Jacob's Story ~ Chapter 10 ~ Year in Review

Well, I guess I have put this off long enough...the part about what happened after the week that encompasses the first 9 chapters of this "book", the part about the whole last year.  I can't write as many chapters about this, the details are lost in time I think and probably many of them are happily left behind. 

I remember the fear I had of Dan's family leaving to go back to Pittsburgh...that the house would be empty and we would be on our own. I guess maybe it's similar to how many first time moms feel leaving the hospital with a newborn and no nurses to lean on for answers to inevitable questions...but this was a first for me.  Although I wanted space and time to just be, they had managed to keep the kids occupied and happy during the past week and it was a gift.  How would I manage to be a mom now? Half of me was torn to pieces, the other half scared to love them, for fear I'd lose them too.  I was in shock looking back, I know that now and I think I realized that then but didn't understand just how much shock I was in.  Adam had decided to stop napping.  So I had another 2 hours of entertaining to do, I think I probably left that to the TV.  Friends would come by and talk with me, not necessarily about Jacob, although I knew with them I could.  I rarely if ever lost it in front of anyone, other than Dan that is.  Dan has really seen it all and to his credit, he has not left me for the crazy woman I was and still am at times.  We found ways to cope in our new life.  Meals continued to arrive every other night for us for almost a month I think and that was one of the biggest blessings.  I feared going out anywhere for fear I'd run into someone.  I had so many people that I knew did not know about Jacob, that had seen me pregnant, and had to find ways to tell them or had to think of how to tell them should I run into them out and about...hence I became a hermit.  How do you find a way to say "my son died" without totally breaking down into a million pieces?  It worked sometimes but not often.  I went to Fresh Market one morning the week after Jacob died.  I had that lovely, pudgy, 5 months pregnant postpartum look and the chipper cashier said;

Cashier: "Oh! Did you just have a baby?!!!"
Me: I stumbled to say "Yes."
Cashier: "Oh how sweet! Is it a boy or a girl?!?!?!?!"
Me: "A boy."  (in my head I was just fighting the tears and going with the pretend)

She kept going....

Cashier: "Oh what is his name?"
Me: "Jacob."
Cashier: "Well have a great day! Congratulations!!!"

I wanted so badly to run out of there but my legs felt like jello, the tears started streaming down my face before I could even make it to the sliding doors and as soon as I passed through them, with the trace of remaining stamina I had left, I somehow made it into the car, shut the door and just completely broke down.  That was my first venture out and about and I did not do that again for a LONG time.

I remember breaking down a little at our pediatrician's office when I told them and I remember they were shocked to hear and seemed unsure of what to say or do.  I thought they would be more prepared.  I had to tell my hairstylist so she would not say the inevitable when I came in, "So, how is the baby?!?!"  The random worker at the medicaid office, Dan was with me that time and good thing because I was a blubbering mess.  We'd received the bill for Jacob's short life and had to find out why it was not being covered. We are so grateful that medicaid was available for me and it was a gift from God as I still was unable to get health insurance due to the melanoma I'd had removed back in 2008. Cancer to an insurance company is cancer regardless of the severity, or lack there of, mine being almost insignificant, at least to me.   The worker at the medicaid office was actually one of the nicest I came across and she figured out what the issue had been and so she took care of it.  My friend Jennifer sent endless toys for the kids to "give me a minute" whenever I needed it, Dan calls her grandma Jennifer although she is about the furthest thing from that...just a fabulous mom that knows that kids are distracted by pretty dolls and monster trucks and that I would be able to sneak away to have whatever I needed; a breakdown, a scream, a glass of wine or just simply a moment to ponder, daze, sit. 

