Pain

All  day long I wear a mask.  When I smile at you, it's often my mask smiling at you.  When I say I'm good, it's my mask talking.

I am in pain.  I don't know how to feel that pain but it is always there.  Deep inside my being.  In my heart, my throat, the pit of stomach.  The pain is my arms that held you, in my lips that kissed you, my eyes that looked lovingly at you.  It is everywhere.  

I hate that people have moved on.  I hate that people don't ask about Hunter.  I hate that people no longer want to see his photos.  I hate that people talk about him in past tense.  All these things cause me more pain.

The sympathetic looks.   The idle conversation I have to smile at and pretend to enjoy.  I know what people are thinking, I can see it.  I know that when I'm gone people will talk about me.  They will say "She's the one I was telling you about.  The one whose baby died."  Some conversations would probably be bordering on excited gossip.  Some people take joy in the fact that they know me, the Mum of Hunter.  When someone hears about us and our story they can say "I know her."  

The people that do this, they do not know me.  I know the type of person that speaks of me this way.  I can see it like it's written on their foreheads in a thick black vivid. It's not everyone.  Just some.

Something that hurts just as much is the people who avoid the topic all together.  Do they think we want to forget?  I don't want to forget, not for one tiny second.  If I could I would do it all again.  I would be pregnant, I would go through that 49 hour labour, I would hold you as you died in my arms.  I would do it all again just in the hope to get an extra second with you.  One more breath.

For now I am going to be a narcissist.  I am going to be a narcissist because it is all about me.  I am going to stop worrying about what my words and feelings might do to others.  This is mine, I am going to own it.

Dear Hunter,

I love you so much my baby.  We talk about you always.  We talk about you so much that your big brother can point at your pictures and say 'Hunter'.  He knows you are here too.

You've been flying high for nearly three months now.  Its been a lifetime to me but I wish it was just yesterday.  If it was yesterday I would have held you yesterday, kissed you yesterday.  Seen you just yesterday.

I miss you.

Mummy xxx