Angry

Today I am so angry.

I haven't felt a lot of anger throughout this whole experience with Harry, which may be surprising. Maybe because I know anger won't get me very far, it doesn't do much good to feel angry. I am not sure why I finally feel so angry now.

We got back from our trip to Paris late Monday night.

I suppose coming home has triggered my anger. Lydia was thrilled to be back home, to see her room, to get to see her friends at school again. I dreaded coming home. Walking back into our empty house just places in such stark and clear relief everything we have lost. That Harry is not here. That he is missing, screams from every room, every empty room.

On the upside, I know for certain that in order to stay in our house, I need to have it renovated. I can't stay in our house and have it stay exactly as it was when Harry was sick. I can't keep coming home to the exact same place where he died. At the same time, I clearly know that I don't want to move. That would only be running away. We could leave here. But then Harry would just be dead and we would be in a different house - he'd still be dead. Nothing is going to change that. I love our crazy old house. For better or worse it is home. It is not my dream home, in fact it has almost none of the 'must haves' that were on my list when we were looking for a home, but it is somehow the home we are meant to be in. I just knew the minute we walked in that somehow this was our house. I could immediately envision us living there. But I need it to be a different space. A space that still holds my memories of Harry, but that does not freeze us and hold us captive in the past.

We're still somewhat on Paris time. We all woke up with the sun at 6:30 this morning. Henry and Lydia went downstairs and I stayed in bed an extra half an hour. I didn't really sleep. I lay and thought about how differently the morning would start if Harry were here.

Harry should be 2 now. Since he was born, Lydia always wanted to share a room with him. When we bought her big girl bed, almost three years ago now, we bought a bunk bed, with a trundle underneath. The bunkbeds were supposed to be for Lydia and Harry. I remember when Harry got sick thinking, "Harry can't die. I've already bought his big boy bed. He has to turn two and sleep in his big boy bed with Lydia".

But Harry did die and he'll never sleep in his big boy bed.

If Harry were alive, we'd have celebrated his second birthday by setting up the bunkbeds. He'd get the bottom bunk and Lydia would get the top bunk. Harry's room would become their playroom and they would share Lydia's bigger room. That was the plan, anyways.

I lie in bed and I dream I can hear them giggle as they both wake up. I dream I can hear Lydia say, "Good morning Hares-y-bears-y" and I dream I hear Harry laughing in response and say, "Morning Lydee". I dream I hear two set of feet scamper across their bedroom floor, to the door, and down the hall to our room. I dream there are two blond heads coming into our room, Lydia holding Harry's hand, clinging to their respective lovies in their other hands, with two round faces peering over the edge of the bed at me, two sweet voices saying, "Mummy time to wake up".

I lie in bed and dream of what will never be and I listen to the hollow sounds of Henry and Lydia, just the two of them, starting the day together downstairs.

It was after I took Lydia to school today and was doing up last night's dishes in the kitchen that I really got mad at Harry for dying. One of his pictures sits on the windowsill that I look at from the kitchen sink and I yelled, really yelled, at his picture this morning.

"Mummy is so fucking angry at you, Harry."

"I am so angry at you for dying. Why did you choose to die? Why did you not choose to say here with us? Daddy and Lydie and I, we need you here. Why did you die?"

"I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you. I am so angry at you for dying." I yelled over and over and over at his picture.

The tears were floing fast and furious as I yelled over and over at him.

The thing I am most angry about is having to feel what I feel. I don't want to feel this loss over my son. I'm so angry that I have to experience this feeling. That I have to carry this fucking feeling of loss and emptyness with me forever.

"I am so angry at you for making me feel this way, Harry. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel this way. I don't want to feel this way." I collapsed in a crying heap on the kitchen floor.

Not the most productive way to start my first day back at work.

That was the thing that scared me the most when Harry was first diagnosed. Actually, even before we knew his actual diagnosis. The very first Friday and Saturday nights in the hospital, I pleaded with God, "Don't make me do this. You can't make me do this. I cannot go through my son having cancer. You cannot make me live through my son having cancer. I can't do it."

And when we got Harry's grim diagnosis, that was the thing I dreaded the most. It wasn't him dying, exactly, that I feared the most. It was the having to live after he died that I feared, and still fear.

The day we got his diagnosis. I knew exactly how it was going to feel if he died. I had lived with grief and loss and longing and anger over the death of my father for so much of my early life. My earliest memories, my earliest consciousness, is of loss. Of knowing that someone was missing. Of questioning, "why did my Daddy die?" Of anger, "why did Daddy have to die?" Of deep sorrow, "why did I never get to know my Dad? Why did he have to die before I even had formed any memories of him" I have missed and longed for and grieved a whisp, a shadow, something I don't even remember, my whole conscious life.

Ah, not this. Not having to feel this, now, too, about my son. My son who I barely got to know, over his 16 all-too-brief months. Not having to carry this, this second hole in my heart. How can a heart keep beating with such a big hole?

This is what I am angry about. Not so much that Harry died. But that I have to feel and experience this suffereing. It sounds childish and selfish really, when I put it into writing. But there it is.

I know I have to figure out how to live without fear. To not be scared to live. I am so scared of forgetting Harry. It is the reason I am so compelled to write down my memories of Harry. To write it all down so that I won't forget. Part of me wants to freeze everything. Make no new memories. Keep everything exactly the same. If in some way doing that might capture Harry and keep him here. In fact, I find my memory is so much worse since Harry died. I forget little things I always would so easily remember. As if my mind can't make room to store more memories, it's full, you see, just keeping the memories of Harry. I fear moving on, if moving on means forgetting Harry. I fear moving forward, because what if I do and then I find out that DOES mean forgetting Harry. How could I ever forget my beautiful, beautiful, sweetest blue-eyed Angel?

I'm angry that Harry is no more than a collection of 40 minutes of video clips. A picture that his sister holds as a place-holder of sorts in a family photo. Another whisp, another shadow.

My heart needs for me to figure out how to move forward and to live, holding my memories alive, but not in fear. I am not sure how to do this. I suppose this is one of my next challenges.

Peace,
Cynthia