I feel an enormous weight putting pressure on my body.  Mostly I feel it in my shoulders and chest, an increasingly heavy feeling that I cannot escape from under.  Looking at the past five months is unbearable and looking into the future even harder.  While being forced to contemplate everything in therapy, I reflected on the small window of time in which the two losses occurred.  I decided that maybe if we were going to experience two losses, that maybe the short timeframe was not the worst thing.  I was still enveloped by grief from the loss of Nelle.  So if I have to be on a scale from 0 = no grief and 5 = most grief I can have, I was maybe at a 3 when this happened.  It just pushed me back up to a 5.  Perhaps it would have been harder if I were back to 0 to then re-climb grief’s ladder from the bottom, rather than being halfway up.  My therapist asked if I’m just telling myself that, and after pausing, I told her no, I really do believe it.  I have to force myself to look at anything that makes this situation slightly less awful.

I hate saying their names aloud, but I cannot avoid it.  It took me months to be able to say Nelle’s name aloud rather than just “the baby.”  But now I’m forced to, in order to distinguish between them and it pains me every time.  Having to say the names I chose for my baby girls, when they are not with me, causes that weight to feel even heavier.  Seeing Monet’s painting “Irises” at the art museum today forced me to wipe away tears.

My sister flew in for the weekend to help.  Ger took the kids to the zoo yesterday, while she stayed with me.  I did not feel up to going out.  Today, she and I headed to the Art Institute of Chicago, while Ger took the kids to the Museum of Science and Industry.  So, she was support for me as I try to navigate through this terrible world of grief for the second time.

This morning Quentin was playing around under the covers in our bed, and he kept reaching out his little hand to place it on my knee (while giggling).  I snapped a picture because it was exactly what I needed at that moment.