Still sad

It's been 10 years since Koen was born, and died.  And my heart is still shattered.  I am still sad.  So. Sad.  It won't ever stop being awful.  My arms still ache to hold him, and my eyes long to see his face.  I still see him in everything.  I still miss him.  I still wonder what life would be like with him in it.  

I no longer wake up and start crying, but I still cry.  I am no longer sad every day, but I am still sad.  I no longer find it hard to be around happy, but some days others happiness is too loud.  I no longer live in a surreal state, feeling like I am watching the world go by and I am just watching it, but sometimes I do feel like I am floating again for moment when without warning or knowing.  A moment sweeps be back to that surreal place.  Last night at the boys baseball game, a player on the opposing team was named Koen.  He pitched the first game and his teammates cheered his name often during those innings.  That's all it takes, and in a moment my grief is so heavy, yet I float away.  

I slept awful last night and woke up with a lump in my throat and tightness in my chest.  Yesterday tears came easy.  I easily escape into the wheel of busy, grinding through life, and not slowing down to feel my feelings, but this morning I knew my body was screaming for quiet.  When I took time to slow down, I realized that my body knew what my brain had not yet allowed me to think about.  My body remembers, it knows.  It knows what is coming.  Memorial Day.  May 27th.  It knows that my heart is still broken.  That I need to honor that broken piece of myself.  Honor Koen.  But its painful, because my only memories with him are traumatic and heartbreaking.  And sacred.  And beautiful.  A loss of baby that never lived outside of your womb, is a special kind of grief.  There are no purely happy memories to cling to, they are all laden and mixed heart wrenching ones.  

Today Kevin came home at lunch.  The hardness of life written all over his face.  We are not the same people we were 10 years.  Grief has taken a toll, innocence has been lost.  The love for Koen is never ending, and so the grief has no end either.  Ten years later I am still sad.  So sad.  So I find hope today in lamenting for my baby boy.  My baby boy who would be 10 years old this Saturday.

"The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words.  I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss.  Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this:  The faithfulness of the Lord never ends!  His mercies never cease.  Great is his faithfulness; his mercies being afresh each morning."  Lamentations 3:19-23