Pain scale

Can I admit that I do not want to see a year in which my son does not exist on this earth?

Today the anger is subsiding and I am slipping back into sadness.

On the locker next to me is a newborn baby, sleeping quietly. This picture greeted me the first time I came to station 2 post Perry. The Father was in the class I arranged and was due to go except that I went home the day before to find my son dead in his father's arms. He has four healthy beautiful little girls. My pictures are inside my locker. Perry's will never be replaced to make room for more recent pictures. He is stalled there in my locker; he will never draw crayon creations for me that will make me smile as I open the door to begin a new shift at work.

I lite a candle at Perry's grave on the way home so I do not have to feel like I am going home to a place without him. The wind makes a whistling sound as it caresses his lantern and I struggle to keep the wind from blowing it out.

Today Emily wants out, she doesn't always want to leave the car. She runs to his grave at full speed. She is concerned about a dead palm frond from the newest grave and picks it up to give it back to 'the grandmother'. The workers have already removed her flowers for the trash, I am glad Perry's are at least in our compost bin. The leaves are brown and dead, the wind scatters them from her hand and all but one are carried to Perry and catch on the uneven grass above his small grave.

I tell him I love him. Does he hear? Does the wind carry my whispers to him in heaven or does God let him look in on us sometimes? I find myself crying in safe places, telling him how badly I want him back.

I read all these posts on facebook about how the past does not control our actions. I do not know if they are aimed at me, but they fly past like the dead leaves on an angry wind. It is easy for people to be theoretical when they have not lost a child.

We still control them, but EVERYTHING is affected.

I had my Psychologist tell me that the loss of a wrecked car or a job was the same to that person as the loss of my child is to me. That is theoretical stuff. Things that fall down like the flimsy material they are made of when reality hits them.

He cannot help me.

In EMS people that are having panic attacks almost always rate things a 10. They are in a form of crisis, but the truth is that you know it is really bad when another patient rates at a 7. Because in their mind, there can be worse as they are experiencing something they would have thought as a ten earlier is happening now. These folks are the one who are having heart attacks. A wise Paramedic does not treat the two the same, he treats them individually for what they are even if both are subjected to the same 'pain' scale. Sure he or she follows the protocal, but we know. The 7 needs a closer eye. You set things out, work a little quicker on the way to the hospital. The 10 may get the EKG while still sitting at their desk and when the screen is normal, they are transported nonemergency.

It's perspective. My perspective has changed. Some concerns seem silly, some thoughts simplistic.

I went to perhaps the most depressing funeral ever. The man believed in God but his funeral was held in a funeral home instead of a chapel. Not one cross or religious symbol was there. The preacher was ok, but when his daughter stood up to speak she said we could honor his memory by digging deeper and she wondered aloud how they would live without him. The irony was that she wasn't digging deeper. To her this was the end. There was no cross visible from his grave.

But can I admit that I am just as sad? I keep reading that we do grieve as others grieve, and while this is true, I still do not hold my baby. I know where he is, but 'different' grief is no easier at times.