I set a timer, 1 hour, in which I am supposed to do something, anything, for one hour. At first I thought I would do the dishes, then I saw there were some clean in the dish washer. As I unloaded them I realized they didn't quite get clean, this small setback was almost too much. I wanted to go back to tv and video games, where I hide from my emotions and the truth at least until I can handle another wave of it.

Feeling overwhelmed while staring at yet another not clean dish unloaded from the dish washer, I set it back in, and headed back to my safe place where I hide from this pain. I halted myself, said aloud, "Anything, anything for an hour, just an hour." Stabilizing myself, I looked around at my dirty kitchen. Dishes dirty, spices out of place, floor needing to be swept, the microwave crying out for a quick wash down, I began to feel overwhelmed by it. I moved forward and stopped, I heard the words "anything" in my mind, and picked up the spices and moved them where they went. I did this for awhile, until another ten minutes passed, leaving 35 minutes on the timer. Now what, I thought. Words and memories all began to overwhelm, the pain was piercing again, and I began to cry. A flash of anger, it isn't fair I thought, immediately followed by, "Nothing is fair, life isn't fair."

I can hear the timer now, it has finished. I have reset if for an hour.

To get here, typing that is, I had to reset an email account, then a blogger account, all while avoiding various grief triggers on the internet. Then, I opened my blog and re read my last entry and cried. I cry so much, it is unending, and from what I have been told it is to be like waves of the oceans for the rest of my life. Sometimes those waves will crash down on me with such violence I will feel like I am drowning, literally dying; sometimes those waves will be at bay, but they will always be there and will never dissipate. This pain has no end.

Yesterday, Nick was sad, and I felt nothing but distant sadness I couldn't touch. I held him, told him I understand. I miss him too, I said, but that day, yesterday, I never really cried. Today, however, the waves are threatening to crash in, at the very least I am watching them from my proverbial beach house and hoping they won't overwhelm me.

When I look around, I see the chaos of grief threatening to envelope me. Dirty dishes, laundry, unswept floor, the list goes on but mostly I see a sea of change that needs to happen. I just have to find the strength, each day, to do this for an hour.

Today, all I want to do is run, literally run. I may do that, but I have to say I am more than a little afraid that running will turn into two injured knees just as bicycling did when I grieved my Grandfather. This is worse, so much worse, and yet somehow I have to pick up the pieces and try to fit what's left together. In the begining, after that first awful diagnosis, I felt like I was breaking. Now I know I am broken, I have accepted that. The difference is I'm trying to learn to live with my brokenous, trying to make sense of the senseless. In truth? I feel like I'm drowning in grief and I am desperately trying to get my head above water. I'm not even sure I believe theres a boat back to shore.

Dark, right? Bleak? Awful? Still reading? I hope so, because I'm still writing. I'm still trying.

I talked to my son today, like people do when they talk to the dead. I went in his room and told him how much fun we we're gonna have in there, where his crib was going to be, the things I was planning on making for the room to make it beautiful for him. I'm sure at some point I waxed on about it not being fair, but mostly I just felt the loss. We wanted him so much, we loved him so much. Everything was going to be ready for him, so perfect. I can't make any sense of why this would happen. It's worse when I try to consider God's plan in it all. Then I just get angry. I can think of no possible reason a baby should die.

My last entry talked about foundations, stability, thankfulness, and looked forward to a new brighter chapter in my life.

I have a foundation, if I didn't I would have sank into the abyss that is grief when the doctor first told us there was no hope for our son. I would have just let go. Even then, I got a second opinion,  nothing changed except for my acceptance for the ugly, bitter truth. I remember stilling my voice, and holding back the tears when he said there was hardly any amniotic fluid. It only took a few seconds for my brain to calculate and come upon the realization of what "no kidneys" meant in relation to my sons condition being incompatible with life. There was no hope. Finally, the doctor, after much pressing, told me there was less than .01 percent chance my son will live. It was at that point I allowed myself to cry. We needed to come back in two weeks to see if it was still the same diagnosis. In other words, the only chance of life my son had relied upon that doctor being wrong and from the difficulty he had telling me, how desperate his face looked as he searched for my sons kidneys repeatedly that simply were not there, the sadness I saw on his face when he stopped trying to find those kidneys, and by the pain in his voice when he finally told me my son had less than one percent chance at life; I knew, deep down, the doctor didn't make a mistake, but I still got a second opinion. Nothing changed, the woman was much more mater of fact about my sons "conditions", but nothing changed. My son was still going to die, no matter what I did, or how much I didn't want that to happen. There was nothing I could do to stop or change that fact, there was no hope for my son, and for a person that always believes there is hope...I just didn't and still don't know how to process that or what's happened since that point.

He died. I still think if it had been only one fatal diagnosis, I would have never let go of hope, but when there are three fatal diagnosis's staring at you in the face, I had to come to a place of acceptance and put my trust in God. I still can't make sense of it. I won't tell you I have never been angry with God, because for a person with deep faith like myself the question isn't just why, it's also why not. Why did he not fix my son? Why did he have to die? I probably shouldn't forget, "after everything else I've been through, why this?" Or, my favorite, how much stronger do I need to be?

I shouldn't forget to talk about why I am typing here in the first place: thankfulness. When this happened, my husband and I both joked about Job from the bible. When you feel like everything you want and love in the world is being taken away, like your son's life, you feel a little like Job. Of course, we didn't lose everything. We still have each other, our house, our kitties, my husbands employment, and countless other blessings. When I look around the room, and see those things I feel thankful. I want to get up, make changes. I want to escape the grief, and appreciate all these wonderful things we have in our lives like I used to. The truth is, sadly, right now, I can't. I can only do a little at a time. I can take it hour by hour, because although we have all those other things it doesn't change the fact we don't have our son alive and well in our home. He died, and as much as I my husband and I love our home, and our things; there is nothing we wouldn't trade if it meant our son could have been born healthy, if it meant our son could have lived. Oh what I wouldn't give to have been able to hold him longer than just those short few hours after he was born. To have stayed up late with him at night, to have been a mother grasping at sleep, to have been a mother who could have raised my child and not be a mother who has to somehow learn to live with the grief and unimaginable heartache of his loss.

I love him so much.

The timer, has gone off again. Nick has called, he's on his way home. I have to get dinner in the oven. It's just a frozen lasagna, tonight. Grieving is physically and emotionally draining. I feel tired, but the truth is, I still feel like running. Instead, I have to force myself to keep going. One foot after the other, or one lasagna in the oven, however you want to visualize it.