School is in full swing. High school football season officially starts tonight. Today is two years since Eli's disease manifested as a bleeding disorder and we landed in the hospital. It's also our friend Maxwell's birthday. He would be 2 years old. He was our neighbor at Duke, both in the bone marrow transplant unit and in the pediatric intensive care unit. He died at 9 months of age.
All of these things trigger my grief in different ways, causing a swirling grief storm inside of me. The weather is changing, which is weird. It's still hot, but there are subtle changes. Does this always happen? Have I just not noticed it? It's gotten much windier. We have two memorial wind chimes on our back porch, one was given to us by Pediatric Cancer Family Foundation when Eli died. The other was delivered at the one year anniversary of Eli's death, from Duke Pediatric BMT Family Support. My bedroom is on the backside of the house, looking over the porch. I always hear Eli's wind chimes the best from my bedroom. It's been a calm summer and I have only heard the wind chimes a few times. But this week I've heard them several times. It's always slightly haunting and bittersweet. I love it, but I hate that it's all I have.
I'm mostly looking forward to Ty's game tonight, but part of me is dreading it. Last year Ty wasn't playing, but we were supposed to go cheer the team on at their first game. It ended up pouring rain so we didn't. However we did go to a postgame hangout at a friend's house and I cried in the bathroom.
There was a period of about six to eight months where I re-entered life after being in a hospital for seven months and losing Eli. It was scary and hard. A year ago now I was deep in it. I'm not all the way there, but I'm much more able to participate in life now.
Two years ago today my nightmare began. Today is Maxwell's birthday, but he's not here for it. Today is just another "new normal" day. Except it's not.
No comments:
Post a Comment