Who am I now?

Since Dex passed away, I have been left wondering, 'what defines a person?'  What makes me, me? I once felt very secure in who I was... there was a time when I felt certain I understood my place in this world.  Now I am left wondering where that place is.  Where do I go from here? Is my identity now associated with my son's death?  Is that who I am... the girl whose child died.  A fear I had, even prior to leaving the hospital, was that Nate and I would forever be labeled the 'couple whose baby died'.  I was nervous that people would stop talking and start whispering, looking over their shoulders at us when we walked into a room...like a scarlet letter upon our chest.  I've been able to spend sometime recently among old friends, people I haven't seen in a while and the funny thing was, the treated me very normal... they seem to treat me like they always had, there was no mention of Delcan's passing... but their silence about his death was like salt to my wounds.  It is such an opposite response to what I expected.  It's hard to explain the conflicting emotions.  I don't want people to associate us with Declan's death, but at the same time I want people to acknowledge it... I am still trying to figure out how to feel, what to think, how to go on with my life as 'me'... It is my identity right now...  I struggle with wanting to blurt it out to people, strangers even... "My son died... oh and my name is Holle."  I hope, as I continue to heal and recover from Declan's death, I will figure out how to fit his passing into my story, into 'me', without it needing to be the first thing I tell people.  I don't believe you can go through the loss of your child and not be different... not come out on the other side with a new perspective on life.  I am trying to regroup and refigure out where I belong in our world... I want Declan's life and passing to be part of me, but yet I don't want it to be all of me... so who am I now... I'm still a mother, still a wife, still an educator... and now the survivor of my child's death, but I will never completely be the same as I was prior to losing my sweet Dex.  Who am I now.... its a question I don't have an answer for yet.