Unsettled is one word I would use to describe my life post loss. This is not how things are supposed to be for us. I know this. I should not be fighting over stupid things with my husband. I should not be moving every year. I should not have to pack up an unused crib and all the special things we had ready for Jasper. I should not have to move a brand new car-seat from closet to closet, filled with whatever it can hold for convenience instead of the baby it was supposed to have in it. I should not have to carry this heavy changing table up and down up and down the stairs, while my husband and I fight because we are just tired and sore. It’s so heavy.
I should not have to keep bringing his urn down from the shelf and sitting it on a counter until we have time to put his shelf back up.
This is the reality now, though, now.
We had a stable home once, that we owned. We lived there for 8 years. We waited and waited to finally get pregnant. We prepared a room with love. We painted a mural in our son’s room. We assembled his crib. We spent way too much money on cute cloth diapers and onesies with clever quotes on them. We never really liked the state we lived in but we loved our house. That was where our son was going to grow up. That was where we would maybe even have had another baby and decorated the third room for him or her.
When Jasper died, as cliche as it sounds, the world collapsed around us. It was not something we ever thought we would have to prepare for. The passionate loathing I had for the state that we lived in grew more and more each day. The house was not so appealing anymore when I had to walk passed the beautiful bedroom with all of his furniture assembled and his washed clothes hanging in the closet and folded in the changing table, without the little boy that was supposed to be there.
So, we moved. We keep moving. We aren’t comfortable in our skin. We are unsettled. We will never be settled without the little person that we never get to see grow up.
This last time we heaved and hoed the heavy crib and changing table up the stairs, I stopped and asked my husband, “Should we get rid of all of this?” There was never a question before. We planned to lug this all around with us forever. I’m tired now. Tired of everything. Tired of holding out hope for another child.
I don’t know what this means. I know I’ll never “move on” from the loss of our son. Perhaps I have stared a new phase of grief, I don’t know. We’ll always bring his urn and special things with us wherever he goes, I’m just not sure that keeping the heavy material items is doing anything for us anymore.
Unsettled. That is the word for it.
They knew they wanted more children and have since suffered many early miscarriages during the process of multiple IVF and IUI cycles which have left them with broken hearts.Feeling defeated and alone, the bereaved parents moved to Connecticut in search of a much needed new start.
Amber was inspired to work towards becoming a therapist during her process of trying to find support after her loss. She is currently a freelance graphic designer, artist and marriage and family therapy graduate student. She takes comfort in the idea that their son was a driving force for her to help other people through a time that she and her husband felt so alone.
- On Being Too Sad To Support Me In Celebrating My Son. - April 9, 2018
- Therapeutic Endeavors III: The Letter - January 26, 2018
- Therapeutic Endeavors Part II - January 24, 2018