I missed my first 24th, but I didn't

The sixth month mark was so big, and June went by (in a good way to an extent) like one of those commercials where everything is moving in fast motion all around you. May was so horrid. And now I feel guilty because I forgot my baby. I was actually there on his day briefly, swinging by his grave like I like to do, I did have a 'bad' day, I was just down.

Ah, retrospect, how did I know? I knew I was missing something, missing my son who should be with me 24/7, giggling. Missing his day. How could I?

Seven months old, I should be trying sweet potatoes and solids and . . . I don't like the new me either, the new me is a slacker who is apathetic, indifferent, why can't the best be brought out in me? Instead, the anger and frustration.MISSing Myles, today, and every 24th and every other day of the month too, god damn it.

People talk to me about days, weeks, months, next week, last week, they're all so jumbled up. I've resorted to a calendar and frequent calls and emails reconfirming appointments I can't keep straight, I kept it all in my head before, and I can't do it now. Now that I've forgotten my little man's day, it makes me mad. That time has moved on around me. That I have moved with it, I just want to go back. It's like I'm moving further away from him. And all I want is to be close to him again. Every day, that would be my wish.

Time moving forward hurts, taking these steps through grief, so tricky, nothing is positive, everything is both, negative and positive. Painful and powerful, beautiful and cruel.

I'm missing that I missed Myles' day, missing that grief that I had always anticipated before, honored, acknowledged. I hope he would forgive me and maybe be happy though it breaks my heart. I would be happy for my mother, you know?

I drove to the cemetary today, a string of events has now led me down this different path of grief, one not so fresh, but old, and always there, but underneath even the happiness and joy sometimes.

I wrote my letter to him and him to me. It was good, I wrote it on butterfly paper given to me as a gift from an old garage sale, so precious. I wrote a letter from me to Myles and Myles to me, and left them there. It was good to do and I thank Joanne for suggesting it. My views are very naturalistic, and tonight I watched the fireflies.

Another mothers poem really made me try to rethink it all a few weeks back, and I felt myself moving on but it wasn't until I missed that day (the 24th, 7 months) I knew I had actually transitioned. We always yearn for the old and familar eh? The old grief I knew intimately.

This poem (about 6 weeks ago) made me think and notice everything about nature differently, that Myles is just not 'there' at the cemetary, that he is everywhere and in every beautiful thing I see. I'll repost:

Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there, I do not sleep,

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the sparkle on the snow,

I am the sun, on ripened grain,

I am the gentle summers rain,

And when you wake in mourning’s hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush... of quiet birds in circled flight,

I am the Moon and Stars at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,I am not here, I did not die.

I wrote it on the back of his tattered picture I keep in my back pock. In retrospect, it was his message to me when I wrote it on there that day last week.

And I've been learning gardening, and appreciating nature, and the cycle of life. It just hurts to 'move on' to change my hair, and to be changed (the new me is very different), and to find so much has changed, but everything is still the same (same house, same dogs, same family, same jobs) and we were a hous in anticipation of so much change . . . change that never happened like we'd anticipated but CHANGE nonetheless.

We got change all right.

A tornado swirled through my life and left everything in it's place but nothing untouched.