My thought on the tv show Resurrection....

     I was one of the few grieving moms, based off so many blogs and Facebook statuses I read, that was excited for the television series Resurrection to start. The previews of a little boy named Jacob coming home to his parents after thirty some years, still the little boy who left them. The haunting song playing, "I'm coming home, I'm coming home. Tell the world I'm coming home...." It would leave me teary every single time I heard or saw it. I couldn't wait to see it.

     I have had several dreams where I see Sterling out somewhere. He is still the thirteen month old that was taken from us. In every dream I risk my life trying to steal him back. I run with him. Then I wake up panicked and looking for him or crying because I know it was a dream but I would give anything for it to be real. I know I'm supposed to rejoice that he is in heaven and he no longer has to live in this world full of uncertainty and pain. I know he is at peace and he no longer feels pain. As a mom I do rejoice that he is safe and I'm sure happy. 

     But as a mom I also just want my baby back. I know its selfish. I know. I know! But I want him back in my arms. I want to be able to have him back as a thirteen month old so I can just pick up where we left off. I don't want to miss his first steps, his first sentence, his first day of preschool, his first haircut (if I ever would allow such a thing!). I understand many people may not get what I am thinking or wanting. Its ok with me. I don't always understand this grief of mine either.

     So I started watching this show Resurrection. The first episode with little Jacob left me a little teary. This family is living my dream. And I can watch it. It doesn't sink me back into some place horrible. To be quite honest I'm not sure I've left that place some days. For that hour of television I got to live vicariously through another family and it left me feeling no different then I do every other day.

     You see I already question why some people get miracles and we didn't. Why did my son's CHD's not get discovered in time to save him? Why didn't I see it sooner that day before he stopped breathing? Why didn't my CPR save my baby? Why didn't the ER doctors and the PICU doctors save him? Why my son? And then I also see so many other grieving families get their rainbow babies, their little miracles sent to them to help heal their hearts. Our family has been unsuccessful in that as well. So wondering why some people's loved ones would get to come back and not others....

     After this second episode I am beginning to see that its not so easy picking up where you left off with a dead loved one when so much time has passed. Thirty years is a long time. Parents age, childhood friends become adults, time goes on even when we don't want it to. It brings me right back to my feeling that even though I would give anything for our lives to have gone a different path. A path that would have a very much alive Sterling in it. I truly feel like this is always the way it supposed to happen. I don't like it. It hurts beyond anything I have ever experienced in my life. But yet I feel like its the way it was always meant to go.

     But don't get me wrong, even thirty years from now I would give anything to have a knock at my door and see my little chubby, smiley, giant brown eyed little thirteen month old Sterling staring back at me. I would love to hear him say "Mooommmm....." and to feel those chubby hands grab my face and pull me in for a slobbery, mouth wide open kiss.  Then to put our foreheads together and stare into each other's eyes like we always did. Followed by a bear hug and his little hands patting my back. I'm really banking on the fact that when I die I will get to experience that again.......

Trust

     I love my children, all six of them. I would do anything for them. I want the best for them. And yet they can push my buttons unlike any other. These little people that I love more than anything can drive me to the brink of insanity some days. Kids are fun like that.

     Because Sterling died my children and I have needed a little extra "life boost" as I like to call it. Everyone else probably would call it counseling. All the kids want to be the one to have a counseling session with mom, that is until its actually time to have a counseling session with mom. Our counselor asks that my boys play silly games with me, let me feed them, let mom be in control for a few minutes. My kids resist. And I wonder why?

     I'm scared to think about why they don't trust me. I'm scared to know the real reasons why. I worry so much that seeing me doing CPR on their baby brother while screaming "Oh my God my baby's dead!! Please!! Someone help me!!" may have left some scars. I worry that Mommy leaving for two days while friends took care of them may have left some scars. I worry that seeing their mommy, puffy faced from crying while holding their very swollen baby brother may have left some scars. I worry that having me come home, without their baby brother and in shock may have done some damage. I worry that my inability to connect with them for a while,  while I healed my soul , may have left them scared of letting me in again.

      I worry about so many things with my children. I want them to be ok. I need for them to be ok. And then I question that too. I mean, our baby died. They saw things that left me numb and in shock. We lost a very important little soul. We loved and continue to love him. Why do I worry about us being broken? Shouldn't I be more worried if we weren't?

     Yet I sit during these counseling sessions and as I try to coax my son out from behind the couch to come play a game with me, all I think about is why? Why can't he just play a game with me? Why can't he just let me be in control for twenty minutes? Will he ever trust me again? Will he ever stop trying to bargain with me when I need or want his participation? And can I stop seeing it as a personal insult and begin to truly understand what trauma has done to our family?

     Oh this life of ours. Its not at all what I dreamt it would ever be. I wish I could take all our pain, all our fears and just throw them out. Gone forever more. But I can't. Healing takes time. It also takes intention. It's hard, so very hard. But it's also so very worth it.

     "It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."---Rose Kennedy