Taking cover from the storm

It's a beautiful, rainy, stormy day outside. After days of stinking late-summer heat, when the thunder and lightening came through last night it brought with it a sense of blissful relief. I was at work, and some of the girls were so excited to see the cool change that they ran outside and lay on the driveway so the rain could pelt them all over; so they could really feel it. It's an important decision to make: whether you shelter inside or confront the storm head on, and the right answer often depends on where you are placed when the storm hits - whether you have an umbrella or raincoat to give you some protection, or whether the rain's hitting so fast and hard that you're wasting your time and energy and might as well just stand drenched and let it wash over you until the storm has ended.

This is a question I am confronting each and every day, except the storm threatening to ravage me is grief. Most often since Max died I've been running around gathering equipment to help me weather it; creating shelters to provide some relief from its onslaught. I guess you could say I have been very active in 'storm management' techniques. I'm not one of those carefree people who run outside to embrace the chaos of the storm when it hits. I like my environment rather more calm and ordered - temperature controlled and adjustable when needed. I am overwhelmed by the feelings I have for Max, for his life and mine, and so I've been trying my best not to stifle them, but to mitigate them. Instead of sitting on the floor and crying all the time, I write this blog. I source him the best photo album I can find and spend a few days carefully putting it together. I write him poems. I read books about grief and loss, lots and lots of books. I research potential causes of his early birth. I write thank you letters to those who were there for us when our storm so unexpectedly hit. I photograph all of his things. I tend to his plants. There is plenty of grieving going on amongst these things - my days are rarely tear-free and every night as I try to go to sleep I replay over and over and over again the moments of his birth and death. This amount of pain is almost too much to bear. But I've recently found that there's even more that I'd been using these things to shut out, and when it began to seep through I completely collapsed under its weight. That is what happened last Saturday, when I wrote this post, and it happened again this Saturday. It's like I use up all my energy getting through the week and when I've nothing left to control its flow it comes in a deluge.

The worst part? Realising that the only way out of this grief is through. (Who said that? I thought it was Dr. Suess, but Google seems to think it was Robert Frost. Never mind). I cannot filter it, and I cannot decide when it will come and in what form, I cannot rush it, I cannot turn it into something 'positive', which I have an inkling is what I've been trying to do. Mel talked to me about this in our session on Friday and I knew she was right when she said that I had to stop trying so hard to make it stop, because as soon as I heard the words the big, fat tears of realisation hit. She told me that she thinks in being such an active manager of my grief I have been able to cope extremely well for someone of my usually fragile disposition. Everyone has been surprised how to a certain extent I've been able to pick myself up and carry on. The flip side of this is that the enormity of my feelings surrounding Max's death is still to come. Mel thinks that it's no surprise that it's coming now that I have run out of things to do for him and  as his due date approaches and I have to realise that he's gone forever, never to be cradled again in my arms.

Whether it is real or imagined, I feel a great pressure to be OK, when in truth I want permission to not be OK for a while. Holding it together means I don't have to feel guilty for making my friends and family worry about me. It means that Leslie does not have to put his own pain aside to look after me. It means I can continue to go to work and feel like I am not wasting day after day of my life. It means that I can keep earning money and feel like I am contributing my fair share. It means I can get up and go out to breakfast with Kate on the weekends or talk to my Anika on the phone as we used to, about the random things that punctuate our days. But it means I'm exhausted and that at the slightest scratch on the surface the real state of things comes through despite all this. If I'm honest, what I really want is someone to tell me I can take a rest and recuperate like an ailing convalescent. I want to stay in my pyjamas and have people bring me food and blankets and cuddles. I want to cry without trying to stop the tears so that I don't look frightful before I have to go and supervise after school shenanigans at the boarding house. I want space and time, but I feel that I don't deserve, or can't have, either. Melanie has tried to give me that permission. Her treatment plan consists not of prescribing more medication to numb my pain but to advise me to stay at home, or walk around cemeteries and cry and cry and cry as much as I can. To stay home when I don't feel up to going to work. To cancel outings when I don't feel like going. To watch TV all day even when the sun is shining outside and I feel like I should do 'something'. It's certainly not my preferred prescription but I know it to be the right one.

I am very scared to sit out in the storm because I do not know what form it will take - heavy rains, biting winds, stinging hail - and I do not know when or if it will end. I could be out there for months; for years. I do not yet know the depths of my feelings for my baby as they are feelings I've never had before. They are the feelings of a loving mother, of a bereft widow, a shell-shocked victim and a terrified child all at once. I feel that I am all of these things; as if I'm wearing a patchwork coat with a square from the body of each of these people. I feel like I have not accepted that my grief is unlikely ever to end, but that it might one day be accompanied by nicer feelings of joy and excitement and gratitude for other things that my life will bring. I don't want it to be that way, but today, as the weather is dark and wet and contemplative, I sit on the couch with a cup of tea and imagine what it will mean for me to own this grief for a good reason. Because it comes from my never-ending love for Max I have to try and find a way to make room for it and to care for it as I would for him. This week I will try to be kinder to myself and try not to be afraid to ask for the kindness I need from others.

I am remembering Max today as he was three months and two days ago: in my arms; not yet cold to the touch; deep inside his dream world. I am remembering his adorable little mouth, his tiny gums, his soft, soft skin, his kissable hands and feet and his perfect little ears that I spent so long running my fingers over and around. I had only one long moment to drink my child in and commit to memory every molecule of his being. It was a tough ask. If you only had one moment left with your child do you think you could adequately gather all of who they were so as it would never disappear? It's an impossible task, especially when you're in shock and distress and have no appreciation of what is really happening. Today I have given myself permission to cry over all of the things I have forgotten - his chin, I don't remember his chin. I don't remember what his little bare head looked like before the midwives put his hat on. I don't remember his delicate wrists or ankles. I don't think I looked at his cute little bum. I wish I'd put a little nappy on him like I would have done if he'd been mine to keep. I should have filmed a video, played him a song, read him a story. I should have brought him home to sleep before his funeral.   If you were to analyse my tears today they'd be filled of amazement, guilt, joy, fear, love and regret. They'd be filled with Max and everything he was to me. My little, my only, son.