Missing Maxie

I do want to explain a little bit about why I was so angry yesterday.  You see, I am very fragile.  I lost my baby.  I feel as though the whole world will come crashing in on me at every minute of every day.  And, by the way, it already did when Max died.  I have this Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is a real thing and causes me to have a running slideshow in my brain nearly all day long of my Max moments - all of the beautiful lovely ones as well as the entire 55 hours from the time that I received the call that he stopped breathing to the time when we had to take him off of the breathing machine and watch him take his last breath.  I cry every single day.  Sometimes all day long.  Sometimes less.  I have a headache, heartache and a stomach ache all day, every single day.  I feel a phantom baby sitting in my arms and if I close my eyes, I can imagine kissing his cheeks and the back of his head and nibbling on his little ears and whispering to him how much I love him - every single day.  I wake up every day sad.  Every single day.  This is a lot for me to handle myself.  I can hardly handle it at all.  I can't tell you exactly how Ted feels but what I can tell you is that he is devastated.  Max was his little boy and best friend.  He has a beautiful photo of Max in his car that used to be there to make him smile while driving but now serves as a memorial.  He has all of his own sadness and then comes home to me, which can only make him extra sad.  In spite of many people knowing this, there are still certain people who seem to want to take this opportunity to teach us a lesson - whether in self reliance, or in stepping up to the plate, or in accepting that life is tough and we should learn to grin and bear it.  If they aren't trying to teach us a lesson, they are just unwilling to adjust their approach with us just because our baby died.  Some of these people are "friends", some of these people are colleagues, a couple have been "professionals" that we have paid to help us through this crisis.  One professional told me that my grief does not serve me...as if it is a choice.  This professional has never lost anyone close to her except her own dog, so I am sure that from her perspective grief does seem like a choice.  I would dare her or anyone to find a parent who has lost a child and didn't grieve...and parents who murder their own children don't count.  I have a friend who I politely asked to try and find someone else to lean on after her dog died.  Her response was "Nah".  She wanted to continue to share everything from her life with me, even if it hurt me.  I think the lesson she wanted me to learn was that the world doesn't stop spinning because of my loss.  Or maybe it was that everyone has grief and I need to be sympathetic to others going through things.  I recently asked a colleague for help in trying to put together a plan for my future.  He told me that my strength was in the work I used to do and that I was on my own (not in those exact words but pretty close).  Perhaps to my old self, each of these examples (and plenty more) would seem like no big deal.  Just people who don't really get it or just don't want to help. No big deal, right?  I have let so very few people into my sacred space, I have been so selective about who I engage with that if I have let you in, you are among few.  I have only let people in who I think will be soothing or who I think might be able to help me in some way.  I am protecting myself because I am breaking.  The truth is that I know these people who have hurt me well enough to know that they don't "get it" and probably wouldn't be helpful or soothing.  In most cases, these people have hurt me on more than one occasion since Max died or in more than one way.  Still, what drives me out of my mind is that each of these people thinks that they were doing me a favor - by visiting with us, by teaching us a lesson, by helping me learn to be more self sufficient.  That with all of their worldly knowledge, they were teaching me something.  Or that I would be grateful that they took time out of their schedules to visit or sit down with little old me.  What they don't understand is that every day I learn a new hard lesson about life...with or without their help.  If you are worried that I haven't learned enough or that somehow my fragility is such that I can't do for myself, you can stop worrying.  I have learned enough about life for ten lifetimes.  Hate to say it, but I probably have learned more about life than you.  And I now understand that when you say "I can't imagine what you must be feeling", you really mean it.  What I am feeling is dread every morning that I wake up that I have to face another day.  What I am feeling is complete heartbreak that I will never see my child again in my lifetime.  Never Again!  What I am feeling is sorrow that my life will never be as good again and I have years of sorrow to look forward to - the whole entirety of my lifetime.  What I am feeling is shock, horror, disappointment, grief, anger, sadness, despair!  Imagine the shittiest day of your life and then imagine waking up to it every day forever.  You wouldn't want to "do lunch" on the shittiest day of your life.  You wouldn't want to listen to someone who hasn't been through what you have been through tell you how it's going to get better.  You wouldn't want someone trying to distract you by speaking in tongues or making joke after joke.  You may think that is what you would want - you wouldn't.  You would want someone to really listen to you.  You would want someone who really cared about you enough to maybe even put your needs ahead of their own, even if just for the time you spent together.  You would want help from someone who had the ability to be helpful to you.  I honestly just don't have room in my life for the people who want to teach me a lesson right now.  I need to focus on being as well as possible.  I barely have room in my life for my very nearest and dearest right now.  I love hearing from people.  I love emails and comments on the blog and even a voicemail (because I don't always pick up the phone).  But, I guess what I am saying is that  unless you have been where I have been, please try not to ignore my vulnerability and grief.  It isn't going anywhere very soon and you don't know better than I do about what I need.  Please try to be compassionate and remember that I am a mother who lost her baby and that I am sensitive and heartbroken and my spirit has been destroyed.  If you can remember to approach me with love in your heart instead of an agenda, you will find that I will love you in return.