Reading.

I’ve spent such a large portion of the last 3 days crying, weeping, screaming into pillows or while driving in the car. My voice is hoarse.

I read a great book, a memoir of a mother’s grief after the death of her 6 week old son, her first born. Reading the book, Losing Malcolm, became a trigger for a cathartic night of weeping, looking through Hazel’s things and giving in to how terrible I really feel. The author, Carol Henderson, writes about how she felt this intense need to write to everyone who had written her during her son’s short life. She spent weeks doing so, for one hour a day.

I think I’m going to do some little projects of my own like that.

Shortly before Hazel died, I purchased a sweet BigFooted bunny pattern from Wee Wonderfuls. This was going to be my baby’s birth gift. Each of my children have a Waldorf doll, and I’ve made the ones for Alex and Noah. My plan was to make one for the new baby, but since we didn’t know gender (and I like to match up child’s gender to his or her doll), I wanted to wait until after the baby was born to begin making it. (And OH!! How I longed to the baby to be a girl—I wanted to make such beautiful long, pig tailed hair for the perfect baby doll). I decided to make the sweet Big Footed Bunny for the baby in the meantime.

I’m going to make that bunny. For me. I’m going to spend lots of time carefully picking out fabrics, sewing, and stuffing this sweet bunny.

And then?

I don’t know.

The bunny will not take the place of my baby. I will still always want Hazel.

I’ve read, over and over, that for some reason 6-9 months after your child’s death tends to be the time of the most overwhelming grief. (And then the grief never goes away, it’s your constant companion, forever, just that it isn’t always overwhelming). I can’t even imagine what that might be like, that intense, overwhelming grief. I barely function now.