Today is 240 days since Kieron went. I can't count in weeks or months: that seems too final somehow, so instead every morning I turn to his photos which are beside my bed and tell him how many days we are at now. Every night I do the same, but I also tell him that we are one day nearer to being together again.
One day nearer..24 hours..1440 minutes..8640 seconds..every day becomes a lifetime to get through. Even night time is hard because I sleep so little. I yearn for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep: 2 hours would do. 2 hours in which I could be oblivious to the pain, although who am I trying to kid. On the odd occasion that I dream, the pain is still there. The knowledge that Kieron is not in his bedroom next to mine is reaching to me even in my deepest sleep. I feel the tiredness that I felt when Kieron was a baby. The tiredness caused by hungry babies and wet nappies, but that was a joyous tiredness. This is so different. This is a tiredness caused by the deepest, most agonising loss any woman could face. It's a tiredness of trying to exist without my son. It's the knowledge that I don't have to wake at the slightest noise anymore and knowing that if I knock on the adjoining wall between our rooms to signal that I'm awake, Kieron won't come in for a cuddle. But still I knock.
I've always felt the opposite about the time passing. At first it seemed a triumph to surive a day without her, but my time frame from almost as soon as Catherien died has been we have to surivive through the year. I am chomping at the bit for the year to pass. I don't want this first year without her. I think of it now as almost 9 months - as making good progress.
ReplyDeleteThen we will do year 2. Sometimes people say year 2 is harder for bereaved parents, because the shock has worn off. I suppose we will have to see.