I made it through the wedding. At least mostly. It was an 8-hour contract, and everything was really easy and beautiful. Only 3 people gave me that horrible look that people usually give me when they know what happened, which I thought was pretty good considering how many guests there were, and I did a good job of trying to focus on exactly what was happening in front of me and trying not to let my mind go anywhere else. It didn't really work (I think about him constantly), but overall, I was pretty proud of myself for not curling up in a corner and bawling or wandering into the street hoping to get hit by a car. You know, the usual markers of success and emotional stability. (Ha) There were moments that got to me... The mother-son dance in particular, but I was doing a pretty good job of holding it together until right at the end. When I looked at the clock and realized that we only had about 15 minutes to go, I remembered something.
You see, although I had spent months looking forward to today's wedding (the bride is really pretty, and the groom is a Razorback football player), a few weeks ago, I had started to dread it. Why? Because I just wasn't sure how I was going to survive being apart from the baby for 8 hours.
8 hours. It sounded like forever. I had even contemplated having Mom bring Riley up to the church or the Town Center so that I could find a secluded spot to nurse him, because the thought of being separated from him for 8 whole hours after he was finally home sounded like an eternity. And now, instead of missing him for 8 hours, I've been missing him for 11 days. And I am slowly coming to the realization that I will be missing him for my whole life. Every. Single. Day.
There is literally not a moment that goes by that he isn't in my head. I'm constantly either replaying the last night he was home, looking for any clue that might have been trying to warn me that something was wrong (he hated those vitamins so much, and he spit up right as I laid him down, and was he breathing faster or did I imagine that later? Did he have a fever and I missed it? What did I miss?), or replaying that horrible moment when Jason woke me up to ask if he was okay. On very occasional good moments, I will be thinking about how nice it felt to have him sleep on my chest or how soft his hair was and how good he smelled. But mostly, I see the end. I see the doctors working on him, trying to start an IV, trying to ventilate him, pumping his heart with their giant hands wrapped around his tiny chest. I see Dr. Palmer giving me this awful look... A look that told me with certainty that what I had really known all along was true. A look that said it was too late. I hear her asking me if I wanted to go hold his hand. I see myself, almost as if I'm floating above the whole scene. I see myself rocking him back and forth, saying "This can't be happening. This can't be real. I just want to wake up. I just want to wake up." I don't know how many times I said those words on the morning of March 11, but I know that I still say them every day.
I just want to wake up.
