Second year grief

"To have a child is to forever have your heart go walking around outside your body"
-Elizabeth Stone.

To lose your child is to have your heart break, and for half of it to go forever to Heaven....

Grief, the ever present, but usually now quiet, companion has turned back into the all consuming monster today.   Missing him never goes away, but today missing him has taken up a bigger part of my consciousness.  It seems the build up to his birthday, and angelversary, has begun in earnest.

I am finding myself back in the hospital, holding him, saying goodbye.   I'm walking away like a zombie, another mum touches my shoulder, she knows.  It's like it was yesterday.

And I am still in the same place. Life has not moved on for us. Many people must think, it's been two years, they forget, they move on, their world still turns. Our worlds stopped turning, our lives were put on hold, and two years on, life has not begun again yet. 

It's true that on the face of it I am functioning, I enjoy life more than I did, I'm a healthy weight and I'm for the most part, out of depression. But, I'm still a shell of the woman I was. I'm still striving for happy. I'm still waiting for life to begin again.

Next month, I'm another year older, then a week later my son....isn't.  I'm so afraid people won't remember.  One day soon I will make a second birthday decoration for his forever bed.  I will wonder for the millionth time if I will ever celebrate a birthday with a living child. 

And I just want to scream. Still. I MISS HIM.....I miss me.  I want life to begin again.....I want what my friends have.  I know I can't have Bertie back.  I want my rainbow. I want to walk forever away from the edge of The Pit. I want peace, joy and above all....happy.