Grief Journey Continues

Originally posted as a facebook note 1/13/11 -- Just past five months.  This is one crazy rock-your-world journey that I am living through.  That fateful day of August 6, 2010, when Max was unexpectedly taken to heaven, forever changed my family.  I told Todd tonight how strange it feels to have "three" in our core family instead of four ... we were even counting Trinity in as five for a few months there.  Headed towards possible marriage and babies to follow.  We had an "older" family and were looking forward to being grandparents in the next few years.   Things change so quickly in the blink of an eye.  Now we are three.

I go in and out of the fog of numbness.  Sometimes it is a welcome friend.  Your body can only take so much reality and grief before your mind has to retreat.  I find it is when I am coming out of the fog that I can recognize it now.  The line blurs when I enter back into it.  Sometimes I only stay there for hours, sometimes it's days.

When Max first died, my VERY first thought waking up was "Max is dead, it's not just a dream it is for real".  It was like a kick to the stomach ... every single time.  Now, sometimes it will take me a few seconds or up to even a minute before I remember that Max is dead and I have to adjust my reality.  It's not so much a kick to the stomach now as just a dull nagging ache...like oh yeah, that is still true.

At the beginning stages of my grief, it would take me all day to get out of bed, brush my hair and brush my teeth.  If I got those two things accomplished, it was a "good day".  Now I still have day where that is true, but I get a lot more accomplished most days.  I work several times a week.  I do some cleaning around my house.  I don't live in a zombie state most of the time.

I have a hard time thinking of this "happening to me".  Truly, IT HAPPENED TO MAX.  But like a nuclear bomb going off, I was standing within the very heart of the blast zone, as were many others.

Wesley cut his hair yesterday.  Completely chopped it off.  He hasn't cut it since before Max died.  It just kept growing and growing.  He told me he let it grow to hide behind.  And he could CONTROL when or if he cut his hair ... when everything else felt out of control, it was the one thing he could decide on.  I think it's a good thing that he cut it.  He isn't hiding behind it now.  It takes a bit to get used to it.  A drastic change for sure.

Two people that had things on their facebook from when Max died changed them this week.  I don't expect them to keep a shrine to him, but it was just proof that the world is continuing to spin and go on without him.  How else can it be?  We who were closest to him continue to go on too.  Adjusting.  Constant adjusting.