Pivot

This birthday thing has made me stumble.  I wonder if there are parents out there who've lost a child that are able to raise their remaining children in a fairly healthy way or if they're all just as screwed up as I am.

 I think I'm better at compartmentalizing my grief than I was at the beginning.  I think that even in the last year, I've been able to give more of myself to Jake, and to look at him as a whole and separate person apart from his sister.  But still...

There is such sorrow.  Watching your children grow should be bittersweet.  Bittersweet.  It is sad because a certain moment in time has passed, but sweet because of the present moment you have to regard their suddenly longer limbs and less childlike face...sweet, too, because of the moments you have to look forward to- the "I wonder what they'll _______ (look like, be like, do) when they are __________(fill in an age here).  So then, when your child is taken from you suddenly, there is so much bitter. You no longer have that moment to gaze upon the beauty of your child and you no longer have any moments to look forward to.

 And when your remaining child stands before you to be regarded for his legs that look just like yours and the mouth that definitely isn't his father's, there is always the ghost of your dead child standing right beside him, begging to be seen, as well.  At least there is for me.

It is difficult.

There is also the deep pain and disappointment that this brother and sister, my dynamic duo, my babies don't have the opportunity to know each other anymore...to talk, to laugh, to help each other the way they always did...to scheme, to joke, to reminisce about the childhoods they had together.  This relationship they had, this bond is such an incredible loss.

But I have to pivot.  I have to catch my negative thoughts in their tracks and shift just a bit.  Yes, it is painful.  It is sad beyond measure.  But...

the reason it's so painful and so sad is because what they had built in the ten years they had together before Cory's death was so incredible.  They kept each other company through some pretty rough situations and grew closer as a result.  They grew even closer, and they were pretty close to begin with, what with the nine year age gap.  Jacob was always Cory's baby, too.

When Jacob speaks of Cory, which he rarely does, the love in his voice makes my throat ache.  That is something to be grateful for.

Pivot.