Yesterday just started out badly. Sometimes the loss of Perry feels very raw. I think that when you start to heal a little bit, your brain lifts a little of the shock away and new things hit you.
I drove home crying because I realized that my son was not going to be there. The cleaners were coming and they were coming because I don't have a son anymore. I have tried keeping up with cleaning in the kitchen and making the laundry pile manageable. The rest of the house has been just crisis cleaning for the most part. After losing Perry, I either have a hard time getting out of bed, or things like dusting seem really pointless.
I also cried because I had to do something with his pumpkin. So I lit a candle on the way home, told Perry how badly I missed him, and rounded the corner back feeling really empty and a bit stupid for leaving Emily at daycare so I could tackle the house ( I really hate the house by myself now).
I finally decided to keep the seeds for next year and compost the rest. I spent the next 30 minutes sorting through the guts. Initially my intention for this little pumpkin and Emily's was to let Emily decorate the outside and attempt a from scratch pumkin pie. Emily happily did this while her brother watched her from where he was practicing pushing himself up so he could look around on his spot by the couch on the floor. It was just one of those nice ordinary moments. A memory that I smile at but cry because there will be no more.
When the housecleaners came, I made myself allow them to clean everything except the mirror by the changing pad. I'm not ready to erase what may be his fingerprints left as he reached out to touch the baby in the mirror. When the time comes I want to do it. I never got around to letting Kristen make his hand and footprints for the baby book, I have the footprints from the hospital, but nothing left of his hands.... Hands that grabbed my hair for security, and that were beginning to touch so many things in curiosity.
It hit me as I looked around my house, how frozen we are as a family. The multiple little things lying around from Perry. Diaper wipes on Emily's dresser, small soft animal rattles in our bedroom. The baby shampoo in the bathroom rolling organizer, huis towel hanging on the back of the bathroom door. The giraffe costume on Emily's closet.
And worst yet are the clues as to why. The many grief and infant death loss books, the picture book I put together after he died, the funeral home card so we can call them to level the ground, small sympathy cards scattered from the plants that were gifts, and the large photo from his funeral that I think was framed in white to match his coffin. If I had it to do over, I would have begged my SIL to put the frame in Cherrywood so I would not think about his little white coffin whenever I look at it. We can't get rid of it, so it is hanging in the hall. Sometimes when I pass it, I touch his face... Somehow hoping I will feel warm soft skin and be able to pull him back out to me like something from Narnia. But just like Emily the day we came home from the churchyard, I find that it is just hard cold glass.
Her fingerprints were still there, but I let them wipe those off.
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