In the dream we were all (our family of 4) staying in a hotel, but Lev was out with friends at a fair. I realized we hadn't made plans to meet him and he didn't have a key. We decided to walk out and try to find him, leaving a note on the door. I woke upset that we hadn't made good plans with him. It seemed like crappy parenting and I was concerned that he might be worried, or waiting outside the door for a while. Coming out of the dream it seemed like a pretty minor problem, so I was thinking: it's no big deal, relax, go back to sleep, Lev is fine and it will all work out... and then the truth slowly dawned on me.
It's not okay, Lev won't be fine, we can't go find him or leave him a note to find us. He is lost to us and we will never find him again.
----
So that's why this seemingly minor dream still has me crying three hours later.
In my core I still feel like we somehow messed up and now we won't see him again.
I lay in bed crying, then my mind wanders for a bit to other things. It won't let me get too deep into despair, always moving sideways so that I don't disintegrate.
Lying there, the baby kicking in my belly, I am sorry that we didn't save Lev and I'm sorry that I'm flooding the baby with grief hormones. I breathe, relax, send thoughts to the belly letting it know it's not her fault.
----
My midwives have reassured me that grief isn't bad for the baby (not that there's anything you can do anyway), but people have family members die while they are pregnant and there's no research to show it's a health or developmental. Depression does have some negative effects on the baby that last about a year, but supposedly that's because depressed people don't eat well or exercise. Grief is hormonally different than depression, partly because it is more intense but less consistent. Grief you can forget and deny for hours or days at a time, and then it hits you like hurricane gust of wind.
So, after lying there thinking about the baby, and how different Tony and I are now than we were two decades ago. I cycle back to thinking about Lev and my inability to help him.
Once I start thinking about the night before and the morning of Lev's death, the trauma returns, with shortness of breath, etc. Then I realize that I am awake and I just need to get up, eat some cereal, maybe blog about the dream, etc. I can't let myself sink back into the trauma of the day, the loss is enough to deal with on its own.
----
We are moving again. We have been renting a friend's condo near downtown Seattle since August. It has been a great landing spot. It's beautiful, twelfth floor, with a fabulous view, but we want to be in a house with a little yard, something less urban. We had been looking at buying or renting before we went on vacation, but decided firmly to rent at least for the next year and a half. We aren't sure where we want to be in the long term, so renting made sense. Buying requires long term planning and is more stressful. We may want to head back to Monteverde in a few years, who knows.
So, upon returning we had to run an errand and stopped by a park (Seward Park) to walk the dog. On our walk we passed a house for rent, called the number, and the next day we had signed a lease. It happened pretty fast, but the house seemed perfect. It's right across from the lake and the park. It's a mile and a half from the light rail to downtown and the neighborhood of Columbia city. The main thing that grabbed us is that it's right across from the water and next to a really nice park, big yard, very funky house. It reminded me of Monteverde. The damp basement smells like houses there, but mainly it's a very old (1920), weird little house with a great feel, fireplace, sunroom, just odd to find in the city.
So, within a month we'll be moving again, to another house without Lev. Thinking about the house and the baby, and Jaal being home for the summer, I was feeling positive... and then the dream brings me back to the truth - moving to another house without Lev, a house he will never see, a life he will only be a part of in our memories.
