You Just Have to Get Through it

You just have to get through it.  You just have to get through the day; just get through this; just get through that.  These are phrases I have heard from various people and said or thought of myself for months.

Well, time waits for no one.  Six months has gone right ahead and marched on as if no one was watching; certainly as if no one has been grieving while trying to figure out how to move forward in life.  I knew that this milestone would be a tough one, measuring half a year since we had to say hello and goodbye to our tiny, baby boy all in one day.  Rather than sit and just wait for the day to pass I decided to plan a surprise party.  Sean’s 30^th birthday is coming up and so I thought a way to put a happy spin on the day and distract myself was to plan it on this six month mark.

I planned for about two months, inviting out of town family and friends, some high school friends and work friends.  I squirrelled away money so he wouldn’t notice anything strange about the places showing up on our checking account. My mother-in-law helped make all of Sean’s favorite foods a few days in advance to make the day as low maintenance as possible; I arranged a plausible ruse for getting him out of and back to the house; I though we had it all planned out.  What I hadn’t planned on was feeling as crazy sad as I did the night before and next morning. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’d known all along it would hurt something sort of familiar.  I just didn’t plan on it being so raw again.  We got up early and left to visit Jack’s “special spot”, letting his big sister leave him some pretty flowers.  My heart broke a bit more when Sean was looking down at his grave and Kennedy asked what he was looking at.  When he responded with, “Jack,” she said, “No Daddy! He’s not down there, he’s up in the clouds,” and laughed as if to tell him how silly she found his mistake to be.  We got through it and were back home to have Sean leave to fish and to have us begin the last minute prep.

Everyone arrived, including the birthday boy, whom I believe was moderately surprised, and the rest of the day was a success.   

Monday morning got here quicker than I would have liked and I had barely slept the night before, which is always a key ingredient in my recipe for disaster.  I still just didn’t feel ready to go back to work, back to where I had to be Ms. Doyle again, a person with (most likely a delusional) self-perceived control over most things.  This first week is only staff so it would be just dipping my feet in but I was still terrified. The last sixth months have gone like this:  Extreme grief, grief, grieving while functioning, grieving while functioning and caring for Kennedy.  Now I had to add another component back into the mix and I felt brutally overwhelmed. 

I woke before the alarm, applied a minimal amount of makeup, because if nothing else I am a realist and knew that there was a good chance it wouldn’t withstand the day, got a hug and pep-talk from my loving and optimistic husband and left for my first day back.  I almost made it to the highway before the tears flowed freely.  I called Sean for reassurance, which he was ready to give, and finished what was left of my ride.  As I pulled into the parking lot I began to shake.  I mean really shake, like couldn’t shift to park easily because my hands were shaking so hard.  Two of my girlfriends were waiting for me in the lot to walk in with me, which I loved them for.  As we got close to the doors, doors I hadn’t walked through since the day I left school to head for Philadelphia two days later, I began to sob. Hard.  One of them took my hand and helped me get through the door.  They led me to my office, ironically a room crying middle school-ers often find their way to for comfort, gave me hugs and water and we made our way to the first of our meetings for the day.  I made it through, it sucked pretty badly but I got through it.

The thing is though, I don’t want to just “get through” life.  I want to live it.  It dawned on me that I haven’t really been doing that the last six months; but I am trying to.  So maybe, God, I hope, that with it going like this: grieving while functioning and caring for Kennedy and being Ms. Doyle and living.