I remember asking someone, a doctor or a nurse. I can't recall now which, I remember asking something like " How long will I be in this much pain?" This was before I was given the epidural.
Their response was as polite and as nice as possible. "Usually, in this type of situation, after the baby is out, the symptoms will slowly go away".
I had forgotten about that conversation until last night while I was lying in bed, listening to the rain hit my air conditioner in my bedroom window. Other memories starting pouring in just as fast as the rain was coming down. Ones that I had forgot or just pushed away. I tried to push them more but I felt exhausted, like I couldn't do it anymore or maybe I just wanted to return so badly to that day when all the pain wasn't just memories, it was real and I was living it.
Ironically, almost a year later, remembering that very conversation and that pain? It had returned. Not the physical pain of my contracting uterus preparing itself to deliver a sleeping baby or my whole body aching because I couldn't control my shaking due to the amount of blood I lost. No. This pain was, in a way, even deeper. This pain was thinking about how oblivious I was in that moment as to the hurt that the next year would bring. Totally in the dark about the zombie like trance I would be in, even in times when the day seemed promising, the sun was shining, and I was smiling. This pain was throwing flashbacks at me so fast that I couldn't close my eyes or lay my head down on my pillow. It felt like my soul was being ripped out of me and my heart had been set on fire.
It was raining the day his heart stopped beating and why wouldn't it be? It was dreary and dark, just like the situation. I remember for a split second, while I was screaming and yelling in the back of the ambulance, thinking... I hope they aren't going too fast because its raining and I didn't want to wreck.
Maybe it was the rain or maybe its that August 21st is creeping up so fast that before I know it, it will be here. Staring me in the face. What if I want to hold onto it again? Or what if the day comes and I become unable to function at all?
I felt tears streaming down my face and I tried to stop them and then another flashback came. I was still in the ICU. I always say I didn't cry much that first day and I remember why now. I kept stopping myself. I was being monitored and every time I would start to cry, the beeping became louder and louder as I watched my heart rate increase. A nurse would peek around to make sure I was okay, so I started to just stop myself for no reason really. I already knew Brody was gone. Obviously, I had cried before and it never killed me so I knew it wasn't putting me in any real danger, I just kept stopping myself.
I often refer to that day as the best and worst day of my life. Last night and today for that matter, I'm trying to figure out why I organize it in the "best days" files in my brain. Today, it just lost somewhere up there, stuck somewhere between "did that seriously happen" and "why".
Sometimes I just sit and think about my entire life. Almost 30 years of it. I think about the best moments and the worst, accomplishments, failures, I think about times that I made mistakes and times that I was proud of myself, things I would want to change but truly wouldn't because it got me to where I am today. And through it all, not once did I ever imagine that I would be here today writing about the day my son died. Not once.
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