Dread

It's 2 AM. I can't sleep, and I can't stop crying, and I don't really know why.

Maybe the advantage of the extraordinary circumstance of losing a child is that you never really need a reason for crying. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card for shameless weeping, day or night.

This afternoon, we had a family nap. It was lovely. I slept, warm and cozy, our boy snuggled up between us, solid and soft. His sweaty curly head on my arm. We felt like a family, whole, not a piece missing.

I may be paying for that nap now, sleep patterns disrupted. The bed doesn't feel cozy now, but oppressive and writing this is the only thing keeping me from scooping Shea out of his own bed in a desperate attempt to recapture that snuggly sleepiness.

It is a night full of dread without cause. Of looking ahead in the framework of Harper's loss and feeling anxious. Things I should be looking forward to - family holidays, celebrations with friends, meeting new babies for the first time - are filling me with panic. Visions of occasions feel crowded, noisy, suffocating.

Normal celebrations feel too hard. Not enough room there for the sadness I need to feel. Silly to even be thinking of them right now. Months and months will go by. Who knows how I'll even feel next week? But right now, in this very, very dark night, I want to stay in the comfort of my own home. In the cocoon of that family nap.

I just want to wake up less tired than the day before.

"We should get a new baby," Shea observed over dinner tonight. He paused. "I think we should get two."

That made me smile. And made me think how exhausting that would really be.

Funny, how there's a sleeplessness you can look forward to, even as this one fills me with pain.