One day Teddy was here, the next day he was gone. Just like that. No going back, no do-overs, no take-backsies. Just. Gone.
This morning I wanted to connect with him so I started looking at photos and videos on my phone. I tend to avoid the ones around Christmas, because it was 3 days before he was gone, but today I wanted to see them. Logan snuggled into me while we watched them. I noticed Logan's diaper really needed changing, so I coaxed him into the bedroom. Right before we went in, we were watching the video that Logan would watch over and over and over. It was Teddy sitting on the corner of a box, then falling off onto the floor and starting to cry. Logan would look at me and say, "Teddy's crying!" "Yes, Logan, Teddy hurt his butt." We got into the bedroom and Logan fell on me like Teddy had done in the video and started "crying." I asked if he was copying Teddy and he said "I want Teddy! Where's Teddy? I want Teddy!"
This happens occasionally and it floors me every time. How do you describe to your almost 3-year-old that his brother just suddenly died and will never come back? And you have to keep saying it, because they repeat questions and need to hear the answer again and again. I started to cry and he said, "No, Mommy, don't cry! Look Daddy, Mommy's crying." "Yes, it's because Mommy misses Teddy. Teddy died. That means I can't ever bring him to you. His body stopped working and he is only now in our hearts."
WHAT THE FUCK. It makes me so mad that I have to say this to him, and that this is our reality that we have to live with every single day.
Yesterday Logan was playing outside for the first time with the little neighbor boy, who is about the same age Teddy was when he died. I can't even begin to explain the emotions I felt watching this. It was overwhelming how good of a big brother Logan is/was. Always wanting to know where he was, stealing toys, running around laughing. Our neighbor had just learned how to walk, so he was toddling along and it was just so fun and exhaustingly tragic watching them on the grass together. I didn't quite lose it, but I had a really hard time watching them. To make my heart ache even more, our neighbor is pregnant, and her second child will be about the same age difference as Teddy and Logan.
After the diaper incident this morning, I started thinking, what if we hadn't gone to Delaware? What if we had just kept him in our room? What if we had brought the baby monitor? I wish I could go back in time. I wish I could do anything. I wish he were here...
Sometimes I get kind of jealous of people who had the chance to "say goodbye" to their kids. Like if they were terminally sick. But then I play the tape through and realize that no matter what, at the end of the day, we are still left to carry on living after our child dies. And none of that is right, or easier. There was this woman in the loss group my husband and I go to the last time we went. She had just recently lost her son to suicide, and to hear her you would have thought it had happened years ago instead of months. She listed all the things she was doing, and sounded actually okay. I was furious with her. But then I thought that she had years to kind of come to terms with the potential loss of her son, since he had been very depressed for years. But really, that doesn't help. At the end of the day, he was here and then he was gone.
I read a lot of grief posts on social media now, and some of these really stick with me. One goes something like 'when you lose a child (or any loved one, really), you don't just deal with one loss. You lose a whole future. You lose hopes, dreams, fears, doubts. You lose everything that was connected to them. And you feel this pain over, and over, and over.' It's spring now, and I wish with all my heart that I could show Teddy the flowers, have him crawl and run around in the grass with his brother. I wish I were on tour right now, missing them so much but knowing that I would see them when I got home tonight. Instead, he is just gone. Just like that.
I have always told my children many many times a day how much I love them, but now I do it even more. I have trained Logan to give me kisses because it's a physical way to show how much I love him. So my advice to everyone is to show your love over and over and over. Make sure there is no doubt that your children know how much you love them. Hug them, kiss them every day like it will be the last time, because you just never know...
December 25, 2022
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