this is my 2nd xmas after losing baelin. first xmas with new baby tyren.
on the one hand it is something i joyfully look forward to with our new
baby…he’s 5mos now and just a joy. at the same time…there is some
(expected) bittersweetness.
right after having tyren i was so happy and caught up in the joy of his
existance that i was so amazed and relieved that my sorrow over baelin
was lifting…it felt like the “cure” that i had hoped it would be…but
at the same time made me feel guilty to be happy again. i didn’t want
baelin to be forgotten. and he wasn’t…and never will be.
lately i find myself looking at baelin’s pics and just feeling so sad.
nothing overwhelming just this quiet sadness that feels as though it
will always be there…probably will. really puts a damper on any joy,
ya know? but i expected this…and honestly i think it makes me feel a
little better to be sad again…because i am not forgetting him. i can’t.
watching tyren grow…it really does bring back baelin and that i can’t
be watching him grow. i have to keep reminding myself that if it weren’t
for baelin dying that tyren wouldn’t exist. we would never have
attempted to have another baby again so soon after baelin, had he lived.
they would have only be a little over a year apart in age and i would
never intentionally space my children that close…and i would have been
fulltime nursing baelin still so chances are i wouldn’t have been
fertile anyway. weird to hypothetically talk about nursing baelin. *sigh*
but i do have tyren and maeven and life does go on…here come the
holidays again and they won’t be so heart wrenching this year as last.
last year i was about out of my mind with grief, facing the
holidays…pregnant and grieving deeply. i couldn’t even think of
spending time with inlaws…it set me into a panic to have to go to
other’s houses…to know that they wouldn’t talk at all about baelin.
they still don’t. no one on my husband’s side talks openly about that
precious baby boy. its like he didn’t exist. i’m sure its because they
don’t want to make us sad…and i know they grieve too. but it sometimes makes me angry that they don’t talk about him. and in turn, i find myself not talking about him around them. i do talk about baelin all the time with my family and
friends…so its a real noticeable thing with the inlaws that they don’t
talk about him.
i think i’m going to try to figure out a way to work baelin into the
conversations this xmas. last year i helped everyone to remember baelin by
having the xmas here, where we had a shrine to him and a stocking and
lots of ornaments with his name on them. still no one said anything. but i know they remembered. that was the important thing to me. well this year i’ll be at someone else’s house and i feel like i really want to do something to bring baelin into the celebration…
i may put his name on the gifts…”from the smiths–adam, tina, maeven, baelin and tyren”…in order of birth. that may work. i just want to honor him and help others remember.
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