.just another day.

Two weeks ago today George's due date came and went with not much more than regretful thoughts of what should have been and imagined scenarios of how wonderful things could have been.  There was no fanfare, no congratulatory flowers or nervous excitement.  There was no car seat or stack of diapers ready to be used.

There was no baby.

Instead there were hushed voice mail messages, consolatory texts, and emails heavy with sadness from family and friends.  None of which I knew how to respond to except to thank them for remembering him.  Because memory is the only thing left for him now.

And of course there were tears.  I never realized how many varieties of tears actually exist in the world until now.  Frustrated tears, sorrowful tears, angry tears, exhausted tears, and guilty tears.  So, so many guilty tears for so, so many different reasons.

I never wrote much about our attempted island escape that day because I was never really sure of what to write that I had not already written in one way or another.  But having that day come and go was like losing him all over again.  As Leif described it, that day was the point in time where the shadow life started and we, here in this life, were still left with the reality of what happened. 

We could not fix his heart.  We could not save his life. 

...if only we had caught the tachycardia a week earlier...
                                        and
...if only he had been a few weeks older when it started...

We could not manipulate time.

Modern medicine failed, despite everyone's best efforts.

And so George has two birthdays.

I find myself slowly resolving into acceptance of the things that I could not have changed and fixating on things that I had the power to change but didn't.  I should have brought the baby blankets my mom and Leif's mom made for him to his delivery.  I should have made sure they gave us the cap he wore.  I should have told the Anesthesiologists to stop being so fucking normal and fine with what was going on while I was on the table waiting to say hello and goodbye to our baby.  I should have taken more photographs. 

I should have spent more time with him.
I should have spent more time with him.
I should have spent more time with him. 

Everyday I still miss him and everyday I still wish for him back.  Yet these last few days have been good ones, I swear.  I can say his name without my eyes brimming with tears or my voice trembling with sadness.  I can laugh and it is not just pretense.  I can make jokes and not feel like I am betraying my son's memory by feeling happy.  I can look at the future and not see a solid black wall of nothingness.

God, had I known therapy would be this awesome I would have started long ago, when I didn't even need it.

I know these last few days are probably just a brief break but this feeling of some kind of normalcy is welcome.  Soon enough I am sure that I will find myself struggling with the same feelings of sorrow and longing that I have become accustomed to.  They will start to creep in around the edges before long but I know that this is just the nature of the beast called Grief.