell my heart that your gone…but it refuses to believe it as the truth.
i’m so ok and so not ok…
torn…
lost yet found…
bearing no visible scars of the deep, intense pain i feel…but staring at this c section scar from the birth of sweet conner i am reminded that this is strange…but it is true.
my pain is not in vain. it is not wasted energy.
oh sweet conner…i won’t waste one tiny fraction of a moment of this life without you…
i’m working to ensure that i get to you oneday…whole.
until that glorious day my sweetie hold me so close and never leave me.
my scar is much too deep…
