dreams

It's almost seven in the morning. I woke up at 4:30 with a disturbing dream. It took me a few minutes to realize why it was so disturbing. Then I realized that I had a very similar dream one or two nights ago with the same theme.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Emotional constipation

For the past few weeks, I have been emotionally constipated. I have felt deep and profound sadness about Lev's death, and tears have welled up, but I have not cried. I want to, but I cannot. The sadness inside of me grows and grows, so big I don't see how I can let it out without drowning in it. I wonder if this is what makes people turn cold and pent up and rotten inside.

Real

As I lay awake the other night, the only thing that felt real in this world was Lev's death. Everything else in my life felt illusory and unimportant, a series of events that could be acted upon or ignored with no consequence. But Lev's death stood alone as the one Fact in the universe that must be acknowledged. It is the Mountain.

Other times it is all flipped around, where Lev's death is so hard to believe that my mind refuses to accept it. This folly allows me to do things like eat and sleep, for normal life to go on. So there is value in this denial.

Thus there are two worlds I live in: the real one with a real death, and the illusory one with the denied death. It is debilitating to be split in two. To join the halves requires me to accept and acknowledge that Lev is gone, in the same way I would accept gravity and setting of the sun. But I am not ready to do that.

Coming home

Yesterday morning, our last morning in Costa Rica, I woke early to take a walk on the beach. Heading out of the hotel I was taken aback by the beauty of the ocean and stood for a moment, breathless. Our last morning of vacation with Jaal and Melinda. It had been a good trip, and then home passed through my mind. 

Home, my mind flashed to our house in Monteverde, then Sedro-Woolley, and then I was momentarily confused, where is home? Where are we going back to? 

Oh, yes the condo, our beautiful little box in the sky. How I wished we were going home somewhere with the four of us, sometime when we were happy. I realized then very clearly that the feeling of home is gone, now we just live somewhere. Walking down the beach, waves lapping my ankles, tears streaking my cheeks, and then sitting and watching a strange hermit crab ceremony, trying to accept our life as it happens to be, I once again regained my composure, the baby kicking me - saying, Hey, I'm in here, the future will be different, we will need to create another home.

Today we are home. It's comfortable, sterile and easy living compared to the rainforest. Nothing smells of mildew and ants don't eat the cookies that Cherie, our friend and cat sitter left for us.  Jaal was still here in the morning, and after a rude awakening, remembering our current situation, Tony and I got up and made a nice pancake breakfast before he headed off to Christmas with his girlfriend, Melinda's, family. 

I am reading a novel with some mourning in it (at least something I can relate to) and read this paragraph. It made complete sense to me. 

"You wake from a hard-won sleep and lie there warm and groggy and consider engaging in the day. And then you remember. Half of you is not there, and never will be again." It feels more like four legged chair missing a leg, trying to prop it up with something to get through the days, but it keeps falling over and needing to be propped up again.

It's great being with Jaal and I'm so glad he's doing well and happy. It truly warms my heart. It feels like a privilege to be able to watch your child grow up. 

The day he leaves is always difficult, as the house is unnaturally empty once again. After he left, I had a long shower, crying until I drained the hot water tank, missing Lev, feeling so sorry for him and the life he is missing- the pancakes, the holidays, the vacations, the friends, getting taller, growing a beard. It's pretty unbearable at times. 

Then, I find a way to prop up that missing leg of the chair and keep going.