I heard someone describe the grief recently like being at the bottom of a well. That image has stuck in my mind.  It is exactly what it was like. I was in the bottom of a dark cold well, too far from the top to get out without a huge effort and I didn't have any energy in me to even try, nor did I really want to. People would come by and look down, ask how I was doing, I knew they were all okay, their lives were still going on up on dry land, the land of the living, but for me, even with the kids around and Dan, I just felt so isolated, so alone, so untouchable by everyone.  It was a sad and hard time.  To know that the world is continuing to move on and others are experiencing joy, smiles, laughter, normal inconveniences, mundane daily activities and all that was such a distant memory to me, such a different me.  I didn't know the person that I had become overnight.  I had, finally in my thirties, felt as though I was finally figuring out who I was, really, getting comfortable with my life as a mom and wife and everything was finally falling into place and then it all turned upside down, shattered into a million pieces, I no longer knew myself, who I was, what comfort looked like, happiness, what life was without one of my children, the life of a mother who's buried her child, put a lid on him, who is that?  I had no idea how to even put myself back together.  If I were a painting I'd of been a Picasso.  Everything in the wrong place.  That was me and I didn't know her.  I had always been more of an observer of others and was usually more comfortable when everyone around me was happy and comfortable. Now I was in the position that I needed to be able to tell people what I needed, because the alternative was usually being hurt more or pushing everyone away.  Actually they are one in the same.  I had to find ways to say "I need you to do this" or "I need you to not do this"  that was even harder.  Telling people that they were hurting me, especially family, family I thought should have just known what to do, but they didn't.  Some family members just don't know what it is to be compassionate. But grief is so individual in some ways, it is hard to know what one wants or needs from day to day much less minute to minute.  I did not envy those around me.

I remember the sadness I felt in seeing my belly disappear more and more with each passing day.  The place I had hated on my body after my other births, was now a sacred place that Jacob had lived and it was literally vanishing before my eyes.  I knew that slowly all the physical evidence that he had existed would all vanish as if he'd never been and that tore me apart inside.  I felt empty in a way I didn't know was humanly possible.  Not only was Jacob gone from me internally, but externally as well and it was like trying to function without an appendage as important as one's head.  He was my baby and he was down in the ground, 4 hours away.

The days passed. I tried to focus on the kids.  I remember going out to eat with friends, and it was the same as always except I was totally different.  I could not tell them how I was, as I did not even know, but I remember feeling so out of place.  That the normal conversations, stories everyone was telling, were so difficult for me to sympathize with or relate to because they all paled in comparison to what I'd just endured and I didn't want to be the "Negative Nelly" that brought the mood down so I remember being more quiet and reserved, trying to be "normal" for them, and in a weird way myself, denial I guess, in order to preserve who I had been before Jacob died, but knowing full well I was not the same person.  It was like being a stranger and everyone else around you knows how you are "supposed" to be, except for you. Everything felt wrong.  I was not ready to laugh and tell or listen to funny stories.  I was just at the bottom of that well and incapable of trying to leave.  I had to let Dan come down to me and he would, he really would.  We did grieve differently but he was there for me.  We had hard times where we'd be unsure of how the other was feeling and sometimes overlook or not be aware if something had hurt the other.  That was really hard and it's hard to remember those times but they were there.  This was not new in marriage, Jacob's death just magnified the emotions having had something so tragic happen.  I can see how the death of a child could tear a marriage apart.  But I believed and hoped from the start that would not happen to Dan and me.  I think part of me doubted at times, as I doubted everything at times, but I never really believed that it would hurt us, only bring us closer together and sometimes it really is the hard things that can bring us closer together.  No one else could ever share this with me, share our children with me, share the memories with me and I needed to be with Dan because he knew it all and he was going through it with me, not on his own and he was not letting me go through it alone either. After three months a support group started for parents who had lost and infant through an organization called Heartstrings.  As hard as it was to admit that I needed help, I knew I did and for the sake of our marriage, I needed to be around others that had been through the same thing and were trying to find a way through it like us.  It was hard to go.  It was hard to talk about Jacob and hear the sad stories everyone else had to tell. With each story I felt so sorry for the other couple as if it had not happened to us as well.  I am always reminding myself in my head that we had a baby that died.  And even a year later it still seems so unreal to me that this really happened and Jacob really is not here and will never be.

