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Friday, May 8, 2009

grief

I haven't been nearly as mired in the muck of grief lately. No, I'm not taking any medications! If you know me, I hardly ever take Tylenol for a headache, let alone prescription anything -- unless it's absolutely necessary - like antibiotics. And even then, it has to be really really bad.

"Keeping busy" was really hard at first (and I still felt the underlying grief). Then the sun started to shine here more (literally). Then, some changes started taking place at our house -- making it more 'ours'. And, during my "keeping busy" phase - I said over and over to myself "You either get busy living or get busy dying". (a great line uttered in the old movie Shawshank Redemption. plus, I think Owen would want me to live.) Don't get me wrong, the sadness is seemingly always there, just under the surface -- but my outlook has felt sunnier, so to speak. Maybe it's the fact that I've now lost a total of 14 pounds (with about 20 more to go). Or maybe it's that I finally felt brave enough to order, frame and hang pictures of Owen. Or maybe it's that I'm feeling brave enough to start work on the headstone design.

Or maybe it's that dream. I have really wanted to have dreams about Owen (for a very long time), but none seem to come. Then the other night I had a dream. I woke up thinking it was Owen, but now I'm not so sure. In the dream I was pregnant and in the hospital to have a baby. I remember being told by the nurse that I should have come in much sooner. Almost as soon as I arrived (and was shown to the room) - it was time to push & the baby was here. This was different from my first (and last dream) of Owen. That dream was while I was near the end of my pregnancy with him. There was much more to that dream - but I'll try to keep it simple. In that dream, he didn't move, had darker hair (this latest dream the baby's hair was much lighter and with a hint of red to it.), and his eyes were closed (with bright vivid blue eyes 'pasted' over them). By pasted over, I mean it was like they were cut out of a book and pasted over another picture in the book, like a stocker's note in the movies. In this current dream the baby's eyes were more of that greyish - murky blue that a newborn's eyes usually are (no pasting). In fact this baby's body and eyes were moving in the usual way that a baby would. In the dream, as I held this baby, I cried and cried -- because of how beautiful s/he was.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi

I was directed to your blog by Shannon whom I met through the trisomy 18 website.

I am experiencing a lot of confusing emotions and reading about others shock and struggles with trisomys are helping me to cope with the doctors initial assessment of our baby. It (we don't know the sex yet) has a 1 in 2 chance of having trisomy 13 and 18, 1 in 6 chance of trisomy 21 (Down's) and Turner's syndrome (mainly a syndrome attributed to girls but the doctor said the sex is unsure and the syndrome could be something else).

My husband is deployed to Iraq and currently is unable to come home early. I am scheduled to have a CVS on Tuesday morning.

I wanted to thank you for sharing yours and Owen's story. My heart grieves for you and I am so sorry for your loss. I am grateful to you and to Shannon (Oliver's mommy) for sharing your stories. You both are helping me to cope with our story.

Blessings,
Ginger Paro