I guess we're making room

We've started moving. Actually moving items into our house I bought  in September. It was a fixer and this whole time we've been fixing it. Now it is almost ready to live in and we have started packing up stuff at my in-laws (where we've been living since June) and unpacking at our house. My bedroom is getting empty. I haven't started on Baby Girls room yet, she claims she not going.

My sister in law came over the other day and helped me unpack.  We were storing lots of stuff in the big shed in my back yard. So we emptied the shed and took all the stuff that was for the house inside and organized all the shed stuff. I kept saying "I should just get rid of this stuff, we don't need all this stuff." Then I took an old hymn reader board that Dan had procured somewhere and hung it up on the shed wall. Cause that, I need that. I came across a box that said 'baby stuff' It wasn't Baby Girls baby stuff, it was special things we had gotten for the baby we were going to adopt and didn't because well Dan died. Pacifiers I ordered special that said 'I love sister' on them. A blanket I had made, a pillow I had made. Special presents that were just for that baby. A giant stack of all our adoption paper work that we had poured our soul into. I handed the box to my sister in law and said "I don't care what you do with this just get rid of it" I guess I was ready. I wasn't ready when I put it in there in June but now I was. Ready to move on or just ready to not be reminded, I'm not sure which one.

I unpacked all my scrap booking supplies. It takes up half a closet, I knew it would. As I was unpacking it I said to my friend "see this is what happens when you have an over indulgent husband, you get half a closet of paper and stickers" "She smiled at me and said "ya I don't think thats how that went" I used to use that supplies all the time. I loved scrap booking and have chronicled most of our lives in big giant scrapbooks. Dan loved them. He was in awe of them as if they were fine pieces of art in a museum. I loved working on a book all day and then showing him when he got home what I had done. How I had made this cute college of this adventure or that event.  I was proud of  those scrapbooks because I was proud of the life we had, I was proud of our family. I took all our scrap books to the funeral and put them on the tables in the reception hall so everyone could see how happy we were.  I've only scrap booked one thing since then, the pictures of Dan's funeral.  I don't want to scrapbook anymore. I don't have it in me. I think I might rid of all my supplies. You see this is how crazy widow brain sees it, I can't scrapbook our life anymore because that isn't our life anymore. I can't chronicle our life in the same way because it isn't the same. We can still have good memories and pictures but now we have to remember them differently so I have to record them differently.

I had a parent meeting with MTD (Baby Girls therapist) it was gut wrenching. It hurt so bad, I cried and cried. It hurt because I knew he was right and I don’t want him to be. It still hurts, but he’s right. It is hard to explain this so just take my word for it when I say he’s a fantastic grief therapist and knows what he’s talking about.  He told me in the nicest, kindest way possible that us grownups are “pushing” grief on Baby Girl and she can’t go on with life that way. We have to give her space to just be. This is what he meant by pushing. I for instance constantly bring up Dan, he is in every conversation, I work him in. I knew I did that but didn’t realize what I was doing, because to me he should be a part of every conversation because he should be in the conversation.  For Baby Girl he doesn’t need to be in every conversation, because he’s not a part of every conversation. “But I don’t want her to forget him” truly it’s my biggest fear. “She won’t, I promise” he said. He talks about how she will remember him better if she’s not being forced to, if you just let it come naturally.  Some things she will remember years later or even when she is a grown up. She can’t remember them now, it’s too much for her little brain, she has to push them aside so she can get through it and that’s ok. That’s what kids do.  “I understand what your saying, but I can’t just not talk about Dan, I can’t”  he said “I’m not telling you to stop talking about Dan, just let it come more naturally, don’t force it.” Ok I see what your saying. I will try it, it will be HARD.  Every single night I tell her I love her and I add “and daddy loves you too” you see I have to say it for him because he’s not here to say it himself. That’s how I feel. That’s not how Baby Girl probably feels. She knows daddy loves her she doesn’t need me to tell her every night. So for the last two nights I haven’t. She hasn’t said anything about it.  She doesn’t need me to say the things daddy would have said, she probably doesn’t want me too either, those were daddy’s not mommy’s.

I can’t let Dan go, I can’t make room for anything else right now. My whole life was with him. Baby Girl has a whole life ahead of her. She needs to have the room to fill it up with joy not sadness. She wants to have room for Dan and her whole big life and I’m not letting her, even though that’s exactly what I want for her. Man this grief stuff is complicated.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle