3 months after

3 months.

 

Almost 13 weeks.

 

Almost 100 days but its no exaggeration to say feels like yesterday.

 

There is no waking hour that passes where I don't have a thought of him skip across my mind. Sometimes it lingers and dances for a while.

Sometimes it just keeps on moving. 

 

 

I hear his inhaled laugh so clearly that I even feel the whole body-shake that went along with it.

I tiptoe through the house in the middle of the night in an effort not to wake him with sudden noises in the silence.. then I remember. 

I move the rear view mirror and momentarily get confused why Brooklyn is on the 'wrong' side of the car.

I take the stairs as Brooklyn races down zig zagging ramps, knowing I should be zooming Nico and his chair down that ramp and he should be squealing in delight.

I see the wheelchair logo on car parks, or a Kia Carnival (the car we were planning to have converted) and he is instantly brought to mind.

I cross paths with an ambulance and every time I take a deep breath and ponder where they might be going and has another family's life just stood still and been ripped apart .

I see a police uniform and suddenly vivid recollections of ambos and officers swarming in through the front door. 

 

 

On holiday in Cairns, 2013.

 

I never had a vision of Nico beyond early childhood. It was all so unknown, it was impossible to see anything beyond the next month. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't see him being too heavy to lift or too long to hold on our lap. There was a possibility he would go from nappies to 'incontinence aids'  and we would be changing a fully grown man. It was likely he was not going to master eating foods and the PEG was going to sustain him into old age. It was unknown whether he would gain enough mobility to move to a power chair or have a walker around the house. With so many unknowns, my brain would simply shut down and literally give me nothing but a continuation of things exactly how they were, a 14kg, 95cm beautiful child and nothing else. Usually its an 'old' person we lose in our lives and it's perfectly logical to keep them at the age they were in our mind. A child though, it's impossible to escape from trying to age them as you go on with your life. It's only been three months so I can only imagine this getting trickier as time goes on.

Time: Time has become a double a double edged sword... it is, we are told, going to make this whole thing easier... but I am more concerned with time making it worse.

I don't want the memories fade with time. I want them all. I never want a day to come where I can't remember every one of his different smiles, or hear the giggle. I'm petrified time will take that all away.

(For those who are worried about us: there is no need. Honestly we are continuing to live, we are actually coping fairly well at a day to day level. We have had a holiday and Brooklyn is doing fantastic... this is just a blog written on a crappy day and while it is all real and true... it is not everything)




 

Guilt in grief

For smiling and laughing.

For working and functioning and talking to people in such a normal manner they would never have guessed the traumatic event you're going through.

For walking past a bedroom door without flinching.

For not realising it's Friday again and not thinking  'It's been 9 weeks'.

For even just wondering when you will make it past the 16th of the month without counting it off. (Will you only do month counts until one year? Or will it be sooner? Or longer?)

For smiling when remembering the laughter the speed bumps on this road caused.

For not having any idea how to answer the question 'How many children do you have?'

For feeling like an attention seeker deciding to mention your child's (recent) death to someone new.

For going on holiday and remembering how much more difficult the airport was last time, with wheelchairs, feeding pumps and 10 litres of ready made formula.

For being able to watch this video and feel warmth and smile as well as cry.