Jacob's Story ~ Introduction

~ Introduction ~

Where to begin...

I have always wanted to be a writer. I don’t know why. I don’t have a degree in English or in writing as you will see by the multitude of grammatical errors and misspelled words throughout this blog. I have no idea how to publish something, hence the blog, and have not really had anything of interest to write about, at least not until March 17^th , 2012 at 10:02 PM when my whole life changed. It was just a random dream to be a writer, I even have a saved, half written, children’s book on this computer. I talked myself out of finishing it when I Googled “how to publish a children’s book” and saw there were more than five simple steps and rarely did anyone make any money. As with most things in my life I started it but never finished. I will be surprised if I finish this. I actually kind of feel sick about writing this, the fact that I have something to write about. Who wants to write about their baby dying? Why is this my story? This was never supposed to happen to me and if anyone is ever reading this, and has also lost a child, I would assume you felt the same way when it happened to you. This is everyone’s worst nightmare.

The first things I am sharing on this blog are things I wrote over the last 10 months since we lost our son Jacob. I am making them as pages and chapters which you can see to the left. Actually these things I wrote mostly in the first three or five months after he died. I had initially wanted to write a book, maybe, I was not really sure. Turns out the writing itself I have found to be therapeutic and don't really feel the need to add one more thing to my plate like publishing a book about my son dying. I fear no one would buy it and then I'd feel even worse. I have three living children Adam, three and a half, Allie who is two, and am currently pregnant with our fourth child, a girl yet to be named, who is due mid May. My days are busy enough. I thought about doing a blog back about a month after Jacob died but was too scared to be open as I was not even sure of what I was feeling. I did however want to write out the experience of losing Jacob, how it happened, what the days and weeks after were like, so that one day, not only I would remember, but my children could go back and see what I was going through. I have intentionally not read any memoirs of others who have had a similar loss as I wanted to experience it in my own way and not feel the need to grieve like someone else.

What I have learned, and the reason I am finally biting the bullet and doing this, is that there are people in my life that mean the world to me, family included, that don't even really know what I am going through; I don't want it to be that way. I think they see me functioning day to day and seem to assume and treat me as if Jacob never died and I'm doing just fine. People can not treat you gently and with kindness when they have no idea how much you are struggling. I remember after Jacob died I felt like I needed a sign stuck to me somewhere when I went out in public that said "be nice, my baby just died". I have also learned that people assume whatever I post on Facebook is a good snapshot of how I am. I hate that part of Facebook and wanted to have a place to say more but Facebook is not the right platform and in addition, everyone I love is not on Facebook either. When people ask me "how are you doing" they forget to realize they are asking a mom who held her dead son how she is doing and although not all days are truly hard, many are, and it's not always a cliche answer like "fine, how are you?". Suddenly the normal conversations of life become landmines; "How are you!?" "So, how many children do you have?" all these questions are hard to answer honestly and having to fake a general answer is like stepping on my own soul, suffocating my feelings, all in an effort to comfort others, put them at ease and not make them feel uncomfortable with an honest answer. So here it all is, sort of from the beginning, I will try to keep it chronological until I can catch up to where I am today.