Slowly over a few weeks I found a way to kind of climb closer to the top of the well, never really coming out, but closer to the light then something would happen every two or three weeks or so and I'd fall back down to the bottom.  This happened so many times over the first 6 months after Jacob died.  Things like the 17th of each month, that was hard, very hard.  The first 4 months, month 4 being the worst, probably one of the worst days of my life but I did survive that too.  I remember at 4 months the feeling of separation from Jacob was so intense I literally almost had a panic attack, maybe I did? I left, taking Dan's Jeep, and just drove away.  Left him at home with the kids after saying I could not do it anymore.  I was not sure what "it" was and neither was he, so this was a bad day, but a real one.  And I share this because we don't have a perfect marriage and I don't think many other people do either, but everyone always makes it seem like everything is so perfect. Glosses over any difficulties they may be having because surely no one else is having a hard time, right?  So this is my being real for those out there that may think we sailed through this with God's help as faithful Christians do.  God was always there but He does not necessarily "fix" everything just because you love each other.  So, on this fourth anniversary, I stopped at Walmart thinking I would go to the Monastery where Jacob was buried and wanted to just lie down at his grave for hours. I bought a little blanket so I'd have something to lie on, some makeup I think to cover up the mess that had become my face from crying, a box of tissues as I'd, this is actually funny, I had been sobbing uncontrollably in the car after I'd left Dan at home with the kids in a fury...I was in his Jeep so there was nothing familiar in it, I started rummaging through my purse for anything that resembled a tissue to soak up the vast amount of snot that was coming out with all my tears and the only thing I could find were a pair of Adam's underwear I'd thrown in there just in case he'd had an "accident" out and about one day. So yes, they were clean people, but what others must have thought if they'd noticed what I was doing driving down the road, blowing my nose into a pair of Monster's Inc. boys underwear.   What a crazy woman! But I knew at that point I probably was and I can't say that I cared...I had, in 4 months, gotten at least used to the idea that sometimes I was just crazy, had crazy thoughts and it was "normal" as everyone said as much as it really pissed me off that now it was somehow OKAY for me to be crazy...I never wanted to be crazy!  As I got back in the car I started to drive down I-40 West and about 35 minutes in I realized that the person I really needed to see was someone that knew what I was going through, someone that had been there, and my cousin Joanna came to mind immediately.  Thinking of her was a gift from God, and she was also about 1/3 the distance that the monastery was so that was nicer, especially since the Jeep did not drive well over 55 miles an hour.  She had lost one of her daughters back when I was in high school and although her daughter was grown and had lived a life, she had had to hold her dead body as I had held Jacob's and plan her daughter Dawn's funeral and let her go too.  She was who I needed to talk to and so by the Grace of God I went to Joanna's.

Joanna lives on her father's land. We called him Uncle Joe. He built a house there and it's where we spent our Christmas' when I was young.  Up on a mountain, two ponds, beautiful view, peaceful, quiet.  She has always been there for me in a special way, like a second mom and I have always been able to be honest with her.  We talked and drank wine.  She listened to how I was feeling and I learned things about her that I'd never known.  All of a sudden we had this common bond and she knew the language I was speaking, I was not crazy to her and I needed to be around her for that reason.  I think she is one of the strongest women I know and I look up to her, always have.  She put me at ease, gave me hope that things would get better, but recognized that it was still so new to me.  I stayed the night there and drove home the next day with more acceptance that this new life would somehow become familiar in time.  I could not be with Jacob.  It was the first time that I think I really started accepting it and trying to let it be.  I guess it was when I started to let some of the anger go...the anger that I had no control over what had happened and that I could never touch Jacob again on this earth.  I had been so angry, I missed him so much, wanted him back so much, even though I knew it was impossible, I wanted him and I could not have him.  It is the hardest thing I've ever had to accept. 

