Strong

Many of my friends and family have praised my strength since I lost Ellison.  Some have called me "brave" and "strong" and "courageous" for sharing this blog with everyone - for bearing my soul for all to see.  However, what none of you see is that I do not feel strong at all.  I'm just barely hanging in and in all actuality, I'm just trying to survive this.  Every day brings a new struggle.  I want to be brave, but most days I'm just thankful to have gotten through the day.

Most days I have to fight myself just to get out of bed.  Part of me wants to just crawl under a rock and stay there, but the other part of me wants me to get up out of bed and get moving - doing anything and everything I can think of to distract me from thinking about what has happened.  Sometimes, I just wish I could wipe the entire last 9 months out of the history books - like it never even happened at all.  Then, I feel even more guilt for thinking like that - because I want everyone to know that Ellison was here and I don't ever want to forget even the smallest of details because I just have to know that she knows that I love her more than anything.  I want to get up everyday and honor her with dignity, yet that seems so impossible to do.

This blog may convey strength and resolve to some, but I use it as a way to just cope with what's going on on each particular day and I just have to talk about it.  In fact, it seems that even the smallest things are magnified and exagerrated as I go through the day.  Every time I turn on the TV, all the commercials deal with babies or motherhood or pregnancy things in general.  Every channel I flip through or every movie that I turn on seems to cover these topics as well.  Now I doubt that it's because there are in fact more of these things actually on TV at the moment, but rather that I'm just more attuned to recognizing these subtle inferences in everything I see now.  In fact, we turned to a movie the other day after I returned from the hospital - not a blockbuster by any stretch of the means - "Deep Impact."  Of course, the moment we turn it on the characters start referencing "Ellie" in an effort to determine who she is.  It turns out that it's actually "E.L.E," for "Extinction Level Event," but it's pronounced like my Ellie.  This morning Doug was watching some movie called "Knowing" with Nicholas Cage.  I wasn't even paying attention until Nicholas Cage's character kept saying a name - what I thought was Ellison.  But it turns out he was actually saying Allison.  It just sounded a lot like Ellison the way he pronounced it...at least in my mind.  I mean really?  Really?   How do these things always seem to pop up when all you want is to not be reminded of everything every single second of the day? 

These small, subtle inferences oftentimes just make me start crying.  Even going through my Facebook everyday, something totally minor elicits a tear.  As I see everyone's beautiful birth announcements, I cry.  Not because I'm not genuinely happy for them, but because I'm just so sad that I can't experience that joy for myself.  When I try to do a minor chore like clean the bathtub, and make some physical move that causes a twinge of pain from my surgery, I cry.  I had a meltdown yesterday evening as I went to get myself dressed for a dinner with my grandmother - something that seems so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.  As I tried to find something to wear, I just broke down.  The only things that fit are my maternity clothes.  Having to put on a pair of maternity pants and a sweater to go out in public was like taking a knife and stabbing me with it.  When Doug tried to tell me that it's OK because I'm recovering from a c-section and everything else, I responded with "but I'm not even pregnant anymore."  And that's when I lost it.  I wish I was still pregnant with Ellison - I wish I had a reason to wear maternity clothes.  And because I don't, I get upset because I just want this extra weight and this belly pooch that's left to just be gone - I don't want the reminder every time I look in the mirror.  I don't want the stares from people who probably think "oh, how adorable, she's pregnant" when I go out in public.  I just want everything to be different...

And even when there aren't any overt reminders of our loss, some random thought will just pop into my head for no apparent reason.  Every morning before I get moving I have to do a jigsaw puzzle on an iPad that was loaned to me while I was pregnant.  I have to do it so that it distracts me from random, overwhelming thoughts that seem to invade my brain as I wake up.  This routine only helps some for yesterday as I was working on some tropical puzzle, a book I read in the 9th grade somehow popped into my head.  This was book was "Death Be Not Proud."  It was a father's memoir about his son's struggle with a brain tumor, and the inspiration for the title came from a John Donne poem.  Now I'm not sure what this has to do with a puzzle about a beach in Seychelles, but it popped in my head nonetheless.  While this book doesn't necessarily relate to my situation, I remembered how poignant the book was and I remembered how the father wrote it as a way to cope with his own loss of his son.  And this made me shed a tear.

I had another meltdown with Doug the other day.  I'm used to having a photographic memory, and can recall random facts, which often came in handy during my school years and helps with my current job assignment.  I've always been able to make decisions and come up with solutions to issues.  But the other day, I coudn't even remember what we had done the day before and I couldn't even make a decision about where to go on a car ride to get out of the house.  I broke down crying, telling Doug that it felt like my brain was in a fog and I just didn't know when I was going to be able to get it, or my memory, back.  These are just a few examples out of many...and to be honest, there are so many these days, I simply can't remember them all...

I tell you all these things in an effort to show that I don't feel strong at all.  I feel weak.  I feel incompetent.  I feel that I'm not handling this with much grace or dignity at all.  I'm just merely surviving it and trying to keep some amount of sanity as I make it through each day.  Not that I played much Jenga back in the day (and when I did it, some drinking was usually involved), but I really am just one block away from being toppled.  I worry about being strong enough to handle the tough questions that I'm sure are to come my way - from friends, family, co-workers, and even complete strangers.  When I go back to work in a few weeks, there will still be some that have not heard about our loss and will probably ask a pregnancy-related question.  I'm sure some stranger will ask how far along I am at some point.  And I honestly don't know how I will handle it. 

I really want to be strong, for Ellison's sake, but I don't know how one can be strong in this situation.  Perhaps people equate strength with survival mode.  A friend of mine posted something on my Facebook page recently:  "You never know how strong you are, until being strong is your only choice" by Bob Marley.  I suppose if this sums up what strength is, then maybe just surviving something like this shows strength.  Using this example then, most days I wish I was even stronger than I am so that I could honor Ellison with more grace and dignity.  I wish I could put even more strength into showing my love for her.  I really would love her to the moon and back if I could.

Natalie (my niece, and 4 yr. old BFF) and I often play a game I like to call "How much do I love you?"  I modeled it after that children's book "Guess How Much I Love You."  I'm sure other people play it as well, in their own ways.  But I started it with her when I'd babysit her in the mornings sometimes when my brother and sister-in-law had just moved back to Richmond.  Occassionally we still "play" it when she's getting her bath or during random car rides, and I'd use it as a way to tell her I loved her and to maybe expand her imagination and vocubalary some.  But I would usually start it off by saying something like "I love you more than there are grains of sand" or "I love you more than there are sharks in the sea" (I used this one after Shark Week one time), and so forth.  And we'd take turns back and forth for as long as it held her attention span.  She'd say things like "I love you more than there are rainbows in the sky" or "I love you more than there are flowers in the world."  As I reflect upon the fact that tomorrow is our little family memorial for Ellison, this simple game sticks in my mind.  I would have played it with Ellie.  In fact, sitting in her room is a print I framed that says "If you want to know how much I love you, count the waves in the sea."  And now, I'll just have to play this game by myself and think of her.  And maybe I can find the strength to hold it together long enough to get through a few turns...

-Tomorrow, my family is getting together for a little memorial "service" for Ellison.  I dare not call it closure, for there will never be closure.  But it is just a little informal something to allow all of us to reflect on our loss and grieve together.  I have no idea how I will make it through, or what frame of mind I'll be in, but my topic for tomorrow will center on this.  I guess I'll call it "My Sunshine."