A Beautiful Heartbreak

Last night while Aaron and I were out we suddenly realised that today was going to be the 8th which meant that it would be two months since Noah passed away.  I don't actually dread the 8th of the month like I thought I would.  I thought I would think about the date a lot, but I haven't really which is probably a good thing as it's hard enough every single day not having Noah here, let alone having to deal with a day of the month that could be a lot harder than others.

I did wake up this morning thinking it had been two months, but today wasn't any harder than any other day and for that I'm grateful.  I do hate though that time is moving on, and it's getting further and further away from when we had Noah with us.


I've been thinking about this a lot over the past couple of months.  When you say to someone 'my son died two days ago' or 'my son died two weeks ago' it has a lot more impact than when you say 'my son died two months ago' or even 'two years ago'.   Even though it's two months rather than two days or two weeks, it's harder now than it was back then.

It makes me sad to think that in a little while I'll have to say that Noah passed away 6 months ago or 12 months ago. It makes me sad to think that people may not realise that the pain is still there as much as it was when he first passed away.   My brother Daniel passed away 30 years ago, but I know the pain is still there for my Mum and Dad.

There's not a moment in the day when I'm not thinking of Noah.  Whether it be getting ready in the morning to take the boys to school as I'm then thinking about how easy and fast it is to get ready when you don't have to worry about meds, nebs, getting Noah out of bed, getting him dressed, helping him empty his bowels and bladder and getting him into his wheelchair and into the van.  When I'm driving with the boys in our new car I'm thinking that it's not right that only three boys are in the back.  When I'm at the gym I'm expecting my phone to still ring with someone from school asking me something about Noah or telling me that he's not well and needs me to come and get him.  When I'm picking up the boys from school I hate that I have to park on the street with all the other parents instead of our usual disabled parking spot, not because it's easier but just because it would mean that Noah was in the van with me.  At night I'm thinking that it should be med, neb, physio and shower time.  I'm also wishing I was getting annoyed because I have to keep getting up and down to suction him all night. 


People often say that when someone passes away they hate that the world is going on as normal.  That actually doesn't worry me at all as I know that things have to go on and that's what Noah would want, but I am constantly thinking about how I can be in a crowd of people and if people don't know me they would have no clue that I had a son who passed away two months ago. 

I often think that if the checkout chick at the supermarket asked me the usual 'how are you today?' and I gave her the honest answer the poor thing wouldn't know what to say, which is why I don't do it.


There's a blog on my blogroll that I read regularly by a woman named Stephanie Nielson.   She was seriously burnt in a plane accident a few years ago and recently shared this video clip from Hilary Weeks who was at the TOFW in Sydney that Mum and I went to in July this year. The clip shows her and her children and then later in the clip lots of people are holding up signs to say what their 'beautiful heartbreak' is. 

I had been thinking about this clip a lot and how for some people it's really obvious what they are going through in their life, such as Stephanie who was burnt and the scars are all over her body.  But most people do not show the physical scars of what they are going through.  To others they may look fine or even happy, but everyone has either gone through or still are going through some sort of heartbreak in their life.

I actually found that even when Noah was still alive.  People who didn't know me well would often be surprised once I told them that I had a severely disabled son with a life threatening condition.  I had no sign on me saying it, except for my tired eyes and the wrinkles which quickly appeared in the last ten years :)

Sometimes now I just want to just yell to the crowd around me 'hang on a sec! Don't you know my son died!?' just to let people know.  Not so that they will feel sorry for me, but just so they know how much I am missing him and because I wish they knew how special he was and still is. I don't have any physical scars on me to let people know that I'm going through my own 'beautiful heartbreak'.  Some days I just want to hold up that sign that says 'my son died two months ago'.

Right now we have our bad days and our better days and sometimes even a 'good' day and I have no doubt that there is a purpose to it all and that it will be a 'beautiful heartbreak', but some days it's just heartbreak, nothing beautiful about it.  I just want time to stop right now so we don't have to say that it's been three months, or our first Christmas without Noah.