May 11, 2010

Tuesday.
I woke up before everyone else in the house, as usual. I decided to stay in bed until Dayne woke up. Once he was awake, I got him up and ready for school. Luckily, Steve didn't have to work, so he took Dayne to school and he was to be picked up by my sister for a play date.
While Steve took Dayne to school I had a nice quiet shower and got dressed and shortly after Steve got back home we headed to the cemetery. We visited with Alexandra and brought her some flowers. It was nice to be able to be there with her. Once we were done visiting with Alexandra, we headed over to my Grand-dad's grave. Steve and I sat with him for a long time, cleaning his headstone and trimming the grass around it. We were both silent throughout and the feeling there was so peaceful. I came back home feeling better than I had on Monday.
At home Steve and I sat with each other and talked. I explained to him this feeling that I have that I am the only one stuck in this horrible place. It feels like everyone else is moving forward without me and I don't understand why. I don't understand why everyone else is moving on and I don't understand why I am stuck...Neither of these things feels right to me, but I don't know how to make myself feel better about this stuff. When we were done talking and I was sufficiently cried out, we just sat together, it was a moment that I wish I had more of.
Quickly though, our day had to continue. While Steve got ready, I emailed a place about a headstone for Alexandra. We have an idea about what we want and I wanted a rough estimate of how much it would cost. When I received an email back I was quite devastated. When a family loses a baby, most funeral homes will waive their fees. This means we didn't have to pay for the director or the room for the viewing, etc. This really does help, I have no idea how much these fees are, but we were very grateful. Our bill from the funeral home, however, was still substantial. The casket, flowers, celebrant and burial plot were within our expectations, the headstone however, was not.
I have to say, I find it deplorable that these places expect grieving families to pay so much money to have a headstone. When I first saw the children's area of the cemetery I was sad for the babies without headstones. Steve told me it was because they are too expensive, that most families can't afford them. I know that's true, but I didn't realize just HOW expensive they were. Surely there is something these places could do for families that have lost a child. We weren't saving money for something like this, we were spending money on baby items. You don't expect something like this to happen. It's terrible and I think that these places could help families that really want a headstone for their child but can't afford these prices that I imagine are quite inflated.
I suppose I will stop ranting about that now...it just makes me really angry.
After the horrible news about the headstone, I was happy to get out of the house and get my mind on something else. Dayne had soccer and I was excited to see how he would like his first game. He didn't do overly well...he was really tired, he was overwhelmed by all the kids, but he still had fun. He said he'd like to go back again, so that's good news, since he has soccer twice a week for 2 months! It's nice to do something fun for Dayne, since he's been surrounded by sadness lately. I did find it a little bit hard, there are a lot of pregnant women there that are probably due any day now...like I would be. My due date was in two days. I could have a new baby right now...I imagine, if things had gone the way they should have, I would have a baby right now. There is also a child on Dayne's team who has a newborn baby sister. I don't mean to be antisocial, but I stayed far away from that woman.
I hope it gets easier for me in time, but right now, everything is still so fresh and I'm still on the edge of tears most of the time. I don't want to look crazy, sitting there crying while my son plays soccer.