The places grief takes you

After Declan passed away, I wanted to be surrounded in my grief... I wanted the hurt because it meant that I was still alive and that he had been real.  I wanted to 'feel' what I could of him and for those few months after his passing, all I had of him was grief, it was the most tangible thing I could find.  So I held on tightly.  I remember saying, I don't ever want to feel better, I want to feel this sadness in my heart forever.  Not because I enjoyed feeling broken hearted, but because I was afraid if I didn't, it would mean that I had forgotten or that I had "moved on"... the last thing I ever wanted was to move on, like the life and passing of my son was some sort of terrible thing I should forget.  As I have taken the steps of this journey, I have come to a new place... a place I don't really like and am working on moving through... now it feels almost like the opposite of before, when I start to think about Declan, really think about him.... envision his birth, his smile, his voice, his laugh... really move to a place where he is all I am thinking about,  I can be happy and thankful for his life, but only for a few moments before a deep deep sadness take my heart over....and then I say to myself, "I can't think about that right now"... because I don't have the energy or the desire to be consumed with grief.  I'm in a place where my reality is starting to sink it... it's starting to become real and I am understanding he isn't coming back... which I knew in my head along, but my heart couldn't go there.  It's slowly catching on and the pain from that is 'harder' than in the beginning.  The pain now can be crippling... it can also just be silent tears flowing... I just never know which direction my grief will choose to take.  I think in those few months after Dex's passing, I needed to be a crying mess... I needed to take those moments, with my eyes shutting out the world, to just be sad and to have what I called "Declan" time... I don't feel like I need my 'Declan' time to look like that anymore.  On occasion I am perfectly content with shutting out the world and running wild in my dreams with my sweet son, but I don't have to anymore... my body doesn't require it of me.  I am at least at a point where he can be in my thoughts and I am not breaking down... where he can come up in conversation and I can get through it with only a minor lip tremble, where he fleets in and out of my mind, like a game of hide and seek, and I can smile at his memory.  I am presuming, as my grief continues to take me down this journey, I will come to a place where I can allow myself to think deeply about Declan without crippling pain... a place and time where I can sit and watch my memories playing like a movie in my head and instead of being overwhelmed with sadness, enjoy the moment.