Here I am. It's July 7th. My son would be 6 months old now. I have a photo in our room of our daughter at 6 months old sitting in the grass. I look at it and remember her at six months and wonder what Kai would be like if he had lived . . . and I cry, a lot.
Last night, before my daughter went to sleep we talked a bit about her baby brother, Kai.
We wondered if he would still look just like her? Would he have had more hair? She wanted to know if he would be able to walk yet? Would Kai be doing the same things she did at six months old? I can't tell her, "I don't know and we will never know because he died." So we use our imaginations and try to guess what Kai would be like . . . He would absolutely be in love with his big sister. She would teach him songs and play little hand games with him. We would take him outside, put a blanket down and sit with him on he grass. He would like looking at the trees and sky. She would have to stop him from eating grass, point out cars, dogs, trees and name them for him to hear. We would take turns blowing raspberries on his little belly so that we could hear him make that wonderful baby belly laugh . . . We both smile and cry and these dreams we create.
I give my daughter a big hug so that she can give some of the hug to Kai if he happens to visit her in her dreams like The Beatles once did. She tells me that if I miss Kai too much and need to hug something I can always hug her pink doll if she is sleeping or at a play date. She thinks the doll is about the same size as Kai was (she is right) so even though it's a girl doll, she's the right size and it's easy to pretend it's Kai.
The last couple of weeks have been very difficult. A friend from PBSO pointed out to me that around the sixth month, the grieving process takes a turn for the worse. I think it's labelled "Disorganization and Despair". My frame of mind meets almost all of the characteristics they describe. I feel worse than I did three months ago, everything seems hopeless, i can't eat, i sleep a lot, etc. I guess I can try to take some sort of warped comfort in knowing it is all expected to happen and that I am within the average time frame of grieving . . . I'm not really going out of my mind . . . yet.