In fact one of the first times that I really remember the intense anger was near our Easter, Pascha, we call it.  If' you have seen "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" they celebrate Pascha at night at their families restaurant with lots of food and dancing and celebration. This is the time each year when we remember the resurrection of Christ and it reminds us that despite all the evil and sadness that can be part of this world, we still have the hope of the final resurrection where death will be overcome.  Every year we make a basket full of all the food we've given up during Lent, usually a ham, cheese, eggs, candy, I bake breads (several usually) all to celebrate with our church family after the midnight service.  This year however, I could not go.  For one, I should not have been able to go because I should have been nursing a small baby, a baby that I did not have and I was angry that I did not have Jacob.  Two, although this weekend marked the remembrance of the day Jesus was nailed to the cross and died for us, the focus is always on the resurrection and the faith that we have that one day, we will all be resurrected in Christ.  It is a hopeful time and the most joyous of church holidays...the thought of celebrating such joy was impossible to me. I felt so opposite from joyous it was indescribable.   Not to mention this service has some of the same melodies of the hymns that were sung at Jacob's service and I literally could not handle hearing them yet.  They made me cry every time I heard them, even before Jacob's services, and I knew for sure they would throw me into a breakdown right there in the middle of church.  Third, the thought of having to deal with Adam and Allie was exhausting enough...the last two years I'd either ended up driving them around in my car as they were too fussy to be inside during the service or I had missed 40% because I was nursing one of them and taking them off of whatever schedule they were currently on sounded like cruel punishment given all the other things I was consumed with at the time.  If there was ever a year to pass, I figured this was the one.  Allie would never know the difference and Adam would go with Dan and Aunt Rachel and he did. Apparently he did great, after a minor meltdown, but was an angel I hear for the remaining 90% of the service. 

The rest of  the  year continued on.  There was a family vacation that was a nightmare for me and I almost left that half way through. This vacation fell within a week of the above 4 month anniversary drama so I was pretty fragile. I had still not figured out how to let people know my limits and still did not know my own.  Dan and I had about 45 minutes alone together that entire week and that was the only time we got to just sit on the beach and drink a beer together.  Even at night for the first half we had to share a room with the kids and Dan's sister.  The rest of the time I was cooking 3 meals a day for everyone and cleaning as everyone else pretty much relaxed.  With Dan's mom gone and my mother doing her own thing, I had somehow fallen into the motherly role for everyone and I was so broken it was not even funny.  The vacation started on Saturday and by Wednesday I almost walked out the door and left to go home.  No one seemed to understand that I was still grieving to an extent that really made daily life just plain hard.  And here on this vacation I was not only cooking for my husband and two kids but my father-in-law, brothers-in-law, sister-in-law, my parents and my sister-in-laws boyfriend turned fiance over the course of the vacation.  I managed to stay without going crazy on everyone, although Dan knew how at the end of my rope I was, and we made it till Saturday.  On Thursday night, and I'll never forget this, we were playing a game like trivial pursuit but a biblical version.  You hold a card up and try to get your team member to guess your biblical word without saying any of the words listed on that card.  The very first card was drawn and held up to be read.  It was randomly picked by one of Dan's brothers I think and out of about 500 cards.  The side of the card facing Dan and I, the opposite side of the word trying to be guessed....wouldn't you know, the word was Jacob.  No one knew.  We didn't say anything and we didn't openly cry but when we looked at each other we knew how much our hearts had just burst open again.  Out of the blue, on a vacation he should have been on and was no where to be found, there he was on the back of a random card.  This kind of stuff happens all the time and it is what makes life after Jacob so hard sometimes.  You can't escape it even when you are trying to just simply play a game like a "normal" person.

Anyway, the whole year was this way. I think I'll write more about specific milestones later but wanted to sum up the fog of this first year without Jacob for us.  Things happened, life happened.  Adam started Preschool and so did Allie.  Dan turned 34 and so did I.  Holidays came and went, without Jacob.  The 17th of every month came and went and somehow, although it really is mostly a haze, I am sitting here today somewhat put back together and able to share the parts I remember at least.  It was not pretty, not graceful, not always awful but it was just another year of our lives and one that we were completely unprepared for but I do believe that because of our faith in God, and many many prayers, we have made it through.