All day I went back and forth on if I wanted to write today. After yesterday’s fairly ‘good’ day, nighttime was a completely different story. I couldn’t sleep, stop crying, or thinking. My empty arms ached all night. Tears soaked his nightly letter and my eyes burned from them. Thoughts of the happy moments of Jensen being here and his death wrestled in my mind. This morning didn’t fare any better. It hit me that when I woke up, it’d be the next week without him. My face was all stuffy and my eyes bloodshot red. I swear my hair was sticking straight up and to the sides. The dark blue underneath my eyes weren’t as surprising. I looked sad and it didn’t even reflect how horrible I felt on the inside.

When I looked in the mirror, I saw the reflection of a bereaved mother.

This momma had to face another week without her son. Twenty-one to be exact, so three days shy of one-hundred and fifty days without him, here with me. I swear each day and week gets harder and harder. We’re coming up on five months in less than a week, the month is changing, and fall is quickly approaching. Change. It sucks when I’m still here experiencing what would have been brand new to Jensen. I can’t see the beauty in the leaves changing or really appreciate the weather getting cooler. All the things I was excited for when he was still with me is just gone.

Not only did the dreams I have for us disappear, I’m remembering last year so vividly now. Certain days are hitting where I can remember what we were doing. It’s just going to get more vivid with the day we found out he was a boy and all the important dates. Things I just need to focus on as they come, flood me now. I can’t stop thinking about how I don’t want to experience this reality with Jensen. The only two things I keep saying are this is hard and it sucks. My brain isn’t letting me think of any other ways to explain it.

I miss him. The love I feel for him keeps me going and the fact that I know there has to be some purpose in my life. It gets hard trying to see the light and hope of everyday when there’s always a dark cloud looming over you. I get days like yesterday where it’s mostly good and then it goes all down the drain for today. Most of my conversations now are focused on three things: Jensen, death, and trying to be semi-normal. Jensen’s name is always coming out of my mouth and if I ever say ‘him,’ it’s just known I’m talking about him. I talk about being pregnant with him, what he looks like, what he liked, and how he continues to impact me. Including but not limited to: meeting other loss moms, helping people out, his tree, projects I want to do for me, etc. Then I can be completely morbid and talk about death and the afterlife. I’ve been reading about dying and what happens afterwards. The book Heaven is for Real, helped bring a peace to me that Jensen is there and in this beautiful place that we can’t comprehend yet. So it leaves me with a sense of not being scared to ever die. Not that I’m suicidal or want to die. I actually keep thinking of a quote from Dumbledore in Harry Potter (that I’ll post a picture of after this paragraph) and it really just sticks. Gosh, I hate how I’ve become this type of person who just reads about death. I guess it’s actually a normal stage in grief, so it’s okay. Most of the time though, I’m pretending to be involved in ‘normal’ people conversation. I try my hardest to listen and be involved, but it usually goes in one ear out the other.

Sorry everyone, but this journey and blog is all about honesty.

Dumbledore quote from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Another thing that’s been on my mind is our cultures attitudes of the grieving. I might go into this in more detail at another day. Each of my therapy session, I feel like I bring up how I feel like I’m sometimes pressured to be ‘getting over’ Jensen. Even hearing this by people who aren’t my support system stings. I’ve said before that I wish we still had to custom of wearing black for a whole year while grieving so everyone just knows. Although I don’t think it would help much. Today I got a call from the state making sure my baby boy was ‘dead when he was born.’ She kept saying ‘dead baby’ or asked four times if I ‘labored a dead child.’ I felt as if my simple response of ‘my son was stillborn,’ would have sufficed, but it did not. If only I could have just been wearing all black and she saw it and knew I was mourning. Would she have been so cold with her questions and statements? Especially on his twenty-first week in heaven? How is there not certain protocols to talk to moms who have went through any kind of child loss? It’s just another way our society doesn’t recognize grief or the grieved. Just hurts.

Anyways, here I am. Sitting in our empty house without my baby boy, twenty-one weeks after he was born. I’m in pain, but I’m still here with Jensen watching close by. His candle light is on and has been wished a happy day every five minutes. I know he’s happy in heaven and that brings me some sort of messed up peace.