Dreading

The event that I have dreaded the most, beyond driving home the last few miles on Nov. 6 and not wanting to open the door, and burying my son, is creeping closer. It doesn't change anything, but I dread it... at the same time I am afraid not to know and create new horrors in my dreams. We were given the option of not knowing, but when you are a parent every detail of your child is important to you, even this.

In TN they do an investigation and mandatory autopsy on every infant death. They come into your home and examine everything from the settings on the thermostat to bagging all the bedding, ask the parents to explain how they found the child. This is followed by the visit from Child Protective Services, and I kept the brochures to show the fire departments what the parents will experience next SIDS training. To be given brochures like this at a time you are at your lowest is a kick. Have you ever been asked to fill out a form of what relative might take your remaining child if she is removed from your home? You are already doubting every decision you have made, and it is like someone saying 'yes you are guilty, if you were a good parent your child would not be dead'.

But can I argue? Is this not the worst failure possible in parenting?

I can remember being asked his weight and heigth, his birth date, his medical history. Here in the midst of the ambulance and Perry's death I struggled to find his baby book to answer questions my mind was strangely blank on. This is not how I imagined looking back with this book as I had first entered this information.

I lost an entire memory card in the frenzy of cleaning for the CPS visit that followed after his funeral, pictures and video fragments I will never get back of my children.

I vaguely remember them saying the average time is about 6-8 weeks to hear autopsy results. That time is drawing to an end. Perhaps like CPS waiting out of what they perceived as kindness, the powers that be think that this is somehow kinder by putting distance from the Holidays.

Do they not realize they are irrepairably ruined already? Will I ever look forward to this time frame with happiness again? Or will it forever be linked to this time? Will I ever pick out Holloween costumes with happiness or will I begin withdrawing to myself? Will I always resent the obligatory Santa visit because we are missing a child on his knee?

His Giraffe jacket is hanging in Emily's room in the same position I left it, the arms are still inside out from where I pulled the jacked off his little frame about two months ago. His pumkin is on the porch, it is beginning to rot where Emily's is still hard and perfect.

I think about harvesting the seeds and trying to grow pumkins from this remenant next year, before throwing the majority of it into the compost with his flowers.

They also stated it could be as long as 6-8 months.

6-8 months of dread. Wondering if the truth is available at all, if it is as horrible as we imagine, and if we will ultimately be able to handle the results.

I feel like I am outside the funeral home again, afraid to go in the first time. And the nightmare just continues.