So....our daycare provider's baby died. He had a diagnosed heart condition in utero, was born prematurely and lived 5 days. Despite his premature birth at 32 weeks, he was doing really well with little assistance. His heart condition was going to be treatable as he got older so his death was quite a shock to everyone, his doctors included. 

I explained it to C and C and they immediately said "he died like Curtis!" it is really kind of common to them, really, so I felt sad that they thought it was normal. 

His funeral is this weekend. I haven't attend a baby's funeral since *my* baby's funeral. 

What is interesting to me is I cannot imagine their grief. 

Sounds weird, right? It was like when my co-worker's baby was stillborn at 40 weeks this summer. A baby boy. Sounds pretty similar, right? I couldn't even fathom her pain. 

Isn't that weird? I have (and do) grieve/d a son.. I have come home empty handed to a house _full_ of baby stuff. A room decorated. A car seat installed in the car. His name on the wall. His birth announcements designed. I have held my son in my arms while he was lifeless....I have planned a funeral. I have cried and raged and grieved. 

And I still cannot imagine the heartache. When I read her words on the caring bridge page about her grief, I nodded, because they are familiar and I do remember feeling like that. Despite that, I cannot imagine it.
 
It is just that horrible of a thing, that even someone who has been through it, cannot even 
fathom it. 


When I have watched that video Craig made of Curtis, that documentary as we call it, I cannot even get through it because it is so sad and it is *my* story. I lived it.  Like I mentioned in a previous post. It is hard to go back to that dark place, I guess. Maybe it is self preservation.

My heart just aches for these families though. I know the long road they must now travel. I knew in 2006 it would feel better one day and I am grateful I was right. 

I haven't posted in a long time. Almost a year. I didn't post on his 8th birthday, I didn't post when we missed the walk we had attended since 2006 and I didn't post when a co-worker lost her little boy at 40 weeks.

He is talked about _all the time_. Really, he is. Another co-worker was dealing with a personal loss, her first one really, and she was asking me a lot of questions about grief and what I went through and how I was able to handle it. I can talk about Curtis tenderly but also very matter of fact like. My kids mention him on a regular basis. His "stuff" is around, pictures, a whole curio cabinet of momentos... but there is something about time. I read something recently about how you grieve and grieve and grieve. And then life happens. With each day, another layer gets added on. Pretty soon that pain is buried deep inside of you and it takes work and effort to dig it up. IT is still there and DANG does it still hurt but it is so much work to feel so intently it is just easier to not deal with it. Having two living children, our lives are busy. They are at the ages where life is starting to get crazy. It is more and more layers.

In high school, a friend told me about her baby sister who died. She said on her sister's birthday each year her mom was humming Happy Birthday happily in the kitchen. This mom wrote me a letter years and years later when Curtis died and told me how she threw that baby's bassinet down the steps when she came home without her daughter. I still know this woman and I know how many layers the years have added to that grief and heartache. She has had a good life despite the loss of her daughter.

In a way I am so grateful for those layers the last 8 and half years have added, I am glad I don't live each day in utter misery. Curtis is always there, the grief may be buried but Curtis? He is always at the surface. It is a good place to be. I bought a cute Beanie Boo Angel Bear today. I saw it in the store, big blue eyes with angel wings.... it has a poem about watching over us as we sleep. It came home with me and took its' place in Curtis' curio cabinet.