Time

I haven’t been here in a very long time. So long I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to write about anymore. That I miss him? Yep. That I still feel immense amounts of guilt about his death? Yep.

This weekend is the celebration of life at Sick Kids and we are going to miss it. It really doesn’t matter why, it just matters that he won’t be recognized, no one will hear his name spoken. I say Xavier all the time. Miss S has learned it and calls him Zavier…I wonder if it’s confusing to her that the baby in all the pictures around the house is actually her OLDER brother. I wonder if she’ll be weirded out by his urn when she realizes those are his remains.

I wonder if anyone gives a second thought to him anymore (beyond the four of us here), and if they do, do they know we still think about him, love him and miss him?

I’ll tell you what I think about…I still have issues reconciling S being here and that his death is so wrapped up in her life. That without him dying, she would not be here. At all. Ever. And that breaks my heart, because I love her. So much. So much it feels like my heart might explode some times. And I love him so much. And I miss him so so much. And this makes me feel guilty.

I turned 39 this May, and I decided to write out a bucket list of sorts for the next year before I turn 40. One of the things I on that list is forgiveness. Forgiving myself for his death. This guilt I carry around with me is heavy, it weighs me down so much sometimes that I feel like I’m being pulled under by a giant wave, and my fight or flight response is always flight, so I send my brain away from thinking. I push my mind away from remembering and that just adds up to more guilt because I feel like I can’t think about him…and voila more guilt and it’s a vicious fucking circle.

I remember describing the pain of losing him feeling  like a physical ache that I couldn’t get away from. Like if you’re holding your hand near fire and it gets hot, well you pull your hand away right? With grief you don’t have that luxury, you can’t pull away, I often times wished I could get out of my skin to get away from the guilty, griefy, painfully feelings that his death made me FEEL.

My point to all this (and I promise I do have one), is that I’m not better. Time has dulled the corners and S has salved a hole in my heart, but I’ve been running away from feeling guilt and grief for the better part of three years now. This year I need to head into that fire and not pull away, S serves my love untainted with guilt, I deserve to be able to grieve my son and not keep pointing fingers in my own direction.

The only way, is directly through and I’ve been going around and around for far too long now.