Sunday, April 11, 2010

My Mask

We all have a morning routine. I have had one for as long as I can remember. It was boring and habitual. Get up, go to bathroom, eat breakfast and get ready for the day. Day in and day out, 365 days a year. It gets to the point you just don't realize your doing it over and over sometimes...

My morning routine was severely altered Dec 2007....it'll never be the same again. Every day its new. I don't know what will happen until it happens. Most days its almost like my old routine: wake up, acknowledge that my son is dead, go to the bathroom, eat breakfast, get ready for the day and look at myself in the mirror and paint on my "happy,normal" mask. Yes folks, the person you see before you is NOT me. Pull that mask away and its not pretty. In fact it's so horrid that society has forced me to wear this mask. The raw,unbeauty of my life is too much for most people. Makes them uncomfortable or uneasy. But what about me?

Some morning's my grief hits me so hard my breath is taken away, other morning's its so bad all I want to do is sleep. The morning's that I wake up startled and look around thinking maybe it was all a horrible nightmare are pure hell. I lay there a sobbing mess as I replay the night prior and the day of his death. I can still feel what may very well be his last kick of life...I can still see that beautiful profile, laying there just so still and peaceful. Why is it that my pain means nothing to people? Why is it that talking about my son makes people uncomfortable? I can be around one of the most important person's in my life and the minute I talk about him the air turns cold and tense. All I want is to talk...I don't want to feel like I'm some freak of nature. I want comforting words. I want this indescribable pain to go away....I just want my son back! I'm drowning in my grief and because this is so taboo in our society no one wants to reach in and help. Do you fear I may pull you under?

How can I make him real to everyone? How do you explain to someone that you have everything you want and are so incomplete at the same time? Do you know how heavy this mask is? Sometimes it slips and you get to see a little sliver of that unbeauty....but don't worry someone quickly comes and fixes that mask and just as you might start wanting to question what you see it's gone.

I guess no one got the memo that its ok to still be grieving my unborn son almost 2 1/2 years later...that it was perfectly acceptable to still feel that pain and longing....cause it wasn't long after his death that I was forced to wear this mask, only to slip it off in the darkest of night. Where no one would be around to see all the frightening things that lay behind it.

So next time you see me, remember that smile is painted on. All the unbeauty is tucked underneath a very heavy mask, safe so that no one becomes uncomfortable or uneasy around me.

I have a son. His name is Zachary-Bryan Francis. He was real. He could have cured cancer, saved life's, became the president or he could have grown up and had a family of his own. But on December 5th 2007 ALL of that was taken away. Just because he didn't take a breath outside of my womb or grace this earth with his perfect body doesn't make him any less real.

It might be hard to swallow but choke it down....I have to every.single.day.