Grieving the loss of my child has been the hardest and strangest experience of my life. I read on another blog that the woman felt like she lost the whole year after her son died. She said it was a year lost to grief. That is how I feel most of the time, like I’m walking around in a fog. I don’t feel the passing of the seasons or the weather. I don’t feel the excitement of the next holiday coming up. When I think about 2013 all I think about is losing Lucy and Jude and the overwhelming grief. It is very hard to care about or even notice things around me, even important things around me.

I feel like I’m standing in my yard and my house is on fire and there might be someone inside. Truly imagine how you would feel if you were in your front yard watching the flames devour your house and you thought someone was still trapped inside. It’s a frantic, urgent moment and the emergency that’s happening takes all of your concentration. All of your emotions and your adrenaline and your thoughts are on the person inside and how to get them out and the house is on fire!!!! Now, imagine someone coming up to you and asking if you paid the power bill yesterday. Who cares? The house is on fire! You forgot to schedule Liam’s check up at the dentist. What? Who cares? The house is on fire! They keep tapping you on the shoulder, “That was quite a storm last night, wasn’t it?” Are you kidding me? The house is on fire!

That’s how I feel most of the time. I feel like mourning and dealing with my losses takes all of my energy, my emotions, my focus. It truly takes a huge amount of focus and mental power to not just break down every hour in a mess of howling tears. Tuning out my grief and my loss to deal with everyday life is like trying to tune out that burning house and that trapped person yelling for help. It is so hard to care about the laundry or the weather or Liam’s dentist appointment, because honestly, none of it matters when you compare it to the fact that your baby girl is dead. The baffling thing is that even the very important things are hard to care about; things like relationships and feeding my kids and having enough income and eating food every day. Some days I realize I have gone the whole day without looking my children in the eyes. How pathetic is that?

This is how grieving feels for me now. I desperately hope that one day the fire will be put out and I can turn my attention away from the disaster and I can live life again.