Fall

Like so many other people, I love Fall-well loved Fall. I loved everything about it. The smells, the crisp air, the recipes, the clothing, the decorations, the colors in nature, the fall hikes and mountain drives.

 

I loved it all! I looked forward to it every year. Now it's a balancing act day by day. Fall is now also the time that my son died. It's the time of year that I walked out of the ER on a crisp morning after lying my dead son on the hospital gurney wrapped in a foreign blanket and walking out of the room. It's the time that I walked to my car parked in the ER parking lot and looked in the back seat at the empty carseat that will never get filled again. That image is burned into my memory forever. It's the crisp morning that I buried my son.

 It's the time of year that everywhere advertises to get the flu shot when all I see now is that being a death trap. It's now a reminder of me not listening to the prompting for them to not give Corby the shot. It's a stab in the heart that makes my guilt so much stronger. Making the longing and wishing I could go back and change it stronger than ever. Have you ever longed and tried to will so hard to change something? Tried so hard that it has physically made you ache with pain or ill? That's the longing I'm talking about. The pain that accompanies that is the pain that you hurt from the inside out and wish so much that you were dead instead. If you haven't ever experienced such longing I will never wish that on you and hope that you never have to experience it.

I have such mixed feelings with this time of year now. I want to still love all the above stated things. I want to feel like I did on October 1, 2013- happily innocent. I want to be able to be dressing a 4 year old in long pants and shirts. I want to be taking my three kids to see all the fall places. The heartbreaking reality is I will NEVER get that opportunity. EVER.

In my religion we are taught that we will get to raise our children that have passed in the Millennium. So, I have a testimony that I will get to raise Corbyn one day, but the kicker is all my other children will be raised. I won't get the opportunity to raise them all together. I will still miss out on those memories that my children would have created growing up together. This part still hurts so much to think about. I want my children all together, but that will never happen.
As I sat and watched Ledgyr chase Addy around the whole house today I enjoyed watching them making memories and playing together, but then my mind immediately tried to picture what it would look like with a little 4 year old running around with them as well and the ache returned. I feel like sometimes I'm able to picture a glimpse of it, but it fades very quickly.

So now as everyone talks about how much they love this time of year- I wish I was in that same group. All that it is now, is a reminder of what I will never have.

I also have a testimony that everything happens in it's right time. I often wonder why both our rainbow babies are born during the Fall season. It took us quite a few months to get pregnant with our newest rainbow, and had we gotten pregnant when we were first trying this baby wouldn't be a fall baby. Was it extremely hard month after month to see that I wasn't pregnant? Absolutely! This is what makes it hurt even more when people joke about being pregnant when they are not, or tell lies about not being able to get pregnant to cover up their pregnancy. As it hurts so many other women out in the world as well so I know I'm not alone in thinking this way.
I wonder if this is why we weren't supposed get pregnant when we started trying. Is this a way that Corbyn is trying to help lessen the pain and heartache that now accompanies Fall? Is that why I went into labor almost a week past my due date with Ledgyr was because he was supposed to be born as close as he could have to his brothers anniversary of his death? He was born 5 hours shy of October 18, 2014 which is Corby's first "angelversary".

I like to think that he is taking care of his mommy and daddy by doing little things like this. It does lessen the pain because it takes our minds off of his death and puts it on preparing for birthdays instead. The pain is still very much there though, unfortunately.