Ready or Not ...

There is no way possible to prepare a toddler for the birth of their younger sibling. We all try. We buy books and videos (I suppose they are DVDs now) all about new babies and big brothers and sisters. We talk about the baby. We train the older child to point out where the baby is in mommy's tummy, to even kiss the tummy, and to talk about how excited they are for the new baby to come.

But let's face it. Toddlers have absolutely NO idea, really, what is coming. No matter how well they answer all the questions. No matter how often they kiss that belly. A baby comes, and it takes mommy's time, and toddler's old car seat and crib. It cries, and needs attention 24 hours a day. The big sister or brother's routine is turned on it's head ... just like the entire household. My #1 reacted by loving #2 to death, but acting out towards Larry and I. #2 tried very hard to pretend that #3 simply was not there. #3? Poor #3's life fell apart. She cried and was sad constantly. I thought we'd ruined her previously insanely cheerful disposition. (I've long since figured out that #3 will react strongly no matter which way her feelings lean. She'd just never before had reason to be so distraught.) #4, being the caboose, just chugged along, asserting his preferred position as the big black engine.

I find myself similarly blind-sided. I thought I'd had a handle on grief, that I understood what it would be like. With my husband's poor health for nearly our entire marriage, I've imagined more often than I care to admit what it would be like to lose him. I thank God that I haven't, and that he seems to be getting a handle on his immune system. Losing a parent can't be more traumatic than losing a spouse, right? And in the past two years, I of course had contemplated losing my mother. In some ways, I'd lost parts of having a mother when I became the caregiver. So when she passed, I had it all mapped out: get through the funeral, get through my grandmother's funeral, get through Christmas and the school holiday, and then I could mourn properly. I think I imagined needing a good week or two to earnestly fall apart, and then I could slowly rebuild back into normal life.

I didn't anticipate that holding in pain for several weeks would make me scared to finally let go. And I'm scared of mourning too much. It feels like it might drown me. I didn't anticipate that I'd feel such let down from all of my care giving duties. Or that, being a home-body sort of girl, I'd hate to be home. Or that when I'd then try to fill up my time with being out of the house, I'd become exhausted. That church would be one of the most difficult places to be. That trying to get back into a diet that I gave up on during the hospice phase would induce major emotional stress. I didn't think that I would just not be able to bring myself to start working on all of the projects I've not had time for over the past years.

When I do start to let go, to cry, to feel sad, there emerges the presence of this obstacle that I can't even name. It's something that I need to get over, get through ... I'm not sure. I can't decide what it is. It must be loss. But it feels like something more sinister than that. Something nebulous and concrete all at the same time. I have no idea how to defeat it. I had truly thought that when my mom died, the hard part was over. I'm starting to wonder if I was wrong about that.

In an effort to gain some control, I imagine that it would be helpful to go on a trip somewhere entirely unremarkable. All by myself. For several days, maybe even a week. I would cry and read and watch harmless movies and just lay there. I almost feel that if I could do that, then maybe I could be done and move on. But not only do I not have the opportunity for such an indulgence, I fear it would probably work out as well as my original grief schedule did. It's frustrating to be a rather self-aware person who finds herself unsure of how to proceed, of how to help myself through this. Nothing seems right. No course seems like the one I want to take.

To be honest, much of the time, I'm doing alright. In those moments, when I start to worry about all of this grief work, I wonder if I'm making a bigger deal out of it than I need or ought. I have always had a tendency to over-think things. But then a bad day will hit, and I'm pretty sure that I'm not just being dramatic.

I tried to enlist the aid of Elmo and Mr. Snuffleupagus in my kids' transitions from baby to big sister. They were entertaining, but ultimately ineffective. There's surely a plethora of resources out there to help in this transition of mine as well. I imagine they'll be more helpful than Sesame Street was with my two-year-olds. Eventually I may have to put on some big-girl pants and seek them out.