So January 2010 has started out glorious around here.  After about 28 of 30 days in November being pouring rain…the cold crisp sunshiney days are a balm to the soul.

As the white stuff fills the air, the spirits lift and seeps in filling in the spaces left between all the other day to day stuff that we all deal with.

Here, that is work, school and no-sleep babies!

Oh yeah, and that WRITING stuff too!

But for me now..well, for us, there is a shadow edging always in at that glorious sunshine…the subject too uncomfortable for us to broach…this weekend marks two years since that horrid horrid day I learned that we had lost our baby.

Grief haunts this family.   Death always feels closer than it really should.    My husband still grieves terribly for his mom and dad.    The pain of their absence, of things said and not said, of experiences not shared, is with him every day.

Losing little Gerry after his mom was almost too much for him to bear.

For me it was a new grief…my own indescribable screaming scorching pain.     I was awash in my agony of loss.    For him, it must have been another wave, another assault, another attack on his soul.

It is times like those that even us unbelievers rage at unseen forces.  Forces that must surely be to blame for such cruelty.

‘Why Me’ is shouted from the rooftops.

You really begin to wonder either what the hell you did in another life, or what you are doing so wrong with this life to deserve the constant teeth kicking.

But we have Sarah.

She is not a replacement for Gerald.

It hurts my brain to think that she would not even exist though if little Gerald had survived.

So weird feelings of guilt tend to nag sometimes around the edges.    Am I projecting some sort of survivor guilt on her?

It doesn’t help that the kids tend to tell the world about Gerald.

The other day Sarah introduced a school mate.    ’We had a brother, she says, ‘but he died.’   It is like a slap in the face everytime she does this.

But I am reluctant to talk to her about it.   How do I tell her to not talk about him?   How do I tell her to just talk about him with us?  Gerry isn’t a secret….but death and the death of unborn babies is a bit of a taboo and touchy thing…especially to poor unsuspecting strangers.

So this weekend, while we enjoy the dewey lights, and laugh and do all those things that we do on weekends….part of me will be trying to keep that door shut to where the horror of those two days lies.   But I know at night..when the moonlight is shining down at me as I lay awake with ….I can’t help BUT think about it all..to analyze it all, to think about the things I SHOULD have maybe done before.  The blood tests, the check ups, the FEELINGS I should have had about something being terribly wrong…..that is what will keep me company for a while during this winter season just a little bit.