Sliding Emotions

Going to the park since Liam passed has been so hard. I avoid them like the plague. Or I did until it seemed life started pushing me back. We've been 3 times, and it was extremely hard every time. I have to try not to cry just driving by one. Especially the park next to the kids school because that was the last park Liam ever played at. Where we spent many days the last two months, hanging out and waiting for sister to get out of school. 

Those were some of the happiest days we had. Just running around like a healthy boy with no troubles in the world. The days seem to be some of the hardest times to remember because they were so filled with happiness, love, healing, without an ounce of owl edge of what was so come. To say I'm not sitting here crying as I write this, just thinking about those days, would be a lie. I am and I probably will cry for a long time to come. 

Liam changed everything. From the moment I found out I was pregnant with him, my world was turned upside down. You see, everything about Liam's life was a surprise. We hadn't planned to get pregnant for another year. It was a shock yet a welcomed surprise. Then when we found out he was a boy, the world couldn't have been more right. Of course the pregnancy didn't go smoothly but that's for another time. His birth was a surprise. We had a planned C section scheduled for two weeks from the day he came, but he wouldn't wait. He never waited for anything.

 Liam always had his own timeline an did things his own way. You could fight against his power force and struggle, or you could embrace it and accept him as he was. Acceptance wasn't easy at first I admit, but it didn't take long to realize that Liam was a force to be reckoned with and he wasn't changing. He was a fighter and I loved that about him. The biggest surprise of all was his passing. I could tell the story a million times and you'd never feel what I felt that day or even now. I stood there over my sons still body and looked up at my husband and asked the most heart broken question he will ever hear in his life. "What do we do now?" And he knew that I was irreverently broken and shuddered and that picking up those pieces would be impossible. 

But I'm getting off track. Since Liam's passing, I find parks are just a horrible reminder that have lost something so vital in my life. I see ghost memories of my son playing on the swings or sliding down the slide. I hear his sweet laugh ring in the air. And I'm broken all over again. It's gotten easier to hide the pain at times. I know the pain will never go away. I know that pain is there because I loved Liam so very much, with every fiber of my being. Every part of my soul. And I hurt as much as I love him. 

I read an article just before sitting here to write this, called Playgorunds and Cemetaries ( http://www.stillmothers.com/2016/06/13/playgrounds-and-cemeteries/ ). I'm the article she wondered if other parents were drawn to strange Cemetaries as she was after her daughter passed. Before reading this article, I didn't think anyone else felt this way. 

I've never been squirmish about Cemetaries as a teen I would pick flowers from our yard, ride my bike to the cemetery across town and lay flowers on headstones of those that seemed to be neglected I've the years. I'd walk through the child's section and I would feel the sadness that lingered from their parents grieving. I'd pray for these families that lost their babies and I'd hope to never have to feel that pain. You see when I feel something, I feel it deeply and completely. I always have. I didn't know until recently that it was because I suffered from PTSD since I was a small child (according to my therapist).

For awhile it's been weighing on my heart that I don't have a place to go visit my son. When he passed, I couldn't bear the thought of seeing his little body in a casket. I couldn't bear the thought of seeing him put in the ground. When he passed, I became certain of a few things. That I would live in pain and heartbreak until the day I die. And that I wanted him cremated and with me always. My husband felt the same. Now his urn sets on a shelf in the corner shelf system, surrounded by pictures and his toys. 

What I've learnt from this decision is that it leaves you with no place to go and grieve. No place to go and reflect. I feel drawn to walk through Cemetaries, leave flowers on the graves of babies gone too soon and say a prayer for those families. And I realized that it's because I have no set place to go do this for my son. That needs to change, and it will. That's my next project on the list of so many that needs to be done.