Yeah I know 'death month' is supposed to be over. Go somewhere else.

I'm all bunched up.
I am in a foul place, I keep trying to escape with more painting projects, cookies, etc. But I keep getting sucked back into the muck.
I can't maintain a train of thought, let alone a train of blog. Not that I have much time for thinking or blogging. Or trains.
I keep trying to write about Bubbles and what neat human tricks he can do, for he is seven months old. I want to write about Heidi and how she is about to go into labor any minute with our new baby-friend. I want to write about our trip to Hawaii and how very very much I want to live there. I want to write about how I think my eight year old siamese is getting senile because why on earth is she trying to sleep on Bubbles' head, thus getting herself thrown INTO A WALL by yours truly? And how my other friend's 33 weeker finally came home from the NICU! And how Supergirl is graduating from preschool next friday, and, although I have always believed that 'graduating from preschool' is the ultimate in indulgent silliness, I now realize that this is absolutely true UNLESS it is your child who is, in fact, graduating from preschool.

All this and more.

And I get started and then I get in the stuck place. Or someone demands snacks or boobie (redundant in that boobie=snacks for one of them) and I am thusly interrupted. But don't let my mama ramblings fool you. It's more the stuck place this month than the interruptions.
I know this place, I have visited before. Let me tell you, Hawaii is better.

It's not the writing (or lack thereof) that brings it on. That just reminds me that I am stuck, because my written words are as well. There aren't any eloquent words to describe it -it's all about anger and sadness. And then all smothered in these other delicious feelings of incredible love and hope and then whoops! fear! And then starting over with the anger and sadness.
I'm smarter than a doorknob. Or a fencepost. I know it's just all that 'normal' stuff associated with death. Or more specifically, dealing with the death of my child. Except I have one thing to say about that at this moment.





THERE IS NOTHING NORMAL ABOUT WATCHING YOUR CHILD DIE



Okay, now I got that off my chest for the 700th time.
So, as I regain my composure, I will think about other things. I will focus on how hilarious it is that Bubbles said 'dadada' for two days but then settled on belting out his favorite new chant of 'blahblahblah' and has decided for now to stick with it, perhaps because it makes his mama laugh so consistently. I will not think of how Elijah died slowly over the course of the evening but I didn't believe it because I wanted to believe the doctor instead. The doctor who, ten months later, acknowledged that she was unaware of a life threatening condition -that had been detected in Elijah during an unrelated surgery - called tracheomalacia, when she sent him home with 'just bronchitis'.
I will focus instead on how hilarious it is that I have a purple velvet tutu, stockings, and a spiffy little tap outfit hidden in a drawer for Supergirl's dance recital next Friday - OOPS! - SATURDAY!! - , when I swore I would never want my kid to be in a dance recital. I will not think of how I fear every day losing one of my 'remaining' children and have awful day-mares about ways in which they could be injured or die. I will not think of how then I really should call my therapist and make an appointment, this obsessing about death is unhealthy for the family, really...I will not think of that because she died 4 days after my last grief counseling appointment with her, last April, from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. That's quite sudden, if you didn't know. She had been a great friend to me for 10 years, so it's hard to remember that she is dead. Plus, all the feelings swirling around the dealing with death stuff? Every detail of it was shared with one person - her. And so remembering she is dead when I really want to call her because I can't stop thinking about death is like the ultimate double whammy.

So you see how hard it is to stay focused on the good - it's there in abundance in my life, I know that. But some days - okay, weeks - I can't hang with it.
It's not that I can't hang with what is here. It's what is missing that I have a hard time living with.