HARTbroken

This morning when I woke up, I was already crying. When I opened my eyes, thimbles worth of tears fell onto my pillow. Usually, there is the "honeymoon" period after I wake-up, that moment just before I remember, when all is right with the world, before feelings wash over me. Before emotion, like a wave when you're facing the shore, takes me completely off guard and envelopes me wholly. Not today. Today, I was feeling before I woke up. Mourning before the shackles of sleep began to loosen their grip.

Nine years ago today, Hart died. There are so many emotions-all flooding to the surface, competing for my attention.  Pain, emptiness, sadness and gratitude. Gratitude may seem like an odd emotion to feel in association with the loss of a child, but I am so grateful that I got to spend time and get to know my little boy. This is what I feel most strongly. Today, gratitude wins. Without gratitude, the other feelings would be irrelevant. I wouldn't ache for my child, my arms wouldn't feel empty, my heart wouldn't feel like a chunk of it is missing. It was the cost of admission to loving Hart and was such a small price to pay. And I would pay it all over again, plus everything I have and am to have one more day, hour, minute with him.

Yet, I remember, at the time, saying to God "I don't know how much longer I can do this." I couldn't continue to watch him die, it was excruciating. I was grateful that he died (relatively) quickly. That his suffering was short. I try not to feel guilty, especially now, when I am not emotionally empty and physically exhausted. When I am not completely depleted of everything that gives me life. But, at the time, I felt like I was on the verge of disintegrating, melting, imploding or just running full speed through the plate glass window.

I believe the passage of time is a beautiful gift. It allows the acute awareness of details fade, the sharp pain of hurt to dull. It enables us to polish memories, and to even completely rewrite history. Today I say that I would do anything to have one more minute-and I mean that, I would. But I know that it is my revisionist version and not how I felt at the time. I remember telling my husband, I truly cannot go on like this, and I know I meant it. I feel embarrassed and ashamed to admit that now, but I know that's how I felt and it wasn't until more than a year after he died that I felt differently.

My husband and I made a deal when Hart was born that we would live his life with no regrets. That whatever we did, we would know that we were doing the best we could, that there would be no second guessing. At the time, and for a long time after, that was easy to do, but as time passes, moments of "I wish we would have...," or "if only we...," creep into my being. More pictures (there were hundreds) less worry, more videos, less conversation, one more kiss...