Saying Goodbye

Well, yesterday was hard.

Will has been safely gathered from the Salt Lake City Airport, fed, and I assume by now, sleeping soundly in a comfortable bed at my brother’s house.  

I haven’t cried yet today but I think I cried enough over the last few days to make up for the lack of tears today.  I miss him.

I expected to be sad.  I expected tears.  

What I didn’t expect was to find myself thinking of the day Laila died and the days following.  I have watched family and friends say goodbye to their children and I’ve wondered what it feels like.  I even naively told myself that when the time came to say goodbye, it wouldn’t be so bad because I’ve gone through the death of a child and this would not be that.  I guess I hadn’t thought about how his departure might bring up those memories.  

When we walked back to the van after sending him off, my mind flashed back to the moment when Mike and I walked to my brother’s van the night Laila died.  I left her behind in the hospital and walked to the van without her.  

When I got home and saw his things on the counter and walked past his basket of clean clothes waiting to be folded, I thought about how I left Laila’s car seat in the corner of the living room for months, unwilling to put it away in the basement.  Or, how I left her pack-n-play up in the middle of our closet, squeezing by to get my clothes, for at least a month.  She had been sleeping in the pack-in-play the weekend she died because my brother was visiting and his son was using her crib.  It felt like if I put those things away I’d be admitting she wasn’t coming back, that there was no use for those things anymore and it felt like erasing her existence from our family. Seeing Will’s things and knowing I’d need to pack them up at some time brought up those long ago feelings. 

I was also tempted to sleep with his superman blanket that he’s slept with every day since he was a little boy.  His brothers convinced me that it would be creepy and I also decided it would be gross because I can’t remember when it was washed last.  My mind flashed back to when Mike slept with Laila’s blanket when we got back from the hospital that night and I’d find her blanket multiple times a day and breathe her little baby scent in, to remind myself what she smelled like.  I refused to wash it even though it had a little bit of spit up on it and little black hairs from her shedding hair.  I didn’t want to wash away the smell of her.  

Mike and I agreed not to talk about the day as we went to bed because we were too tired of crying and neither of us wanted to start again but, as I reviewed the day during my prayers, I realized that I felt a little angry, maybe even a little resentful.  I felt like Laila’s death has taken so much from us and colored so much of our story and in that moment I felt angry that it was showing up again.  I kind of wanted it to be just about Will--my sadness at his absence and also my happiness at his chosen path for the next two years.  Instead, I kept having my thoughts intruded on by difficult memories.  It made me angry.  

My mind knows this is different.  My mind knows Will is not dead and that he is coming back. I also realize that it’s probably not too surprising that there would be some overlap of thoughts and memories but I still feel mad about it.  

I guess that’s all. 

I miss him.  I’m excited to see him grow over the next two years.  I’m happy to let him spread his wings and for all that is ahead of him in this next stage of his life.  I also believe that Laila will be his angel while he’s gone.  I believe she will guide and protect him and I’m thankful that someone I love so much can help him now in a way I can’t.