Yesterday was tough. Let’s be real, every day is tough… Getting out of bed each day takes more strength and courage than I ever knew I had, and that is just the start of my day. That said, yesterday was particularly tough because we had to go and run errands that are about as much fun as slowly and systematically hammering wood under one’s fingernails even when you are not running them for your deceased child. Well, at least that is what it says all over his birth certificate (insert crying emoji), “deceased.” I was so excited to have his birth certificate and when they gave it back to us I completely lost it… it literally says, “deceased” across the entire thing. It was heartbreaking to say the least.
Why are we running around one week to the day after our son’s death trying to get these things done? Well, we cannot get a permit for cremation until we have filed his death certificate. We cannot file a death certificate without a social security number and you cannot be issued a social security number without a birth certificate. Herein lies the issue… the birth certificate/social security card usually takes a few weeks, and when one has a healthy baby at home this is fine. However, when there is a time crunch as in our situation this system falls woefully short. Thankfully infant death is rare enough that there isn’t a special process, but maybe there should be. We won’t be able to get his social security number until next week which pushes back our goals for a memorial even further.
Last night I spent a few minutes examining my feelings around this. I realized that I believe that until these tasks are complete and we are able to lay our little man to rest, we are in limbo. I keep thinking about my little baby alone in the mortuary, waiting. I know that he is not with his body anymore but I can’t help but feel sorrow that his little body is alone and without his parent’s. Our one goal for his life was that he would always be held or touched by someone who loved him and my heart breaks that we haven’t been able to continue this even after his death. At least once we have his ashes he will be home again. I never thought of myself as one who would be attached to the cremains of a loved one, however, the desire I feel to have his home with us is really closer to a physical and emotional need. Soon baby boy, soon.
Then, to top off an already fabulous outing (please read the sarcasm here) my husband and I went to Target so we could print photos to have cremated with Logan. Since photos take about 30 minutes we decided to shop around… big mistake… EVERYONE had children. The cry of a newborn, the loud temper tantrum of a child, the joyful laugh of dozens of others… each one felt like taking a bullet. By the time we made it back home we felt like we’d been through the seven levels of hell.
Now, as a person who loves positivity and considers herself a glass-half-full person who loves sarcasm and has developed a warped sense of humor after a decade of nursing, I am going to end each of my posts with good things that happened. I promised Logan that I would make him proud of me and I plan to live each day asking myself what would make him proud and doing that. I believe that highlighting the good things is one way I can do that now.
- We got a dozen free bagels from a delicious bagel shop in Boulder where we stopped for lunch.
- My dear friend bought us dinner last night and had it delivered. It was sushi and I had not had sushi since before I became pregnant with Logan! You know who you are and we want to say, “thank you!”
- My amazing coworkers sent us a box of delicious brownie bites. Thank you all!!
- Another of my dear friends sent us a care package with a beautiful note, notebooks for us to write our feelings, and s’mores stuff. We actually had s’mores at our wedding instead of cake because we love them so much. Thank you for your amazing gift!
- We watched Zootopia which is adorable and made us laugh and smile.
- We then watched the new Beauty and the Beast which is fabulous.