Some thoughts on grief

I’m sort of exhausted again after another day of bizarre sleep patterns. My mother-in-law, who has experienced the death of her first child as a stillborn, and the death of her husband about ten years ago, told me today that “grief is exhausting”. I couldn’t agree more. I’m constantly exhausted, feeling like doing nothing, but yet, I can’t sleep. The night before Obadiah’s funeral, I only got two hours of sleep. I later fell asleep for about 90 minutes - just out of sheer exhaustion at about 4 in the afternoon. You’d think I’d come home and crash. No. I only got about four hours of sleep last night.

Sleep is the only time I forget. My life and my dreams are normal - I think. Then I wake up and I almost want to go back to sleep right away because otherwise, I have to face the day and get back to “normalville”. I’ve had a lot of experience with friends who suffered severe depression, so I’m very familiar with the dangers of loving sleep and using it as an escape, so I’m not worried about my own mental health from that standpoint. But, the whole thing is exhausting.

But, how can I complain about my lack of sleep or my lack of energy? My son doesn’t even have a life anymore. So, as soon as I start thinking about how I’m exhausted, then I start feeling guilty, which refocuses me on the whole event, which further exhausts me. Very cyclical.

I checked out a book from the library today about dealing with grief over the death of a baby. I’m hoping it is helpful. Some of the other stuff I saw at the bookstore the other day did not look entirely helpful - at least not for me. The hospital gave us some other stuff to help us. One of the books is turning out to be helpful for me at least, but, it too is also exhausting to read.

I miss Obadiah so much. I think about him so much and wish that Abigail, my youngest girl, would have had him as a younger brother. It is way to early to even think about other children, but I thought today that if we ever did have another child, there would be this big gap between Abigail and the next child. Might be a normal gap for most families, but our children are two years apart or closer, so it will be strange for us. Of course, as soon as I started thinking about it, I thought that it wasn’t really a gap at all because Obadiah was there - but now he is not here. But, you get the point. It seems impossible to reconcile any thoughts in my head to some sort of logical conclusion - they all seem cyclical and redundant, but somehow I still dwell on them. It isn’t like me at all - I usually dismiss such things. But the stress and the feelings just sort of run the show these days so I just try to hang on to the roller coaster and not fall off.

Technorati : Obadiah, death, energy, grief

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