Snow Day

It is pouring snow in Atlanta.  For a city that sees snow maybe once a year, this is a big deal.  It is the first day of March, and the snow is fitting for my mood on this Sunday.  Bo and Whit are PUMPED.  Of course, my mind is thinking how much Webb would have loved this special treat.  It doesn't take away from my joy in watching my other 2 sons enjoy the day, but the son that is missing is, of course, what is on my mind.  When I was a little girl, snow days were a big deal.  The anticipation of getting to miss a day of school, to forget about driving anywhere or doing anything, to just hunker down by a fire and play outside until my cheeks got numb...that was such a wonderful, different kind of "break."  I wish my grieving could take a snow day.  I wish there was one day I could escape every care, every worry and embrace the present.  It was never as easy as it was when I was a child, but now, it is impossible.  I have heard about the stages of grief, which I have said before cannot be neatly defined since you experience all the stages at once and at random every day.  But I have thought about grieving (my experience at least) as the most physically, emotionally exhaustive thing I have ever done.  It is constant.  It is taxing.  It is excruciating.  It is painful.  And there are no "snow days."  I cannot remember things that happened just minutes before, but I cannot forget the things that happened from 4:30 pm on December 23 until 4:30 pm on December 26.  The physical pain inside my chest and deep within my body is, at times, unbearable.  My dreams confuse the past and present, and one minute I am holding Webb again, and the next I am sitting at his funeral in a different location, surrounded by people I have never seen.  My senses are on high alert - I can hear and smell things from miles away.  I feel like a little egg that at any moment could break.  But I also have a strange sense of wanting to continue, of wanting to move forward.  I have a feeling of having to muddle through this dark, senseless time to reach the other side.  I do not feel desperate (right now anyway), but I desperately want to get through this with my memories and my sanity intact.  I never wanted to be in this situation, in fact, it was my worst nightmare.  But it is the situation I am in, it is the card I have been dealt.  How we go forward from here is the most important decision we'll ever make.  I pray for the strength to move forward in a way that makes all 3 of my children proud and maybe, just maybe, come out of this blizzard in my soul as a stronger, better person for having loved and lost.  We will see.