bittersweet goodbyes

It's funny to hear people tell you how well you are doing in terms of grieving. If they only knew....Brave; Courageous; Strong; Proud...Yes, at times I am all these things but I am beginning to think myself a darn good actress, because on the inside, most of the time, I feel like I am chasing my own tail...round and round in circles. I would describe my internal feelings, opposed to the external front I show as...Fretting; Cowardly; Unsure; Timid; Broken; Hollow...

When I look at Tristan's photos I feel my loss so acutely as the day he was born. Knowing that my living son would die, welcoming him with an all too rude awareness of the sad goodbye that would reveal itself, just crushes my soul. Most parents look proudly at their children's photos, reminded of the immense joy they heralded with their arrival. I look with that sense of the bittersweet. Every photo is a reminder of that goodbye.  Don't get me wrong. I love the pictures and relics I have of Tristan. I cherish them with all my heart and looking at them also makes me happy...I hope one day, I will look at them with a wistful acceptance of the hand I was dealt, rather than the distress I have now, wondering why.

I was out and about on Tuesday with my Mum. Tristan would have been five weeks old. Out that day was every other mother that there could possibly be with their own precious five week old sons. In my head I was screaming out to the heavens WHY??? WTF??? WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME???  I woke up feeling good and then braving the outside world,  it felt like my nose was being rubbed into my loss. I felt so ill. Sick to the core. It was also the day that I went to the post office to pick up that item of registered post - the death certificate. I haven't yet received Tristan's birth certificate, but everywhere that day, the universe reminded me that my son was dead and that I was a mother without her baby.